The Humanitarian Engineering Possibility

1. The Humanitarian Engineering Possibility Carl Mitcham ( with Juan Lucena, Jon Leydens, Jen Schneider, et al.)

2. Introduction • The humanities and the social sciences can contribute to engineering, ethics, and practice • But such contributions have been attenuated in part because of weaknesses in the humanities and social sciences — toward humanitarian engineering

3. Apologies • Operating here with intuitions more than fully developed arguments • Relying a great deal on collaborations • Two points followed by a report on a curriculum initiative

4. Point #1 • Engineering as a profession is subordinate to external rather than internal values • “Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man.” (Thomas Tredgold, 1828)

5. Point #1 (continued) • From “use and convenience” • To “public safety, health, and welfare” — But in definitions provided by non-engineers, members of the medical profession, or economists

6. Point #2 • Humanitarianism involves critical reflection on convenience and use or public safety, health, and welfare • Indeed, humanitarianism and engineering share parallel histories

7. 1. Originating Institutionalization,1850s-early 1900s — Nursing — The Battle of Solferino (1859) and creation the Red Cross / Red Crescent (1864) — ICRC seeks to “humanize war”

8. 2. Humanitarianismin World Wars, 1914-1945 — World War I (1914-1918) — Herbert Hoover (1874-1962): Engineering relief work — Emergence of humanitarian NGOs — World War II (1939-1945), from ICRC and Holocaust to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)

9. 3. Humanitarianismand Development as Free World Ideology, 1945-1969 — Marshall Plan — Truman’s point four program — UN — OECD — Peace Corps

10. Institutional Transformations,1969-2001 — Nigerian Civil War / Biafra (1969) — Founding of “Médecins sans Frontieres” (MSF or Doctors without Borders) in 1971 — Early 1990s: Engineers Without Borders — Fred Cuny (1944-1995): From Biafra to Chechnya — Paul Farmer (1959-present) — 1990s: “Humanitarian war”

11. 5. Challenges of Successand Terrorism, 2001-present — David Rieff, A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis (2002) — David Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism (2004)

12. Connection and Application • Humanitarian Engineering: Ethics, Theory, Practices (Spring 2007) • Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (Spring 2008)

13. Comments • Both courses were intensively team-taught, interdisciplinary, and involved exceptional preparatory work and collaboration. • Engineering practice makes assumptions about the beneficence of engineering that deserve critical examination —to which the humanitarian movement can contribute.

14. Comments (continued) • Engineers can make crucial contributions to humanitarian relief efforts — especially if engineers become self-critical about what it means to be an engineer. • The humanitarian engineering possibility may be able to help address the pipeline problems.

15. Comments (continued) • The humanitarian engineering possibility is simply one more expression of increasing efforts to broaden and transform engineering.

16. Conclusion “We aspire to a future where engineers are prepared to adapt to changes in global forces and trends and to ethically assist the world in creating a balance in the standards of living for developing and developed countries alike.” — The Engineer of 2020: Visions of Engineering in the New Century (2004) p. 51, emphasis added).