In early 2015 Shoshana Magnet, associate professor at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa, came to speak to CSSD’s working group on Science and Social Difference about her feminist analysis of recent scientific inquiry into mixed societies of robots and insects.

Magnet, co editor of the text Feminist Surveillance Studies, discussed the field of biomimetics, where entomologists, roboticists, zoologists, and engineers analyze the natural world for guidance in solving problems. Magnet asserts that current scientific research in the area is rife with gendered, sexualized, and able-bodied limitations, precluding any study of potential collective decision making between different types of people.

Read about the discussion here.