Abstract

Disciplines associated with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics enjoy considerable epistemic privilege and it remains quite common today for them to be regarded as neutral and objective knowledge. The project of revealing the situatedness of all scientific knowledge has been advanced by various feminist approaches and critical epistemologies. However, little attention has been paid to the case of engineering, and to the role played by how university spaces are inhabited or how gender performance is embodied in the places where knowledge experiences take place. This research aims to illuminate Chilean engineering students' experiences according to their gender identity and corporeality within the spaces where epistemic practices occur, such as classrooms and libraries. By using Relief Maps tool we explore how engineering students experience the somatic norm in classrooms and libraries on Chilean university campuses, and how gender relations, spatiality, corporeality, and knowledge experiences are mutually constituted. The study's findings contribute to a deeper understanding of how spatial and bodily dynamics impact the knowledge experiences and exclusion in these contexts, proposing new ways to advance gender studies in STEM by analyzing the interactions between body, space, and gender.