GENDER RESEARCH AS KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE IN TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING

Aspirations in gender research within technology and engineering have developed into a research-transforming activity focusing on societal relevance and engineering faculties. The conditions that are needed and created require epistemological pluralism. The gender research referred to here is also called feminist technoscience. When discussing gender in sectors like technology and engineering, we often tend to count heads, i.e. how many women are present in which functions. By contrast, gender issues are much less seen as generating knowledge and technology in themselves. This chapter will illustrate what kind of added value certain academic activities starting in gender-related issues can have. Epistemological comments on feminist technoscience are presented as fostering and attempting to advance our understanding of knowledge production in technology and engineering. The aim of this chapter is to contribute to the recognition of feminist technoscience and its knowledge-producing values. Discussions of key understandings of feminist technoscience are illustrated by two cases and summed up by some closing remarks.