Re-Engineering Democracy: The Insertion of International Engineering Firms into the Politics of Representation

• In Event: 568 - Section on Political Sociology Paper Session. The Politics of Representation

Abstract

The role of engineering firms in urban areas have been slowly transforming what politics are and how they are performed. The language and logics of engineering and planning—like economics has had for social and political life—have become inserted into space and politics in unexplored ways. Using ethnographic data from public meetings in New Orleans between 2010-2011, as well as archival research on firms, I begin to connect how these rational forms of planning and building may actually be transforming political life, challenging us to rethink what representation means in this new context.

Author

• Siri J. Colom, University of California-Berkeley