Everyday Engineering

Everyday Engineering was written to help future engineers understand what they are
going to be doing in their everyday working lives, so that they can do their work more effectively
and with a broader social vision. It will also give sociologists deeper insights into the
sociotechnical world of engineering. The book consists of ethnographic studies in which the authors,
all trained in both engineering and sociology, go into the field as participant-observers. The sites
and types of engineering explored include mechanical design in manufacturing industries, instrument
design, software debugging, environmental management within companies, and the implementation of a
system for separating household waste.The book is organized in three parts. The first part
introduces the complexity of technical practices. The second part enters the social and cultural
worlds of designers to grasp their practices and motivations. The third part examines the role of
writing practices and graphical representation. The epilogue uses the case studies to raise a series
of questions about how objects can be taken into account in sociological analyses of human
organizations.