Samantha Breslin

University of Copenhagen · Department of Anthropology

Engineering education is often decontextualized, even as it is suffused with metaphoric language and sociocultural norms and beliefs. Efforts to embed social context and sociotechnical content in engineering education are often met with resistance. We contribute to conversations about how to change dominant knowledge regimes by detailing the proces...

The lack of diversity in engineering and perpetuation of inequities through engineering designs have motivated the rise of new curricula centred on the integration of traditional technical content with social aspects of technology. However, the ‘revolutionizing’ of curricula has primarily been spearheaded by junior faculty, women and faculty of col...

This dissertation explores the making of computer scientists in Singapore. I explore how transnational computer science epistemologies and Singaporean state policies work to render the world into technical problems that computer scientists can manipulate and solve. Computer science knowledge and practice is thereby presented as mobile, while maskin...

Devices equipped with sensors to track mobility, such as through Global Position Systems (GPS) and accelerometery, are increasingly being used for research. Following Canadian, US, and International guidelines there is a need to give special consideration when conducting research with vulnerable populations. This paper examines specific ethical con...

This article explores the role of play in human interaction with computers in the context of computer programming. The author considers many facets of programming including the literary practice of coding, the abstract design of programs, and more mundane activities such as testing, debugging, and hacking. She discusses how these incorporate the ae...

Computerantropologi indebærer anvendelsen af teknikker og metoder fra data- logi, datavidenskab og digitale metoder til dataindsamling og analyse. Compu- terantropologien komplementerer traditionelle antropologiske og etnografiske metoder samt analytisk og teoretisk tænkning inden for disciplinen. Selvom computerantropologi stadig er et gryende fel...

What does it mean to produce trustworthy code for computer scientists? Based primarily on ethnographic fieldwork in an undergraduate computer science program in Singapore, this article explores what it means for computer science students to write ‘good code.’ In doing so, it explores the values that underlie ideas of trust in the computer science d...

This article discusses the epistemological challenges of contending with hegemonic norms while ‘studying up’. In particular, I discuss the challenges that I faced in following feminist and queer approaches to gender while conducting fieldwork on the gendered norms and values produced through undergraduate computer science education in Singapore. Th...

In Denmark, as with elsewhere in the world, Twitter has emerged as an important arena of public discussion on issues relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the handling of the crisis by state authorities and health institutions. On the basis of approximately 140,000 tweets from the period between February 24 and April 28, 2020, harvested from...

This article considers how construction workers based in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) negotiate the need to be mobile for work at different scales and with what effects. It tackles the seldom considered question of how travel becomes normalized as a facet of work in construction, an employ-ment sector characterized by vol...

This innovative practice full paper shows how considerations of social, environmental, and economic context were integrated into a required introductory course on electrical engineering. We describe the content, implementation, and results of a “Design for the Future” module conducted in Spring 2019. This module is framed around a course-long stude...

http://theindependent.ca/2017/08/16/the-song-that-never-ends-about-men-and-women-in-tech/

http://blog.castac.org/2015/12/anti-politics/

Gender has been a part of HCI both implicitly and explicitly since its inception, affecting the everyday practice of designers and developers and the technologies they create. This has occurred as disparate numbers of men and women are involved in computing fields and designers often follow the “I-methodology,” as well as relying on gender stereoty...

This article explores the boundaries that are constructed around traditional Newfoundland music and musicianship, focusing on the relationships among place, tradition, and history. Drawing primarily on ethnographic fieldwork conducted during the summer of 2009, I explore how some musicians trace historical and place-based connections based on their...

The interaction between humans and computers, at the center of HCI research, embodies societal values and norms relating to gender and other forms of identity. However, there is limited knowledge and understanding among students and researchers regarding theories of and approaches to gender. We therefore argue for integrating Gender HCI as part of...

With the increasing spread and pervasiveness of technologies, the role of gender in the design of these technologies is a topic of growing importance. Several conference panels and journal issues have focused on the contributions feminism, gender theory, and queer theory can make to HCI. This paper discusses the key developments in the sub-field of...

With the increasing spread and pervasiveness of technologies, the role of gender in the design of these technologies is a topic of growing importance. This paper provides a review and consolidation of the most recent efforts over the past 5 years in understanding the role of gender in interaction design. We discuss, in particular, how recent approa...

This thesis offers an ethnographic account of the musical lives of musicians who play traditional Irish and Newfoundland music at ―sessions‖ in St. John's, Newfoundland. Drawing on interviews and participant observation, I explore the significance of this music for musicians in terms of their self-definitions, social networks, senses of place and b...