Slides for a seminar I gave to the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation, University of Edinburgh, 9th February, 2015.

1. Liberatory technologies? Grassroots digital fabrication
Adrian Smith
Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex, UK
Seminar at Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation
University of Edinburgh, 9th February 2015

2. First
[ Introduce FabLabs and
Hackerspaces
Second
[Reflections: What to make of
the hype and realities?
- portent for transformative
structural change?
- latest utopian attempt at
liberatory technologies?
- people having fun with stuff?
Third
[ Discussion: STS?
Overview…

3. What are Hackerspaces, Makerspaces and FabLabs?
[ Physical spaces where diverse groups of people meet up to
make things together in workshops
[ Use and provision of versatile digital design and
manufacturing technologies
[ There are more than ~1000 Hackerspaces globally and over
440 FabLabs in 60 countries
[ Anybody can make anything, from toys and vehicles to solar
panels and eco-houses
[ There is a commitment to openness and collaboration:
designs, instructions and projects are documented, filmed
and shared using web-based social media
[ Training is provided to teach people, who also experiment
and learn and have fun with others through hands on
involvement in self-directed projects
[ Exploring new meanings and relations in technology,
production and consumption?

4. [ Do not only operate locally but are also connected to global networks and movements
[ FabLabs have an Academy, Foundation and other platforms and attract government and business
support; hackerspaces have hackercamps, conferences, associations and visit one another
[ Discuss common issues and share learning through forums and web tutorials, as
well as meeting up at conferences and events regionally and internationally
[ Create interwoven global infrastructures – develop manifestos and training
programmes or more ad hoc initiatives and collaborative projects
Global networks

5. Tremendous diversity
[ Projects – individual hobbies; collaborative projects; art; start-up ventures; awareness
raising; self-help; education …
[ Technologies – machine tools; woodworking; metalwork; textiles; electronics; coding …
[ Activities – meetings; open evenings; school visits; festivals; on-line collaboration;
high/low profile; …
[ Situation – membership/autonomous; charities; universities; libraries; local authority;
commercial; …
[ Aims – making; community; entrepreneurship; training; education; prototyping;
democracy; alternatives; fun; sociability …

6. Excited claims are made
[ Third industrial revolution (from bits to atoms) – extending digital revolution into the
material world and putting it in the hands of people (e.g. Anderson 2012; Gershenfeld,
2005)
[ Democratising and/or personalising manufacturing – engagement in commons-based
peer production (e.g. Mota, 2011; Benkler and Nissenbaum 2006)
[ Unlocking grassroots innovation and entrepreneurship – accessible digital fabrication
technologies (e.g. Troxler 2010, Dickel el at, 2014)
[ More sustainable production and consumption – local manufacturing and post-
consumerist activities (e.g. Schor 2010, Light, 2012)

7. FabCity Barcelona
[ Political leaders have a vision
for a self-sufficient city by 2050
[ 50% of stuff consumed to be
made locally
[ Investing in workshops
(Ateneus) for every district of
the city
[ Working with community
associations to embed in
neighbourhoods (not always
easy – Ciutat de Meridiana)
[ Access to digital tools seen as
new public infrastructure:
empowering and democratising
– people create own futures
[ Iceland too, World Bank …

8. What are we to make of this fascination with the social possibilities of machine tools?
[ Signals for deeper structural changes?
[ A long-standing allure with tools for liberation?
[ A topic ripe for STS analysis?

9. Manifestation of deeper seated structural changes?
[ Technological changes: falling costs & increasing accessibility of tools (3D printers, laser
cutters, design software, scanners, microcontrollers, code etc) (e.g. RepRap, Arduino)
[ Cultural changes: free culture, knowledge commons, peer production (e.g. P2P
Foundation, book scanning, Buen Conocer)
[ Social changes: maker movement, do-it-with-others, domesticated opening of black boxes
(e.g. Instructables, Makerfaires, co-ops, open energy monitoring)
[ Economic changes: freelancing/precariousness, collaborative self-reliance, Silicon Valley
entrepreneurialism, start-ups, new manufacturing models; vector class, solidarity
economies, social knowledge economy (e.g. Kickstarter, Shapeways)
[ Political changes: horizontality, direct activism, social innovation (e.g. Occupy/ Podemos,
Labs/Hubs)
http:/ / hackerspaces.org/ wiki/ List_of_Hacker_Spaces
From HackerspaceWiki
This is a comprehensive, user-maintained list of all active hackerspaces throughout the w
We have also a list of planned Hacker Spaces, as well as a list of ALL hackerspaces around the globe - including
already closed.
This page is cached due to its long rendering time. If you want to flush the cache, Click Here (http://hackerspace
action=purge)
If we're missing your space, or you want and/or are about to create a new one, please add yourself to the list.
hackerspace Country State City Website
Metameute Germany Schleswig-
Holstein
Lübeck http://www.metameute.de
The Hacktory United
States of
America
Pennsylvania Philadelphia http://thehacktory.org/
RaumZeitLabor Germany Baden-
Württemberg
Mannheim https://raumzeitlabor.de/
Milwaukee Makerspace United
States of
America
Wisconsin Milwaukee http://milwaukeemakerspace.org
Hackspace Jena Germany Thuringia Jena https://www.hackspace-jena.de/
Interaccess electronic
media arts centre
Canada Ontario Toronto http://www.interaccess.org/
Fishburners Australia New South
Wales
Sydney http://fishburners.org
HacroEvolution United
States of
America
Kansas Manhattan http://www.hacroevolution.blog
ChaosKueste Germany Schleswig-
Holstein
Kiel http://chaoskueste.de
(Baltimore) Harford
Hackerspace
United
States of
America
Maryland Baltimore http://www.baltimorehackerspa
5000 km
2000 mi

10. Latest utopian wave for liberatory technologies? E.g. Lucas Plan, socially useful production
[ Manufacturing in decline, massive redundancies in face of economic restructuring and
technological automation – public funding contributes to this process!
[ Lucas Plan (1976) pioneers arguments for socially useful production: 150 prototypes,
economic analysis, participatory design, human-centred high-technology
[ An alliance of workers, community activists, environmentalists, and left municipalities
propose Alternative Plans for socially useful production
[ Centres for alternative products and strategies are opened, and alliances made with
similar movements in Scandinavia and Germany, plus international links
[ Plans ultimately rejected by management, state and trade union hierarchy, but some
practices are co-opted and take effect – participatory design, worker involvement, social
responsibility

11. Technology Networks in London, 1982 - 1986
[In 1981 left GLC commits to socially useful production, industrial democracy and
alternative economic strategy :
[ Five community-based Technology Networks in the city for popular prototyping -
linked to Polytechnics, tools, expertise, training, networks, product bank
[ Prototyping for (co-operative) enterprise and mobilising campaigns
[ Considerable work needed to put ideas into practice: participatory design, popular
planning, product development, social investment
[ Ultimately overwhelmed by Thatcherism - GLC abolished in 1986 – activities disperse
(academia, community activism, environmentalism, business, design professions, etc)

12. ‘The central feature … is the development of ideas and organisation forms that encourage involvement, generate
self confidence and release new found or rediscovered skills during the examination of how productive resources
should be used to meet social needs. Initiatives must … be extremely responsible and very supportive throughout
the complete process …’ (Lowe, 1985: 69)
‘Constructing an open door to planning and decision making procedures is not enough’ (Linn, 1987: 116)
‘You will not find this group coming together naturally after a CND demonstration or a football match, for a quick
drink or an exchange of ideas’ (Moore, 1987: 214)
‘[Technology Networks] employed high numbers of technically experienced trade-union men whose language,
bureaucratic ways of working and emphasis on the product rather than the community process act to exclude
even technically qualified women’ (Linn, 1987: 121)
‘GLEB, for its part, put an increasing emphasis on commercial skills and product development … Network staff,
members, and users, however, take a more complex view than this … they see on the whole a too early
concentration on new products as counterproductive. What GLEB calls ‘outreach’, they see as the essence of
networking, and the factor that in the end can generate real innovations’ (Mackintosh & Wainwright, 1987: 212-
213)
‘We started off looking at any kind of energy-saving products. But we’ve homed in on micro-electronic products
because they seem to be the ones we do best, and there’s a market … We don’t have the money to set up
manufacturing ourselves. And without the resources to manufacture it, you’re stymied. You sell it to someone
who might be manufacturing it in Glasgow, which is no help to London’s economy’ (Susie {Parsons, LEEN quoted
in Mackintosh & Wainwright, 1987: 208).
Learning to work together? Listening to experiences in the past …

13. Historical reflection and structural awareness qualifies liberatory possibilities …
[ Training in the use of tools or developing design
and problem solving capabilities?
[ Accessible technology or community
development?
[ Prototypes for development or debate?
[ Attending to the social relationships involved in
objects and material culture?
[ Connecting to political economies and
contending elite ideologies?
[ The overall SUP model failed, but specific
practices did have influence – what kinds of
practices might hackerspaces help cultivate?

14. Analytical insight from STS?
[ Tools and identity – domestication, multiple tools, globally interconnected? (e.g.
Toombs et al, 2014)
[ Technological frames – institutional positions and power of different frames, future
expectations & mobilisations of history, uneven flexibility/closure? (e.g. Smith et al,
2013; Smith, 2014)
[ Technologically mediated socio-economic relations – re-configuring labour processes,
new forms of exploitation/agency? (e.g. Söderberg, 2013)
[ Real-life laboratories / niche spaces – not models, but sites of experimentation –
processes and consequences of this activity, who learns what, and so what? (e.g. Dickel
et al, 2014; Smith et al, 2013)
[ Techno-political sub-cultures – tinkering, hacking, opening-up, free hardware,
democratising objects, critical making? (e.g. Troxler, 2010; Ratto and Boler, 2014)
[ Emerging configurations (cf. technologies, which are quite established) – scenarios,
horizon scanning …

15. Thank you!
For further information
www.grassrootsinnovations.org
a.g.smith@sussex.ac.uk
@smithadrianpaul
[ Questions and discussion …
[Smith, A. (2005) The alternative technology movement: an analysis of its framing and negotiation of technology
development, Human Ecology Review, 12, 2: 106-119
[Smith, A. (2014) Technology networks for socially useful production Journal of Peer Production issue 5 (online)
[Hielscher, S. and A. Smith (2014) Community-based digital fabrication workshops: a review of the research
literature, SPRU Working Paper Series 2014-08, Brighton
[ Smith, A. and A. Ely (2015) Green transformations from below? The politics of grassroots innovation, in Scoones
et al. (2015) The Politics of Green Transformations, Earthscan, London, chapter 7