I am fascinated by the idea of "the underlying sociological and cultural factors" that go into the way a sociocultural group engages in the task of engineering (within this context: the scientific approach to problem-solving).
I realize this is a poor explanation, but an example of the phenomenon should be able to clarify what I attempt to describe. The underlying structure of the thought process behind how the Russian conception of war resulted in divergent, yet ultimately superior tank design. The cultural influence on the way tools that fill a universal need are themselves constructed. Like how western saws cut on the pushstroke, but eastern ones on the pullstroke. the saw is almost the same, and exists to serve a shared need for a tool. yet the simplest thing diverges completely.
This isn’t cultural as much as material.
The saw example is most glaring. Plenty of “””eastern””” saws cut on a push, we just only have familiarity with Japanese joinery tools because that’s the type of handmade woodworking that survived the fascist era and ww2.
So it’s not that there’s a cultural difference, but a difference in our perception. There’s also a real difference in the development of the industry that created and used those tools in those places. (Japanese saws that cut on the pull are made of thinner steel and so cut on the pull out of necessity as opposed to for some other reason. As for why they are thin, look to the relative value of often imported steel at the times those tools were made to find out why!)
The tank example is material instead of cultural as well. So much ink has been spilled on the subject of ww2 tanks so I’ll keep to broad strokes lest 69 fat dudes roll through with their very specific critiques:
Russian tanks weren’t designed how they were designed because of a cultural affinity for crude mass produced stuff and German tanks weren’t designed to reflect the GeRmAn eNgEnEeRiNg. Both were designed to take full advantage of their respective productive capacities.
Russia before and during ww2 was developing their heavy industry. Germany had an already developed heavy industry complete with advanced metallurgy and the workforce to support and develop it.
No surprise that German tanks were how they were and Russian tanks were how they were. That’s what you build when you have those productive capacities and forces!
Just the expected battlefield geography changed the tank design. Soviet tanks wide and flat for tiny silhouettes with shit gun depression because they’d be fighting in the wide terrain of Eastern Europe. American/NATO tanks have great gun depression and reverse speeds because there was an expectation of shooting over and using cover in hilly western europe
Addendum: I realize anthropology covers this, but I'm more looking for like a source that I can use to learn more. Like, I just don't know where tp begin.
I dunno how much it relates to what you want, but it sounds kind of like you'd be interested in The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, who coined the 'Norman Door' which is simply put, a door that is not designed to be used intuitively or in the opposite way you'd expect to use it.
I think the history of design as a discipline in the west during the 20th century would be a good starting point. Of course it leaves out a whole bunch of communities and worldviews, but I think it's the one that has been more thoroughly dissected because eurocentrism, duh. Learning about bauhaus and Italian futurism is an interesting approach that is still very much relevant.
Also look into architecture, there's a lot of overlap between artefacts and buildings
I think those questions about the design process fall within the domain of the philosophy of technology. Maybe check out the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy page on the Phil of technology.
There is, at least in german, quite a lot of articles and information for eastern german designer Christa Petroff-Bohne. It tends to be more on the biographical side, but she herself did talk a lot about her thoughts on designing things, the most famous ones I think is cutlery, plates and such. I always thought that was quite fascinating, maybe you can DeepL some stuff or ask around if someone'd be willing to translate?
In the modern day a lot of this is as simple as "in this area of the world a different codified standard was adopted than the other areas". Things are quite formalized now.
For instance, DIN vs ISO vs JIS the standards in the US. Rather annoyingly, many us standards aren't formalized in any way, it's just what manufacturers tend to do locally.
Yeah it is an interesting topic. There is a lot written about it Things that come to mind is Ruben Pater - Caps Lock/The politics of design. A book written by an anarchist but still a very insightful overview of influences on the things that around us with a lot of pictures (lol). I would also recommend Hal Foster (Design and crime)
