Category: Stuckness in Science and Technology

Engineering Through Stuckness

This article is the first in a series about stuckness in science and technology. Read the introduction to the series here. What might we learn from the experiences of tech professionals being stuck? How does stuckness come about and what do these moments represent? This post traces two stories from different worlds: an Indian NGO and an American Big Tech corporation. One follows Leena , an employee at InnovateTech, an Indian education technology (EdTech) NGO. The other follows Cody, a software engineer at Microsoft, working in the United States. On the surface, Leena and Cody have more differences than things in common. Their employers operate in very different cultural and technological contexts influenced by distinct economic and political machinations. Their everyday experiences as they move through the world, one as a brown woman, and the other as a white man, have significant contrasts. (read more...)

Series: Theorizing Stuckness in Science and Technology

What might we learn by studying science and technology through the lens of stuckness? Stuckness is a ubiquitous experience in the everyday work of science and technology. Scientists are constantly frustrated with unexpected obstacles to their research plans (Messeri & Vertesi, 2015). Technologists who aspire to change the world often end up reproducing current structures of power (Rider, 2022). In popular discourse, scientific and technological practice has been associated with progress as steady betterment. As Leo Marx (2010) notes in tracing the emergence of the word “technology” in English, scientific and mechanical innovations became synonymous with social progress in the 19th century. And yet, getting stuck is a quotidian experience among experts in these fields, from experiments that fail to grant applications that are rejected. (read more...)