"Our conclusion from studying this rainwater harvesting system is that there is merit in expanding and complementing prevailing notions of engineering as optimizing forms of control, with theorizations of engineering as forms of tinkering care."

"Acknowledging this hinges on accepting that infrastructures are more fragile, emergent, and contingent than is normally allowed for in engineering textbooks."

"Located at a school in the rural outskirts of Cochabamba, Bolivia, the performance of the system depends on ongoing forms of sociotechnical tinkering: it works well because of the continuous fine-tuning, adaptations, negotiations, and adjustments that people engage in."

"In this article, we show how a rainwater harvesting system is made to work."

"I discuss the usage of the PSVT:R in spatial training efforts targeting historically excluded groups, and how understanding the politics of the PSVT:R should inform future efforts."

"I examine the validation and popularization of the PSVT:R, discuss how the instrument may not actually measure mental rotation, and explain how the construct of ‘gestalt processing’ was created in an effort to raise the status of spatial instruments which favored men."

"The Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Rotations (PSVT:R) is commonly used in engineering education to measure spatial ability in efforts to predict academic or vocational success, or as a placement test. However, the politics of the instrument are rarely discussed."

If interested in reading more about this topic, my new book Salvaging Empire may make a good stocking stuffer:

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...