Marie Stettler Kleine

Originally trained as a mechanical engineer, now an ethnographer, I explain how engineers enact differing interpretations of service, development, and social justice through their work. My research—at the intersection of development studies, science and technology studies, and religious studies—compares how different groups of engineers ask, “who’s in need?” and “why?” I observe and analyze how engineers respond to these questions through their actions, and I describe and critique how engineers working in international contexts wrestle with historical discourses of missions, colonialism, and imperialism. As a part of this work, I have observed humanitarian engineering programs at universities across the United States and then traveled with these engineers to their international field sites. I have also taught Engineering Cultures, an undergraduate course that challenges students to think critically about their own positionality in contrast with other forms of engineering identity formation and infrastructure around the globe.