3(1) 2017: Making and Hacking

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Experimenting with Novel Socio-Technical Configurations. The Domestication of Digital Fabrication Technology in Fab Labs
Hielscher, Sabine (2017) , S. 47-72
Grassroots digital fabrication workshops (such as FabLabs), and associated technologies (such as 3D printers), are attracting increasing attention as a potential source for addressing a variety of social and environmental challenges. Through an analysis of an in-depth case study on FabLabs, this paper aims to provide insights into the practices emerging in these workshops and realities of the relationship between its members and technologies that are currently underresearched. It does this by drawing upon the domestication literature that concerns itself with how people use, adapt and reject technologies and integrate them into their life. The paper examines the significance of the interactions between people and technologies in FabLabs and offers concluding reflections on the role of these relationships within broader social and environmental changes.
Introduction
Richterich, Annika; Wenz, Karin (2017) , S. 5-21
„Just Do it!“ Considerations on the Acquisition of Hackerspace Field Skills as an Ethnomethodological Research Technique
Dahm, Sebastian (2017) , S. 109-124
In this paper I present an ethnographic approach to the research of hackerspaces. It draws upon an ethnomethodological background in order to address the role of members’ skills and knowledge. To that end, I aim for an immersive ethnographic approach in order to achieve a first-hand understanding of members’ practices. In this, I draw upon ethnomethodology as it provides a rich theoretical and methodological background for the study of skill and knowledge, namely the call for practical knowledge as an analytical instrument (Garfinkel 2006). In order to fully understand the implications of social movements like hacking and making communities, appropriate research methods are called for. Ethnomethodology, with its tradition in the analysis of epistemic practices and embodied knowledge, can provide the means for a more immersive and reflexive ethnography. By using materials of my own ethnography, I demonstrate how active engagement with members’ practices can provide for a deeper ethnographic understanding. In order to overcome the challenges of the field, I chose to adopt a project of coding myself. This acquisition of field-specific knowledge proved to be not only a valuable resource for the ongoing fieldwork but could offer important analytical insights in itself. I will show that important facets of members’ meanings were accessible only through personal experience. I suggest a broader adoption of ethnomethodological principles in ethnographic research of hackerspaces as it accommodates the underlying affinity towards experimentation prevalent in the field.
„There Simply Is No Unified Hacker Movement.“ Why We Should Consider the Plurality of Hacker and Maker Cultures
Kubitschko, Sebastian; Richterich, Annika; Wenz, Karin (2017) , S. 185-195
Sebastian Kubitschko is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI) at the University of Bremen in Germany. His main research fields are political communication, social movements and civil society organisations. In order to address the relevance of new forms of techno-political civic engagement, he has conducted qualitative, empirical research on one of the world’s oldest and largest hacker organisations, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). Sebastian emphasises the societal and political relevance of hacker organisations: he investigates how initiatives such as the CCC combine their IT and communicative expertise to exert agency in technological developments, public debate and policy making. Conceptually, he is particularly interested in practice theory and how it may be used in media sociological and communication research. His papers have been published in international peer reviewed and open access journals. Together with Anne Kaun, he is the editor of Innovative Methods in Media and Communication Research (2016). For the “Making and Hacking” issue of Digital Culture & Society, Sebastian Kubitschko (SK) discussed insights from his research in an email conversation with the issue editors Annika Richterich and Karin Wenz (EDS).

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