A construção da engenharia popular e a formação de engenheiros e engenheiras populares na práxis da intervenção em um empresa recuperada por trabalhadores

Abstract

The present work intends to contribute to the theme of engineering education, since there is a growing awareness inside and outside universities about its problems of legitimacy and credibility. We understand that these problems stem, in part, from the disconnect between academic training, the real activity of the engineer and social demands, which needs to be revealed to support a training process that is more suited to today's complex challenges. We believe that the way to overcome these problems is to know and problematize the social role of engineering (and technology) within capitalist formation, to overcome positivism and the consequent dichotomy between theory and practice that guide academic formation and bring it to the formative process the analysis of engineering practice in a participatory manner with the various actors involved in its design and use. For that, it is necessary to know in depth the practice of engineering, especially of engineers whose performance already follows the path that we defend. In this work, we focus on an experience of engineers-researchers-extension workers who seek to practice “engaged engineering” with demands from popular groups and social movements. The researched experience involved a team of 15 engineers, from different areas and levels of training, who carried out an intervention in a Factory Recovered by Workers (ERT). Following the principles of Activity Ergonomics, the intervention sought to analyze and propose solutions to company problems based on a participatory process, which includes workers at all stages of their development. It was possible to analyze the intervention through direct participation in the project as a team member (research-participant), seeking to extract contributions for the construction of popular engineering and for engineering training from practice in a real situation in the self-managing context. This process showed that the engineering work we seek needs to overcome the positivism transmitted in the academy, supporting the development of skills for the collective construction of emerging solutions and, therefore, socially and technically responsible.