@inbook{64b17428f82e4ce192be90f91d5e61ca,
title = "Bridging Engineering and Humanities at Techno-Anthropology",
abstract = "In 2022 it will be 10 years since the first students enrolled at Aalborg University{\textquoteright}s new master program in Techno-Anthropology – an interdisciplinary program combining engineering/technical sciences and humanities/social sciences. This anniversary provides a good opportunity for reflecting on and assessing the proclaimed interdisciplinarity. Hence, this chapter discusses the practical possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration between engineering/technical sciences on the one hand, and social sciences/humanities on the other through a concrete case study of the techno-anthropological master program at Aalborg University in Denmark. The research question addressed here is whether Techno-Anthropology is an example of a successful combination of two different epistemic cultures? To answer this, the chapter introduces the concept of boundary objects. It portrays the techno-anthropological landscape, identifies two visions for the master program and links the concept of boundary objects to the curriculum of Techno-Anthropology. The chapter concludes that the curriculum of the master program in Techno-Anthropology is a boundary object so fluid that it enables interdisciplinary collaboration between two different research groups with different visions for Techno-Anthropology. The two visions are headlined as {\textquoteleft}to engage technical experts and users in conversation and to translate technology-user perspectives into technical design{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}to discover the complexity of technologies through online and offline ethnographic work, and to feed that understanding into technological innovation{\textquoteright}.",
keywords = "Boundary objects, Higher education, Interdisciplinarity, Techno-anthropology",
author = "Tom B{\o}rsen",
year = "2023",
month = jan,
day = "17",
doi = "10.1007/978-3-031-11601-8_8",
language = "English",
isbn = "978-3-031-11600-1",
series = "Philosophy of Engineering and Technology",
publisher = "Springer",
pages = "151--177",
editor = "Steen Hyldgaard and Anders Buch and Eddie Conlon and Christelle Didier and Carl Mitcham and Mike Murphy",
booktitle = "Engineering, Social Science, and the Humanities",
address = "Germany",
}