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The professional ideology of engineers is said to be rooted in feelings of self-importance and a belief in an ability to lead based on qualities of technical expertise and rational decision making not held by the public at large. This paper outlines the views of another group of engineers, labelled 'reflexive engineers', having a much more integrated view of socio-technical systems. Interviews were conducted with engineers working in the Global South in fields such as community water supply and sanitation. The paper aims to uncover how they make sense of the social and how they perceive factors shaping development practice. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experiences and perceptions of scientists who have published findings that question the safety and precision of genetic modification (GM) technologies. Gieryn’s concept of boundary work is used to understand how such scientists make sense of social and scientific territories. It also uncovers their reactions to being excluded from the scientific space. Like other scientists, most saw science as distinct from the social field. As a result, they were surprised by the scale and nature of the attack on their findings once their work reached the public domain. They observe with dismay the formation of a regime of knowledge in biology that allows some questions to be asked, but not others. As such, some of their insights are strikingly Foucaultian. In their own practices, they increasingly strive to engender a politics of truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with a well-documented fresh water crisis in many parts of the world, international institutions are advocating market-based solutions involving the privatisation and commodification of water. The definition of water as a commodity by multilateral organisations in the early 1990s allowed a handful of transnational corporations, supported by the World Bank and the IMF, to become centrally involved in management of public water services in poorer countries. The years 2000 to 2003 saw the retreat of TNC investment in water due to national economic crises, social protest, and the difficulties of extracting profit delivering water to indigent consumers. This article examines the shift in discursive strategy of development organisations, and the resulting rise and fall of TNC involvement in water and sanitation provision in the Third World. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]