Benefits and the hidden face of the maker movement: Thoughts on its appropriation in African context

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore benefits and critics of the maker movement, in the perspective of its adoption in African context. The method used is a literature review, which reveals that the maker movement is embodied in hacker ethics, DIY and free software ideologies. These ideologies bring values like openness, sharing, inclusion, democratization, and collaboration which are the core of the social, economic and political benefits of the maker movement. Even if these benefits are infiltrated by capitalism, the quest of cognitive justice and the Commons philosophy, seems to be the right epistemological tools for the adoption of the maker movement in Africa.

CityLabs: Making Cities, Making Futures

“…In fact, it would be wrong to see the various initiatives (from seamstresses and cell phone hackers in Accra, Ghana, to coding lessons in Lomé, software developers in Nairobi, or city furniture makers in Cape Town) as mere outlets of a Euro-American 'maker culture' . The rationale behind CityLabs, however, is not to look at how 'Africa' is 'adopting' maker culture (in the words of one blogger "as though Westerners had invented 'making' and Africa were a homogeneous spot") (Yoder 2015; see also Nkoudou 2017). If anything, the relative success of maker culture on the continent has more to do with the affinity between 'making' and locally existing ways of knowing and learning and with the social, economic and political dynamics of its cities, such as the presence of a large cohort of young, highly educated and skilled but jobless professionals (Cooper and Morell 2014; Mavhunga 2017).…”

Corporate makerspaces as innovation driver in companies: a literature review-based framework

“…collaboration] might be accomplished by constructing a common bench space in the center of the lab to encourage different members of the space to work side by side and increase the likelihood that they will discuss their individual projects" (Farritor, 2017, p. 393). Some authors clearly state that the physical space with its working zones form the basis for the development of the community (Nkoudou, 2017;Tanenbaum et al, 2013). Typically, a makerspace integrates the following working zonessometimes also combined:…”

“…• Operational facilitation: operational facilitators maintain andif neededfix the physical and digital prototyping infrastructure, i.e. machinery, software equipment and purchase machines, materials and other consumables (Nkoudou, 2017). In order to make sure that the users can properly use the physical and digital prototyping tools, operational facilitators provide trainings, safety instructions and answer handling-related questions (e.g.…”

“…We suggest that the CMSs and thus the community infrastructure is open to all employees of the company to guarantee a mixture of talents, educational backgrounds and projects like in public makerspaces. Most important for the physical community infrastructure is the workspace with its five working zones which are defined as follows (Nkoudou, 2017;Jensen, Semb, Vindal and Steinert, 2016;Zink et al, 2017;Oliver, 2016b):…”

O chapéu do bruxo: artefatos, aprendizes e aprendizados de um fazer científico (bio)hacker

“…Tais tensões não são externas à própria história da disciplina, mas sim constituem a relação fundante entre a biologia sintética como repaginação da engenharia genética dos anos 1990. Nesse contexto, o DIYBio e o Biohacking foram a força formadora de uma comunidade ativa, fazendo emergir a figura do biohacker que, por um lado age como rebelde desafiando o status quo, defendendo o livre acesso e compartilhamento no fazer científico, e por outro pode agir como aproveitador individualista que resiste à interferência externa de regulação pública ou de instituições acadêmicas a fim de acumular lucro econômico e prestígio pessoal (ROOSTH, 2010;KERA, 2017;NKOUDOU, 2017). Mas essa figura não é, como nenhuma outra, descorporificada, e, se seguirmos a etnografia "MITcêntrica" de Roosth descobrimos que "o biohacker" normalmente é um homem branco com boas condições financeiras para bancar seu hobbie, que dialoga com sua pesquisa científica e com seu negócio.…”