In the latter case, interest in grassroots digital fabrication rests in concerns to engage
people (especially younger people) in design, manufacturing and entrepreneurship.
Institutions frame makerspaces and digital fabrication as a useful way for future
workers to experiment in what they see as an industrial transformation and
renaissance. For others, however, such as hacker activists drawing parallels with
the free software movement, grassroots digital fabrication is about the demo -
cratization of production and consumption, and a contribution to a knowledge
commons that includes open hardware designs. Others concerned about sustain -
ability see grassroots digital fabrication offering the promise of a closure of localized
production–consumption loops, and through hands-on, collaborative involvement
in material processes of provision, it is hoped that post-consumer values may be
cultivated (Thorpe, 2012).
So with grassroots digital fabrication, as with other areas of grassroots innovation,
we see multiple framings in play that contain institutional insertion in some cases,
but also involve aims for political mobilization. Grassroots digital fabrication
provides a new stream of talent, ideas and innovations for appropriation for
capitalist institutions, but at the same time, the seeds of an alternative, commonsbased, peer-produced, sustainable and democratic future. The kinds of resources
flowing to these spaces of grassroots digital fabrication, the agendas attached, the
ways they are governed, the meaning and symbolism involved, and their conse -
quences, will be contested through these framings.However, as we see in the next
section, those contests for grassroots innovation are shaped also by their interplay
with broader and deeper political economies.
In sum, the institutional insertion of grassroots innovation looks to initiatives
through prevailing institutions for the environment, development and innovation.
Grassroots innovations are selected as promising and worthy of support, or marginal
and neglected, on the basis of their fit to STI institutional priorities and pressures
for reforming fixes. Under such circumstances, grassroots innovation is transformed
rather than being transformational.
Mobilizing a grassroots politics of practical reasoning
Grassroots innovators and innovation movements can sometimes welcome institu -
tional support and assistance. Indeed, grassroots innovations can arise for very similar
instrumental reasons – a fix to a problem, meeting a need unserved by markets or
states. Mutual ground can be found between the grassroots innovation and the
resourceful STI institutions that can help it to scale or diffuse. However, this is
not always the case. At times, it is the norms, assumptions, aims and practices
of prevailing institutions that are precisely the problem, and which the grassroots
innovation is responding to through creating an alternative norm, assumption, aim
or practice. Other forms of social mobilization for changing norms etc., such as
protests, strikes, boycotts, media campaigns, litigation, manifestos, and so on seek
rights and recognition from societal institutions. In contrast, grassroots innovation
movements involve people in the practical development of alternative activities.
112 Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely
people (especially younger people) in design, manufacturing and entrepreneurship.
Institutions frame makerspaces and digital fabrication as a useful way for future
workers to experiment in what they see as an industrial transformation and
renaissance. For others, however, such as hacker activists drawing parallels with
the free software movement, grassroots digital fabrication is about the demo -
cratization of production and consumption, and a contribution to a knowledge
commons that includes open hardware designs. Others concerned about sustain -
ability see grassroots digital fabrication offering the promise of a closure of localized
production–consumption loops, and through hands-on, collaborative involvement
in material processes of provision, it is hoped that post-consumer values may be
cultivated (Thorpe, 2012).
So with grassroots digital fabrication, as with other areas of grassroots innovation,
we see multiple framings in play that contain institutional insertion in some cases,
but also involve aims for political mobilization. Grassroots digital fabrication
provides a new stream of talent, ideas and innovations for appropriation for
capitalist institutions, but at the same time, the seeds of an alternative, commonsbased, peer-produced, sustainable and democratic future. The kinds of resources
flowing to these spaces of grassroots digital fabrication, the agendas attached, the
ways they are governed, the meaning and symbolism involved, and their conse -
quences, will be contested through these framings.However, as we see in the next
section, those contests for grassroots innovation are shaped also by their interplay
with broader and deeper political economies.
In sum, the institutional insertion of grassroots innovation looks to initiatives
through prevailing institutions for the environment, development and innovation.
Grassroots innovations are selected as promising and worthy of support, or marginal
and neglected, on the basis of their fit to STI institutional priorities and pressures
for reforming fixes. Under such circumstances, grassroots innovation is transformed
rather than being transformational.
Mobilizing a grassroots politics of practical reasoning
Grassroots innovators and innovation movements can sometimes welcome institu -
tional support and assistance. Indeed, grassroots innovations can arise for very similar
instrumental reasons – a fix to a problem, meeting a need unserved by markets or
states. Mutual ground can be found between the grassroots innovation and the
resourceful STI institutions that can help it to scale or diffuse. However, this is
not always the case. At times, it is the norms, assumptions, aims and practices
of prevailing institutions that are precisely the problem, and which the grassroots
innovation is responding to through creating an alternative norm, assumption, aim
or practice. Other forms of social mobilization for changing norms etc., such as
protests, strikes, boycotts, media campaigns, litigation, manifestos, and so on seek
rights and recognition from societal institutions. In contrast, grassroots innovation
movements involve people in the practical development of alternative activities.
112 Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely