Silicon Island: Building (In)Equitable Tech Futures in Out of the Way Places
This project explores what it means for “out of the way” places to build technological futures and the ways these futures (re)configure social and economic (in)equities. The project is focusing on the self-named “Silicon Island” of Newfoundland, Canada.
Cities and nations are claiming titles like “Silicon Island,” evoking both tangible and imagined connections with the successes of Silicon Valley. Many of these places claiming the “Silicon” label share a geographic remoteness compared to Silicon Valley, with different socioeconomic histories and cultural values. Silicon Valley companies also face increasing critique for propagating societal ills, including multiple forms of inequity.
This project uses ethnographic and computational methods to examine the frictions of how tech futures in Newfoundland, Canada, are negotiated and brought into being in the encounters across local and (inter)national scales among policies, entrepreneurs, investors, organizations, and code. It thus examines the dynamics of (in)equity shaping entrepreneurial cultures and technologies and the possibilities for building equitable futures in “out of the way” places.
The project is based on the following research question:
- How are possibilities for building tech futures shaped by policies (including funding, visions in documents, and legal frameworks) across municipal, provincial, and (trans)national scales?
- How do actors involved in technology innovation and entrepreneurship (policy-makers, entrepreneurs, investors, and I&E-focused organizations) negotiate and enact different futures and what emerges out of those frictions?
- What are the concrete ways entrepreneurs build futures in and through code and other objects and how do policies, negotiations, and (in)equities play into these practices?
The Silicon Island project has an advisory board that consists of:
- Professor Nicole Power, Memorial University of Newfoundland
- Assistant Professor Angela Vandenbroek, Texas State University
- Professor Laura Watts, University of Edinburgh
In the nearest future the project will also hire a postdoc and a research assistant.
In preparation.
Researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search in Name | Search in Title | Search in Phone | |
| Samantha Dawn Breslin | Associate Professor | +4535332129 |
Funded by:
Silicon Island: Building (In)Equitable Tech Futures in Out of the Way Places has received funding from the Independent Research Fund Denmark, the Inge Lehmann programme.
Project: Silicon Island: Building (In)Equitable Tech Futures in Out of the Way Places
Period: 2023-2027
Contact
Samantha Dawn Breslin
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
samantha.breslin@anthro.ku.dk
+45 35 33 21 29