Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences / Engineering and Technical Associations as Socio-Cultural Phenomenon of the USSR in 1920s

Full text (.pdf)
Issue
Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences. 2025 18 (2)
Authors
Ermakov, Tikhon K.; Degtyarenko, Ksenia A.
Contact information
Ermakov, Tikhon K. : Siberian Federal University Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation; ; Degtyarenko, Ksenia A. : Siberian Federal University Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation
Keywords
engineering and technical Associations; the USSR; actor-network theory; assemblage
Abstract

The process of formation of new types of social actors in the 1920s in the USSR is of great theoretical and applied interest. On the one hand, it allows us to understand the key features of the emerging socio-cultural context of the new state, on the other hand, it allows us to clearly highlight some theoretical issues related to the reorganization of society. Engineering and technical associations of the 1920s represent such an actor, which in the designated decade begins to actively integrate into the surrounding socio-cultural context, transforming existing connections and forming new types of social relations. Based on the analysis of a number of documents related to both the regulation of the activities of engineering and technical societies in general and with some specific societies, the role of an engineering and technical association as an actor in socio- cultural reality was described. As a result, three key functions were identified: 1) “Scientific”, directly related to the development and coverage of various engineering and scientific problems, as well as their scaling for other social actors; 2) “Identificating”, associated with strengthening professional identities and expressive consolidation of a group of professionals into a single whole; 3) “Communicating”, consisting in building connections between societies of the same scale, implying both their separation from each other and their close interaction. The designated functions characterize engineering and technical associations as complex actors, whose multifunctionality becomes possible due to close fusion with political actors, endowing engineering and technical associations with the ability to build the necessary connections at various large-scale levels

Pages
230–239
EDN
RXNFOU
Paper at repository of SibFU
https://elib.sfu-kras.ru/handle/2311/154843

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).