Post-ASEE Debrief and Unpacking — Open Space for Critical Conversation hosted by Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace

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July 30, 2021; 9am – 12pm PST // 12-3pm EST // 9:30pm-12:30am IST

Future meetings: Every last Friday of the month 9am – 11am PST // 12-2pm EST // 9:30pm-11:30pm IST

Immediately following the ASEE 2021 virtual conference, 17 engineering-related knowledge workers (academics, practitioners, researchers) came together in a virtual open space format organized by the ESJP network. The gathering was in response to a call for sharing thoughts and exchanging ideas on

  • How and where are we reinforcing and replicating meritocracy, technocracy, commodification of difference, cementation of privilege, and gatekeeping knowledge within ASEE? 
  • What material condition changes for the working class and oppressed peoples are possible within the engineering education academy?
  • How are the powerful institutions within engineering education addressing or not addressing climate change, COVID-19, global capital, militarism, labor exploitation in the field, or other crises?
  • What vision and agenda can we set forth to build together this year?

These questions were formulated by the IJESJP (English) editorial board members and emerged from several months of deliberations on the criticality of the moment and our shared disappointments and frustrations on how the mainstream engineering bodies functioned and reinforced the existing structures of oppression even during a moment that called for radical transformation.

The participants expressed strong dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. In this 3-hour long open-space discussion forum, the following themes emerged:

  • Unpacking ASEE experience: Despite attempts at carving out space for progressive change, ASEE remains entrenched in structures of oppression. Incidents of transphobia and reifying of academic hierarchies were explicitly noted.  Consequently, people reported having been through an emotional “roller-coaster,” where a few sessions offered progressive potential while other conversations varied from being mundane and parochial to abusive and violent.
  • Institutional Change: How can we use the existing structures to empower people? Can we, for example, use our role in teaching, research, service towards creating alternative models of resistance? How can we build stronger networks with activists? For example, one idea that was shared was writing grants to support on-the-ground activism.How can diversity & inclusion work guide transformational structural change? What tools and skills do we need to hold institutions accountable? Participants shared their frustrations with the reinforcing of the status quo around these questions. 
  • Alternative Institutions: The current model is not working. Academia / higher ed has been in decline for several decades now. The pandemic has only exacerbated poor working conditions for the majority of workers.How do we get folks like us to create something that will actually benefit our community and not feed the military-industrial complex? The university should help people! 

The event ended by a mutual sense of relief of having found each other and appreciation of this space. The participants agreed to meet monthly to build on these themes, support each other, and transform our work, institutions, and engineering culture for a kinder and more humane world. We shall be meeting every last Friday of the month from 12 – 2 pm EST. Join us if these themes resonate with you. Register here to receive the zoom link.

ESJP XV

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Registration is now open: http://cutt.ly/ESJPRegistration

Despite the fact that in our last communication we had informed that the XV Conference of the Engineering, Social Justice and Peace Network was going to be face-to-face with the possibility of connecting through virtual means, it will not be possible for reasons beyond our control.

The pandemic in Colombia and in much of the world has not yielded, which is evidenced in a second and third wave in several countries, with mortality even higher than the first wave. This has created impediments to the holding of massive events, as well as international activities due to the measures taken in each of the countries. In addition, the development of vaccines through the capitalist production and consumption system, in the current world-system, has made the countries of the Global North have the possibility of accessing vaccines while countries of the South, such as Colombia, have not yet bought. a single dose.

Therefore, we will continue with the conference but virtually, keeping the date from June 10 to 12, 2021, which implies several logistical and economic changes. That is why registration will be free, but we will receive voluntary contributions by means that we will inform, according to their possibilities, for the payment of the platform that we will use and cover the logistics of the event.

Likewise, from this moment on, we open a new call to present their work until next March 31, respecting the decisions they have made or want to take on the contributions already sent. Later we will send information about the registrations and the platform that will be used.

The schedule will be as follows:

  • Sending summaries of papers and workshops, as well as confirmation of contributions already sent (except for those who have already confirmed): until March 31.
  • Acceptance of abstracts: April 30.
  • Registration: from May 1 to June 1.
  • Conference: from June 10 to 12.

The tentative conference agenda is available here: https://en.ciapumakiwe.org/cronograma

You can access more information here: https://en.ciapumakiwe.org/xv-esjp

Everything is being reset – what happens now is up to us

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We hope that all of you are managing with the changed normality, and  staying safe and well. We send our courage and well wishes to those of you who are sick or have sick relatives and friends. Many are now unemployed, many without food. It is a time when those of us with privilege have more time on our hands, and those with less, are working ever more and at risk, serving us to stay safe in our homes. It is difficult to know what to do and how to address this, how to begin to think about it. Many in our network are making masks and ventilators. Many are volunteering. For those who need to stay at home in complete isolation this is not possible except online and in new and innovative ways. 

This filmed talk ‘A Pandemic’s Impact on Peace (from the Kroc School of Peace and Justice at University of San Diego with the San Diego Diplomacy Council ) has some sobering figures to share. We urge you to bring this kind of information into your online classes where you can. Our students must do things differently than we have been doing. They must begin to understand how growth and greed have created not only an unsustainable and unjust world in the long term but right now. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNMPePKF6eE

We would like to offer some hope and courage at this time as well – we will be offering a virtual Critical Conversation retreat on June 26th and 27th in place of our usual retreat in the forest. Borrowing from the Australian ‘Reset Reading group – Ideas for a just future’ – “Everything is being reset – what happens how is up to us…”

Everything is being reset – what happens now is up to usCritical Conversations virtual retreat June 26th and June 27th
Before Covid 19 emerged we had been reflecting on the two critical discussions we had around Trust and Degrowth in 2018 and 2019.  Both retreats brought us together to explore the importance of social change, the principles of peace and social justice, and the challenges that keep the changes we want to see in the world from happening. We believed and still do, that we touched on something special, and while it has been difficult to sustain the interest, the passion and the readiness for action we sensed during the retreats, we believe it is within our reach to turn an annual gathering into mutually sustaining processes and practices for collective change. This is ever more true today. We realize that we need a deeper dive and greater commitment to exploring how we can turn our individual nodes into interconnected ones, guided by our obligations to one another and to the radical hope of a more just future, which underlie the world we want to build together. It is from this ethos of collaboration and interdependency as well as our current dystopian reality that we would like to organize a third retreat, focusing on our common ground, what brings us together, and how we can harness our efforts through mutual support and collective action. 

This third and virtual retreat will take place over the course of two days – June 26th and 27th. Whilst you will not be expected to be online the whole time, the same zoom link will be available for the whole period and we will move in and out of the online space involving different forms of interaction over the two days to allow for as much one to one and small group discussion as possible. We aim to bring the experience of a retreat – an extended period of reflection with others – to the online arena. If you have outside space we will encourage you to take your mobile devices outside during this time, as far as possible and enjoy the early summer weather. We invite you to join us in this online experiment and share this with friends and colleagues who need to feel connected at this time and create a call for action.  

To register for this free virtual event please email cbaillie@sandiego.edu. We will limit numbers only to allow for richer conversations so you may wish to reserve your place now. 


Love and courage 
Caroline Baillie on behalf of ESJP

COVID-19 and XV ESJP 2020

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We are very sorry to announce the postponement of the ESJP conference in Colombia this year. Our Critical Conversation retreat will still go ahead on June 26th/27th.  Our annual Critical conversation retreat is usually held in a beautiful nature retreat in upstate NY. This year, if meetings and travel are still unwise, we will be hosting the event as a virtual gathering. We believe that it is imperative that such conversations continue to happen and that we find ways to connect and support one another and those who are vulnerable.  The conversation will adopt an ‘Open Space’ approach where participants will be facilitated to create their own agenda. This year, we will be assessing our past and current situation and focus on pathways to a new future, as well as ways that we can help our neighbors in this critical time of need.  If we are to go ahead with an line version of this meeting there would be no free but we do ask for people to commit to the whole weekend so we can retreat as far as possible from the strains of our usual strange existences.  If you would like to join us in the event that it is online, please contact us to register. 

Call for contributions XV ESJP 2020

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Hybrid Praxes
Transforming society from diverse theories and actions

We call contributions that reflect and act from hybrid places, in other words, that possess characteristics of different theoretical, conceptual or methodological nature in the relation of Engineering, Social Justice and Peace. A tribute is made to the work of two Latin Americans: Paulo Freire (Brazilian pedagogue and activist) and Orlando Fals Borda (Colombian sociologist and activist); from their efforts to create a praxis located and contextualized in a critical education. To nurture their reflections, perspectives are included where the dialogue of knowledge gives way to conversation, co-construction, consciousness, decoloniality, and respect for others knowledge. In this way, thinking in hybrid praxis invites us to create, from different places and with diverse social groups and individuals, transformations in reality, where technology is nourished by social dynamics and society is transformed by technology in a bidirectional relationship. In particular, Colombia is an exploration scenario for Engineering, Social Justice and Peace especially after the signing of the agreement between the Government and the FARC-EP in 2016 and the multiple threats to compliance and implementation.

Read more about the conference here.

ESJP14 and ESJP Critical Conversations

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ESJP 14 
 
ESJP 14 was held in Skylake retreat centre June 13-15 NY with two days of inspiring presentations, workshops and place-based learning experiences. Many different disciplines, academics students and practitioners worked together to consider the critical ways in which we might move forward as a profession in response to current inequities and environmental injustice. The full schedule and abstracts can be accessed here.
 
ESJP critical conversations retreat on ‘Engineering and degrowth’
 
18 of us retreated further into rural NY at Cala Munda June 15-16 and spent two more days exploring how we might create alternatives to our existing growth model and how engineers might take part in this change. One image to capture the sense of this remarkable experience was a role playing game played across the forest. One group on the hilltop had minerals and fuel and few people. One on another forested hill had wind and water power and few people. One in the lowlands, based in an old ruin, had food and water and few people. The remaining group were in the built up area and had many people but no resources. They stayed comfortably inside a house as it had started to rain but eventually emerged as they needed food. Each group were invited to consider how they would sustain and refuel their ‘whole’ community including neighboring villages and towns. Groups walked up through the trees to visit and offer ideas, others were resistant and protective. It turned out to be an incredible way of creating knowledge about transport, energy, food, services and most of all what it means to live in community with others and with nature.

ESJP14 conference attendees engage in “tierrafiltra, recuperando lo nuestre / a dam on a sacred site and a water filter: let the water flow macro and micro” a workshop by Amara Abdal Figueroa.


Enjoying lunch at the Critical Conversations Retreat on Degrowth

Postdoc position in social justice in engineering education

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Interested in revolutionizing engineering education to include social justice?

Title:  Post Doctoral Research Associate
Area: Social Science/STS/Engineering Education 
Deadline: open until filled, for best consideration, please submit by June 3

The Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering is seeking candidates for one or more years as a postdoctoral research associate to work on the National Science Foundation grant:  IUSE/PFE REvolutionizing Engineering and Computer Science Departments (RED): “Developing Changemaking Engineers”.  This position will collaborate with faculty, students, and industry partners to assist in producing and disseminating activities in and out of the university classroom in support of our model for collaborative change to redefine the “engineering canon” and develop “Changemaking Engineers”.  The RED abstract can be found at here. 

Our School of Engineering is revolutionizing engineering education, with the aim of preparing students to innovate engineering solutions developed within a contextual framework that embeds humanitarian, sustainable and social justice approaches. It also seeks to infuse professional skills into the curriculum and align these with our institutional context.  This requires an enhanced curriculum with a focus on student teamwork, a greater consideration of social and economic factors, improved communication with diverse constituents, and reflection on an ethical understanding of decisions and solutions.

Application should include: curriculum vitae, research statement/plans, and a cover letter to include a statement of how you fit with the goals of the USD NSF RED grant to develop changemaking engineers. For more information, visit www.sandiego.edu/jobs ( Job Number: 1061). Please contact Susan Lord (slord@sandiego.edu) with any questions.

Critical conversations around Engineering and Degrowth

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Cala Munda, Hankins, Sullivan County NY, June 15th/16th 2019
Hosted by Caroline Baillie (USD) and Eric Feinblatt (Waste for Life)

Invitation

We are delighted to invite you to ESJP’s third critical conversations retreat, ‘Critical conversations around Engineering and Degrowth’, to be held in beautiful Cala Munda (home on the hill) in Hankins, NY. The retreat is designed to follow on immediately after the ESJP14 conference 13-15thJune*.

Critical conversations are retreat based, in-depth conversations that focus on important issues arising from our yearly conferences and/or from our work at large. We held our first conversation in 2014, ‘Conversations about Critical Action’ that exploredpast, present and future actions thatenhancesocial justice. We concluded that new ways of working together and new forms of education needed to emerge to achieve our goals. We committed to researching these and devisingalternatives. A second conversation was held in 2018, ‘Critical Conversations about Trust’, wherewe grappled with the various dimensionsof ‘trust’ when working with vulnerable communities.

Our forthcoming critical conversation, ‘Engineering andDegrowth’will be held in June 2019, again in retreat format – with no more than 15 participants – for deep reflection intended to guide future action and outcomes. Participants will spend 1/1/2 days at the Standing People Together retreat, Cala Munda,in Hankins, New York**. We will apply forest schoolpedagogy to animate the activities and conversations that will take place in  outdoor studio settings. As usual, we hope to bring together a group with a wide variety of experience and interest in this topic to take our understanding to new levels. 

Why Degrowth?

The continuing human and environmental fallout from our morally defunct systems of governance can easily leave us at a loss at where to begin – all the more so because engineering, as a profession, is often  complicit in perpetuating the injustices and devastations that envelop us (e.g., think about pipelines and border walls).

Climate disruption, as an example, can be easily and forcefully connected to unfettered growthwhose paramount attributes, ‘efficiency and productivity’, are in the DNA of most engineers, who have little practice separating the seeming inevitability of and, indeed, aimsof growth from their technical goals.

Missing in conversations between environmentalists, activists, and political economists is the voice of engineerwho will take this head on.What would production look like if, like the natural world, we created just enough? What role would automation play if it were to be fair to workers and the planet? What would design look like if we were to learn from the trees and create products that lasted for hundreds of years,did not waste anything, and survived on only what was needed? Surrounded by the forest, and inspired by the elegance of nature’s complex ecosystem,our conversations about degrowthwill begin to tackle these critical issues and consider pathways to further the conversation about the future of engineering practice.

Call for expressions of interest

As places are limited, we are asking for expressions of interest at this time. Please email 200 words by April 15th about your interest in attending this meeting (cbaillie@sandiego.edu). Please accept our apologies in advance for not being able to accept all those who wish to attend.

 

 

* ESJP14 is to be held at the Sky lake retreat centre, Windsor, NY Hankins,NY 13-14thJune with a special session at Cala Munda, on the morning of the 15th. The critical conversation participants will stay on after lunch at Cala Munda to begin their retreat. Accommodation for the retreat can be offered on site to a limited number of guests, or at local Airbnb cottages.

** Hankins, NY is 2.5 hours NW of NYC  and a 55 minute drive from Sky Lake Camp and Retreat centre, main location of ESJP14. Transport options include flights / car rental from JFK/Newark, Scranton and Stewart International airports, also bus from Port Authority NY

Llamado a contribuciones – ESJP 14

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English | Español

Ahora estamos llenos. Si desea asistir y aún no ha recibido un aviso de resumen aceptado, debe comunicarse con Caroline Baillie (cbaillie@sandiego.edu) o Shehla Arif (shehla.arif@gmail.com) para ver si hay cancelaciones. Si ha aceptado un resumen, debe registrarse y pagar lo antes posible para asegurar su alojamiento en el lugar; no se pueden garantizar los lugares después de que alcancemos la capacidad.

La inscripción se cerrará el 31 de mayo. https://goo.gl/forms/JQ8BcTrgPp3pA2if2

La Conferencia 2019 de la ESJP está a la vuelta de la esquina!

Removiendo Fronteras Entre Disciplinas

La 14ª conferencia anual de Ingeniería, Justicia Social y Paz (ESJP) se llevará a cabo en el Sky Lake Camp & Retreat Center en Windsor, NY.

El tema de la conferencia de este año es Removiendo las fronteras entre las disciplinas. La ingeniería como profesión y campo académico ha existido en gran medida aislada de otras disciplinas. Invitamos a los autores a explorar lo que la autora Gloria Anzaldúa definió como la nepantla -el espacio liminal, el intermedio y las tierras fronterizas de las que surge una nueva visión e inspiración. En nuestro contexto, esto significa explorar los espacios y las fronteras que han aislado históricamente a la ingeniería de las críticas sociopolíticas o de las tradiciones académicas. Son bienvenidas las contribuciones de una amplia gama de temas y perspectivas, especialmente aquellas que abordan las intersecciones de la disciplina de la ingeniería con la justicia social, el feminismo, la filosofía, la epistemología, los estudios sobre la paz, la teoría crítica y la ética. Nuestra meta es fomentar un ambiente educativo donde una visión única y un cambio revolucionario puedan surgir de nuestra comunidad.

ESJP 14, al igual que otras conferencias, será un encuentro académico interdisciplinario. Damos la bienvenida a participantes de una amplia gama de antecedentes que deseen abordar el tema de la conferencia: estudiantes de pregrado o de posgrado, profesores, personal, profesionales de la industria, educadores y activistas dentro o fuera de la academia. Estamos emocionados de tener espacio con todos los que comparten un compromiso con la justicia y la equidad en la ingeniería. La lista de compromisos básicos de la ESJP puede consultarse en este enlace.

Los formatos pueden incluir:

– Presentaciones individuales (10 a 15 minutos de charla + discusión, 30 minutos en bloque)

– Mesas redondas (hasta 5 personas, bloque de 60 minutos)

– Talleres interactivos (bloque de 60 minutos)

– Arte, poesía, sesiones interactivas, creación de fanzines, cortometrajes u otros formatos creativos que no estén en la lista – ¡se fomenta la libertad creativa!

Las propuestas deben incluir un título, nombres de los presentadores o colaboradores, formato propuesto, afiliación y un resumen de 300 palabras o menos. La fecha límite para la presentación es el 15 de abril de 2019.

Por favor, envíe su propuesta utilizando este formulario.

Esta conferencia y su tema coincide con el reciente llamado a artículos de la Revista Internacional de Ingeniería, Justicia Social y Paz. Animamos a los participantes de la conferencia a que consideren la posibilidad de enviar a la revista los documentos resultantes de la conferencia para su revisión. Puede encontrar más información sobre la llamada a artículos de la revista en este enlace.

Con nuestro compromiso fundamental con la justicia social, deseamos apoyar el acceso a la conferencia para cualquier persona que desee venir y que se ajuste a nuestros objetivos y valores, independientemente de su acceso. Acogemos con agrado las expresiones de interés de quienes se enfrentan a obstáculos para viajar a la conferencia. También tendremos una escala móvil para la cuota de inscripción, que se basará en la capacidad de pago, y se anunciará en una fecha posterior.

Tenga en cuenta: si está planeando asistir a la conferencia anual de ASEE, hemos programado la conferencia para que los asistentes puedan asistir a ambas, especialmente aquellos que vienen de fuera. ESJP termina a la hora del almuerzo y hay muchos vuelos directos cortos a Tampa desde el aeropuerto de Newark a poco más de dos horas en automóvil.