Decolonising the thermodynamics curriculum

Part of my role as Head of Department is to raise my head above the parapet and receive whatever is flying about. I have got two such emails launched by the Black Lives Matter movement. The first was an account of the experiences of one of my staff members as a young black person in the UK. The second was an email exchange between some students (notably Aatika Adam from our Chemical and Biological Engineering Department) and their department about their experiences studying in a department predominantly populated by non-BAME staff; as one of their points, they addressed the issue of the decolonisation of the curriculum.

 I teach first year Thermodynamics, which is mostly equations, systems and control volumes. So my first thought was that Thermodynamics has not been a function of the people that created it. My beloved equations are independent of context. So, prompted by the emails, I started thinking about this. It suddenly struck me that while thermodynamics is independent of context, energy is a far more political, context and historically driven subject. At dinner that night I mentioned this “revelation” to my daughter who is studying Geography at university. She was somewhat taken aback by this. She's worked with me to create this and writes in italics.

[1]

 

It is, of course, important to note that even thermodynamics, composed of numbers, was not created in a cultural vacuum. This is clear when looking at pictures of the fathers of the field, which is a collection of various white men with beards. The historical context of these discoveries is necessary to know why it was only these men who were able to succeed. As a geographer, I was astounded that even modern-day engineering academics, with their years of learning, saw their work as apolitical, acultural. To me, engineering exists to solve real-world issues, and real-world issues are fraught with real-world problems. These problems are not just technical difficulties, but issues of race, class, and gender.

 The example we discussed was the issue of bringing amenities to slum settlements in developing countries. An engineer might be guilty of approaching this as an almost wholly technical issue. However, this approach neglects the needs and wants of the people who may use the new facilities. We must ask ourselves: who has access to the necessary amenities, and who does not? Why? The answers to these questions lie in an understanding that slums are not apolitical, and their existence is founded on cultural, historical, and postcolonial contexts.

 On the other hand, the equations that one would solve to specify, say, the scale of a solar panel to provide hot water for a house are independent of the context. This is an equation based on the amount of hot water needed per person, the solar irradiance and the efficiency of the collector. The available technology, and we do think in terms of appropriate technologies, will dictate how to install the system. As engineers, we do not think why historically the family may not have hot water. We would be unaware that there could be another family down the road who has more hot water than they need and of the histories that made this so. We see the lack of hot water as a technical problem to be solved. We have the equations and the catalogues to do this. As educators, we could claim that we don’t have the room in the timetable to look at geopolitical issues, as we teach engineering.

 As educators, I would say that you have a duty to look at geopolitical issues! If people are not aware of the contexts in which they work, they will not understand the unique struggles of each area or group of people. This translates not just to their work in, say, the solar panel industry, but how they relate to the people they work with, and their engagement with cultural issues. As we have seen with the Black Lives Matter movement, when we fail to take into account social and historical contexts, we fail to accept that people do not come from an equal standing. This means that meaningful change doesn’t happen.

 In the case of your example of solar panels, it is worth considering who is able to afford the solar panels, and what the barriers might be to accessing them. For example, some government schemes to install solar panels are only available to people who own their own home. This means that people who live in rented or council-owned accommodation may be unable to benefit from these schemes. It is therefore important to note that black people are over-represented in social housing^[2]; if we consider why this may be while ignoring its historical and cultural context, then we risk entrenching the current situation.

 And yet, to first order, our aim as engineers is to make things better. We may think that increased efficiencies of aircraft will reduce pollution, but do the people who live in the destinations for the increase in tourists actually benefit from this? Possibly in terms of reduction in rise in sea levels, but if they lose the beach where they fish from to people who fly in for their holidays, then the improvement in the aircraft is actually to their detriment. An understanding of why this can happen^[3] is independent of creating a better turbine blade. But without any knowledge of the history of “Holiday destinations”, often one of their colonial past, it is easy to think of air travel as a purely good thing, if we could only make it emission free…

 This is actually a good point, as climate change is known to disproportionately impact marginalised communities, especially women of colour^[4]. The aim of engineers is to make things better, of course, but too many “improvements” have been made that shun the voices of, and actively harm, marginalised individuals. It is vital to critically examine for whom things will be improved.

So I still think that the beautiful equations and agnostic perceptions of the laws of thermodynamics are freestanding and exciting and I want to communicate them to anyone who'll listen (and even those who won't!). But their applications, and especially their uses in systems, are dependent on their context. The bearded professors of the 19th century ignored the reasons behind the poverty around them, but we should be aware of the histories of the places where our engineering touches. As engineers, we need to understand that when we aim to change the world, we should learn to understand it and its real history. The emails that catalysed my original thoughts stated that we should 'decolonise the curriculum'. My initial reaction that thermodynamics was not a candidate for this showed me the importance of context and looking at the examples of other societies and disciplines.

References

^[1] Thanks to Dr R Wooley for this graphic

^[2] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/housing/social-housing/new-social-housing-lettings/latest#by-ethnicity

^[3] Klein, N, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Metropolitan Books, 2007

^[4] Fatma Denton (2002) Climate change vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation: Why does gender matter?, Gender & Development, 10:2, 10-20, DOI: 10.1080/13552070215903

Stephen Beck is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Sheffield where he is head of the department of Multidisciplinary Engineering Education.

Sarah Beck is a final year Geography student at the University of Cambridge.