Social Justice Engineering

Political engagement… what are my politics I imbue into my work, anyways?

Screen Shot 2020-05-26 at 2.13.01 PM I’m an anarchist – plain and simple. Not a democrat, I tried that. Not a socialist, tried that. Anarchism is the political identity I return to, again and again, since my teenage years and into my 30s. My understandings of anarchism are ever-evolving & ever-deepening. Decolonial anarchisms, international anarchisms, and intersectional/black anarchisms have been brought to the forefront in the movement.

Anarchism is a wonderful feminist action-oriented approach to government, the state, empire, and most importantly – our relationships with one another, nature, and all life.

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“Goodbye, Nebraska” – QuaranZine Flash Fiction

During the COVID-19 crisis, I joined together with others in my community to create a zine anthology. All of these stories centered on the following prompt:

“The dominant culture that we live in frequently pushes us to prioritize our relationship with a romantic, monogamous partner over other relationships with friends, family, and neighbors. Some ways we see this are in the expectations to cohabit with our partner, formalize the relationship through legal and religious ceremony, (for women in particular) to change our names in marriage, and for partners to share financial & material resources with each other. Create a culture where this is no longer the norm. Describe the alternative ways humans build, celebrate, or formalize relationships with each other in that world. Note: you do not need to create something “better than” what we have now, nor do you have to make a culture that you would want to live in. 1000 word limit. All genres welcome.”

Here’s the story I wrote, titled Goodbye, Nebraska.

“I’m moving out.” Sharie was nervous and overwhelmed. Maybe she was just whelmed. Regardless, she had anticipated that the news would be a lot to process for everyone at the table. “I’m moving in with Grace. Just us. I’m… monogamous.”

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“A lot of the challenges I run into are a level of political disengagement in engineering”

I am so grateful for the write up about my research and activism done by Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University.

Andrea Haverkamp is a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering, with a minor in Queer Studies at Oregon State University. Her work is in engineering education, which explores the student and faculty experiences in engineering, right from curriculum to learning practices and pedagogy and also looks at diversity, inclusion and equity in the classroom.

Haverkamp is also President of the Coalition of Graduate employees (CGE), representing over 1800 graduate employees at OSU, “I think labor union activism is a critical action-oriented feminist praxis,” she says.

Read the article here, or click through for the text below.

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KMUZ Labor Report with Andrea Haverkamp of the Coalition of Graduate Employees at OSU

I recently spoke on KMUZ Community Radio in Salem, Oregon about how labor unions are fighting for reform in higher education and how this connects to creating a just, equitable, and socially minded campus community.

Adapted excerpt after the jump – check the link here:
KMUZ Willamette Wakeup Labor Report with Andrea Haverkamp

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Interfaith Engineering Ethics – Climate Change and responsibility in V’haya Im Shamoa

During Yom Kippur morning services yesterday I felt a completely new interpretation and meaning for my own sense of ethics as an engineer embedded within the Sh’ma. As engineers we are all guided by a sense of ethics – whether we realize it or not. These ethics are learned, taught, and honed in our lives before we become engineers and continue to develop throughout our careers. They can come from engineering education, but they also can come from our faith traditions or from interfaith dialogue. I believe there is a lot of room to reflect on the numerous ways we internalize ethics and how they relate to the engineering profession. In particular, I think it is worthwhile to add spiritual ethics as items of consideration and discussion. In this post I wish to talk about what I see as our ethical commitments to the climate as told in the second paragraph of the Sh’ma.

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Feminist Killjoy with Andrea Haverkamp

Branching Out

Welcome to our debut episode of Branching Out! This week, I talked to Andrea Haverkamp about gender dynamics in engineering. Listen to the audio from this episode HERE!

Photo by Robert Bye on Upsplash

You can find Andrea at:SJ Engineers. The sources we reference in this episode are:

The Complexity of Nonbinary Gender Inclusion in Engineering Cultureby Andrea Haverkamp
Abusing Foucault: How Conservatives and Liberals Misunderstand “Social Construct” Sexuality by Jesi Egan
Re-Inscribing Gender Binaries: Deconstructing the Dominant Discourse around Women’s Equality in Science, Engineering, and TechnologybyAlison Phipps
Feminist Killjoys (And Other Willful Subjects)by Sarah Ahmed

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Advancing Nonbinary & Transgender Engineering Students at SWE Hawaiian Islands

I am so happy to share the full video and my slides from the May 25th 2019 SWE Hawaiian Islands event titled “More Work To Do in STEM for Diversity and Inclusion – A Conversation on Underrepresented Genders.” The event was so wonderful and opened up space to discuss Māhū gender in Native Hawaiian culture, (de)colonization and gender activism, trans & nonbinary experiences and identities, and where organizations such as the Society of Women Engineers can go to advance inclusion and support.

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Exploring Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Engineering Undergraduate Experiences through Autoethnography

The following is the abstract and a link to download our paper which was presented at the 2019 American Society for Engineering Education CoNECD conference, April 15th 2019. CoNECD stands for The Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity. The paper was written by myself, Ava Butler, Naya Pelzl, Michelle Bothwell, Devlin Montfort, and Qwo-Li Driskill.

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Overlooked Diversity – Religion, Faith, & Spirituality

The following is a post I wrote for the Graduate Society of Women Engineers blog – check out the original post here.

When we discuss the many identities we carry in our lives, the most commonly listed are often race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability status. When we discuss diversity and inclusion, our efforts often center on one of, if not the intersection of, these identities. However, one core identity for many of us has seemed to slip through our collective radar – religion and spirituality. “In an era when colleges are expanding their engagement of diversity issues, and at a time when religion plays a central role in public life and global affairs, religion continues to be the dimension of diversity that many institutions leave out.” This is a central claim in Eboo Patel’s article “Faith Is The Diversity Issue Ignored by College Campuses” published in The Chronicle of Higher Education in October 2018. In the article, she discusses the possibilities and needs on campuses to recognize this difference. Additionally, she asserts that efforts for religious inclusivity on campus are underfunded, if funded at all. She writes about the transformative possibilities of having interfaith dialogues and unpacking stereotypes and prejudices. As soon as I read this it seemed to immediately ‘click’ – and I’ve become pretty passionate about the subject. Eboo Patel is right – religious diversity is often left out. Why should we start paying attention to this?

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