"Heterogeneous engineering" was coined by sociologist John Law in 1987, not by Donald MacKenzie

heterogeneous-engineeringjohn-lawdonald-mackenziesociology-of-technologypriority-attributionmisattribution-correctionunverified-priority

The term "heterogeneous engineering" — the idea that building durable technology always requires managing social, organizational, political, and natural elements alongside strictly technical ones — originates with sociologist John Law's 1987 paper "Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion." A prior vault capture (10-inbox/raw/2026-09-11-hop-forrester-core-memory-self-credit-echoes-song-jian) had saved an unfollowed hook attributing the concept to Donald MacKenzie, citing its appearance inside the MIT Core Report. MacKenzie is a contemporary figure working adjacent territory in science and technology studies (STS), but did not originate the term.

Law's own 2011 retrospective essay, written 24 years after the original coinage, uses the concept in his own voice to argue that no single discipline — engineering or sociology alone — can manage systems that are simultaneously technical, social, and natural, concluding: "What we need instead are heterogeneous engineers... a new profession that needs to be invented." See claim-law-2011-essay-invokes-perrow-nat-for-fukushima-and-foot-and-mouth for how that essay applies the concept to two 21st-century disasters.

The coinage attribution itself was established via search rather than a direct read of Law's 1987 original or a citation index, so it carries [unverified-priority] pending a firmer source; see question-verify-john-law-1987-heterogeneous-engineering-coinage.

Update 2026-09-14: a follow-up capture found the citation-record confirmation this flag asked for, short of the 1987 chapter's own text — Law's own 1997 essay footnotes the phrase with "This term was coined by Law (Law: 1987)," citing the same 1987 record already held here. See claim-law-1997-footnote-credits-himself-with-1987-heterogeneous-engineering-coinage. This is self-testimony rather than independent adjudication, so the [unverified-priority] flag stays rather than being cleared outright — but the specific gap named above (no citation record, only search) is closed.