How engineers in the mining and oil and gas industries attempt to
reconcile competing domains of public accountability.
The growing movement toward corporate social responsibility (CSR) urges
corporations to promote the well-being of people and the planet rather
than the sole pursuit of profit. In Extracting Accountability, Jessica
Smith investigates how the public accountability of corporations emerges
from the everyday practices of the engineers who work for them. Focusing
on engineers who view social responsibility as central to their
profession, she finds the corporate context of their work prompts them
to attempt to reconcile competing domains of accountability--to formal
guidelines, standards, and policies; to professional ideals; to the
public; and to themselves. Their efforts are complicated by the
distributed agency they experience as corporate actors: they are not
always authors of their actions and frequently act through others.
Drawing on extensive interviews, archival research, and fieldwork, Smith
traces the ways that engineers in the mining and oil and gas industries
accounted for their actions to multiple publics--from critics of their
industry to their own friends and families. She shows how the social
license to operate and an underlying pragmatism lead engineers to ask
how resource production can be done responsibly rather than whether it
should be done at all. She analyzes the liminality of engineering
consultants, who experienced greater professional autonomy but often
felt hamstrung when positioned as outsiders. Finally, she explores how
critical participation in engineering education can nurture new
accountabilities and chart more sustainable resource futures.
