Engineering Risk and Disaster: Disaster-STS and the American History of Technology

Abstract

For a long time the historiographies of engineering and technology focused on technological intensification and progress across society, the economy, and government. Little specific attention was reserved in these narratives for risk, disaster, failure, and blame. However, more recently a vibrant, interdisciplinary synthesis of science and technology-focused disaster research has emerged in the form of a definable Disaster-STS, a subfield with close connections to engineering studies. This revisionist project inserts the contingencies of risk and the prevalence of disaster into the more traditional episodes of modern American technology history, such as urban industrialization and systems development, the rise of technical professions, postwar nuclear and other highrisk systems, and the history of postwar metropolitan growth. By expanding our view to include risk and disaster we explain the emergence of key engineering tools such as risk and cost-benefit analysis -and we chart the rise and elaboration of previously obscured technical artifacts like standards, codes, and techniques of risk management fostered by engineers working in risky environments. We come to a fuller understanding of failure as a "designed in" aspect of systems building. We note the push and pull of societal expectations of technological safety. Disasters have also created unique spaces of technical inquiry -post-disaster studies, investigations, and hearings-which have also strongly influenced codes of ethics, liability calculations, engineering education, and professionalization more generally. Engineering Studies and Disaster: "We Will Recover and This Will Happen Again"In the months following Hurricane Katrina, with much of New Orleans a ruin, Washington was abuzz with investigative hearings. There were political scalps to collect, first and foremost that of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief Michael Brown, whose preening and pouting as the disaster unfolded were almost as universally derided as President Bush's assessment of "Brownie" as doing a "heck of a job." And with the failure of the nation's largest flood protection system replaying over and over on cable television engineers were anxiously busy as well. A major post-disaster investigation conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) ultimately concluded that a large portion of the destruction from Hurricane Katrina was caused not only by the storm itself . . . but also by the storm's exposure of engineering and engineering-related policy failures . . . a combination of unfortunate choices and decisions, made over many years, at almost all levels of responsibility. 1 *

Initial impacts of global risk mitigation measures taken during the combatting of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…the Mumps, Measles, Rubella vaccine for children) 2 . Due to our increasingly connected world, especially in the last decade, a lot of misinformation spreads through social media and is accessible to all, leading to the politicisation of science (Deming, 2005;Jasanoff, 2005;Davies, 2019) and the organisation of ignorance (Frickel & Vincent, 2007;Knowles, 2014;Wieland, 2017). This adds complexity to the interface between policy, science and practice and underlines the importance of knowledge management and consistent sharing of best practice in the domain of risk mitigation (Daszak et al, 2020).…”

Drum breach: Operational temporalities, error politics and WIPP’s kitty litter nuclear waste accident

“…They did so by emphasizing operator errors and management failures lower in the US transuranic waste management complex’s chain-of-command (which did indeed contribute to the accident) while deemphasizing the DOE’s incentive structures and political pressures to uphold rapid operational temporalities (which also contributed to the accident). Delimiting the bulk of responsibility to New Mexico, the DOE ‘blame[d] one bad apple or one broken switch for the failures of a risky system’ (Knowles, 2014: 243).…”

The Effects of Economic Crisis on Business Finance

“…From this financial condition information, micro small and medium businesses can formulate business strategies and make important decisions. Knowles et al (2014) states that there are different types of financial statements. There are at least four types of financial statements that are compulsory for micro small and medium businesses in business and the following explanation in the framework of research (Cohen et al, 2009;Frickel et al, 2007;At Di Nucci et al, 2017;Drake et al, 2006).…”