to speeches and texts evoking, say, a revolutionary agent, socially entrepreneurial
state or deliberative governance framework.
Activism in socially useful production dissipated in the face of industrial restruc -
turing and relocation, and an emerging Thatcherite political agenda antithetical to
active industrial policy. With hindsight, the movement was swimming against the
political and economic tide. At the time things looked less clear cut. Ultimately,
however, the alliances struck, the spaces created and the initiatives generated were
swept aside as concern for the social shaping of technology was left to market
decision. Some practices had wider influence, such as in participatory design, albeit
it in forms appropriated to the needs of capital rather than the intended interests
of labour. Conventional institutions took instrumental advantage of the diversity
of novel practices opened up by a more politically inspired burst of grassroots
innovation activity.
Today, in FabLabs, Hackerspaces and other forms of makerspace discussed above,
people are coming together under very different circumstances to work materially
on shared technology projects, using digital fabrication and design tools. Social media
opens these engagements in distributed and interconnected forms. Web platforms
and versatile digital fabrication technologies allow people to share open-hardware
designs and contribute to an emerging knowledge commons. The sheer fun
participants find in making things often in personal projects is imbued by others
with excited claims, for the democratization of manufacturing and ushering
alternative principles for innovation through commons-based peer production.
There is a political mobilization to some of this doing.
Grassroots digital fabrication rekindles ideas about direct participation in
technology development and use. Grassroots projects, involving the cultivation of
tacit knowledge and skills, are also about crafting solidarities. Project-centred
discussion and activity is linked to debate and mobilization around wider issues.
In the context of green transformations, it is argued by some that these facilities
not only help localize sustainable production–consumption, up-cycling, fixing and
repair, but they might also promote post-consumerist cultures. Getting involved
in design and fabrication shifts a sense of well-being away from the consumption
of objects, with attendant chains of short-lived satisfaction and repetition, and
towards the cultivation of skills, knowledge and collaborative relationships in
differently satisfying, less alienated processes of social production (Thorpe, 2012).
However, as pointed out, there are other interests in makerspaces less attendant
towards such cultural or political mobilization, and see instead participatory
incubators for prototyping and experimenting that will help bring on stream a new
generation of entrepreneurs, designers and engineers. And, of course, participants
in these spaces may simply be there for the fun of doing their personal projects,
unaware or indifferent to these wider social inscriptions and mobilizations.
Other recent attempts to mobilize community ingenuity to serve environmental
(especially climate change) and social (inclusion and cohesion) goals have emerged
from local experiments in Europe. Again with long historical precedents, the
emergence of the ‘transition towns’ and ‘energy descent action plan’ narratives,
114 Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely
state or deliberative governance framework.
Activism in socially useful production dissipated in the face of industrial restruc -
turing and relocation, and an emerging Thatcherite political agenda antithetical to
active industrial policy. With hindsight, the movement was swimming against the
political and economic tide. At the time things looked less clear cut. Ultimately,
however, the alliances struck, the spaces created and the initiatives generated were
swept aside as concern for the social shaping of technology was left to market
decision. Some practices had wider influence, such as in participatory design, albeit
it in forms appropriated to the needs of capital rather than the intended interests
of labour. Conventional institutions took instrumental advantage of the diversity
of novel practices opened up by a more politically inspired burst of grassroots
innovation activity.
Today, in FabLabs, Hackerspaces and other forms of makerspace discussed above,
people are coming together under very different circumstances to work materially
on shared technology projects, using digital fabrication and design tools. Social media
opens these engagements in distributed and interconnected forms. Web platforms
and versatile digital fabrication technologies allow people to share open-hardware
designs and contribute to an emerging knowledge commons. The sheer fun
participants find in making things often in personal projects is imbued by others
with excited claims, for the democratization of manufacturing and ushering
alternative principles for innovation through commons-based peer production.
There is a political mobilization to some of this doing.
Grassroots digital fabrication rekindles ideas about direct participation in
technology development and use. Grassroots projects, involving the cultivation of
tacit knowledge and skills, are also about crafting solidarities. Project-centred
discussion and activity is linked to debate and mobilization around wider issues.
In the context of green transformations, it is argued by some that these facilities
not only help localize sustainable production–consumption, up-cycling, fixing and
repair, but they might also promote post-consumerist cultures. Getting involved
in design and fabrication shifts a sense of well-being away from the consumption
of objects, with attendant chains of short-lived satisfaction and repetition, and
towards the cultivation of skills, knowledge and collaborative relationships in
differently satisfying, less alienated processes of social production (Thorpe, 2012).
However, as pointed out, there are other interests in makerspaces less attendant
towards such cultural or political mobilization, and see instead participatory
incubators for prototyping and experimenting that will help bring on stream a new
generation of entrepreneurs, designers and engineers. And, of course, participants
in these spaces may simply be there for the fun of doing their personal projects,
unaware or indifferent to these wider social inscriptions and mobilizations.
Other recent attempts to mobilize community ingenuity to serve environmental
(especially climate change) and social (inclusion and cohesion) goals have emerged
from local experiments in Europe. Again with long historical precedents, the
emergence of the ‘transition towns’ and ‘energy descent action plan’ narratives,
114 Adrian Smith and Adrian Ely