Socio-logy of engineers: marshrutkas through the lenses of technical literature

The article concerns the technical literature on collective taxis in Volgograd comprised of publications by local "engineers" (i.e. urban planners, transport engineers, architects). The authors consider engineers as unacknowledged sociologists who make descriptions of contemporary Russian society within the framework of their own public transport surveys. Therefore technical literature is regarded not as an object of analysis, but as an analytical tool that helps to pose research questions and hypotheses for proper sociological study. The analysis of the content of publications helps to highlight controversies, tensions and apophasis of technical discourse on collective taxis. On the one hand, socio-logy of engineers indicates contradictions of the world of public transportation (controversy between GAZ Company and the Ministry of Transportation, competition between commercial and municipal public transport). On the other hand, the technical discourse itself is permeated by explicit and implicit tensions. In conclusion the authors define a proper territory and the prospects of social studies of transportation in Russia.