Hackerspace Network: Prefiguring Technopolitical Futures?

Abstract

Under the practical symbol of “hacking,” computer expertise has been translated into renewed forms of political action in the past two decades. In this article, I examine this phenomenon through the study of self‐organized collectives for technoscientific experts who identify as “hackers.” Based on multisited field research in global cities of the Pacific Rim, I describe the formation of a network of community spaces called “hackerspaces” with a focus on their exchange practices and transnational ties. The alternative globalization of hacking through these convivial spaces for socialization and self‐training has created new political locations and horizons, shifting the moral valence of hacking toward more open and collaborative practices. The hackerspace network is one of the key sites for the observation of this transformation for prefiguring new technical and political practices, hence its relevance for anthropological studies of technology and politics in the contemporary moment. [computing, expertise, hacking, technopolitics, hackerspaces]

Introduction: Computing in/from the South

“…Akin to the process of cultivation Sareeta Amrute & Luis Felipe R. Murillo, 2020 of subjectivity as a "house of difference" (Lorde, 1982), building computing otherwise asks us to heed difference as defined from the inside, across the multiple contradictions, relationalities, and incommensurabilities among projects, notions of personhood, moral orientations, and desires. Each project shows how perspectives from the South both accommodate and revise masculine technological performances that populate even alternative computing spaces (Chan, 2014Coleman & Dunbar-Hester, 2016Dunbar-Hester, 2008;Murillo, 2019;Nafus, 2012;Reagle, 2012). Finally, each project "recovers the principles of living" through computing otherwise that are bracketed out through computing's historical development (Mohamed et al, 2020, 18).…”

“…They also elevate histories of computing outside the West as a means of creating an independent narrative around computing beyond the familiar story of geopolitical, state-driven competition (Sandoval, 2019). Finally, they turn to the work of other experts below, beyond, and yet connected to hegemonic circuits of power (Addo, 2017;Amrute, 2016;Murillo, 2019;Nguyen, 2016Prieto-Nanez, 2016Takhteyev, 2012).…”

The maker movement as learning communities during the Covid-19 pandemic in the context of higher education

“…Dakle, nameće se zaključak da je hakerspejs slično mesto, deo mejkerskog pokreta, samo fokusirano na hakere, entuzijaste za informacione tehnologije, koji stvaraju hardver i softver i eksperimentišu s njima, odnosno mašinama i programima. Međutim, u ovom slučaju Muriljo (Murillo, 2019) hakersku zajednicu vidi kao alternativnu globalnu (sub)kulturu koju karakteriše radikalna otvorenost, kreativni haos, razmena, nezavisnost, donošenje odluka konsenzusom, te horizontalno upravljanje. Dakle, hakerspejs se često definiše kao teritorijalna infrastruktura za kognitivan rad (Dafermos, 2014), osnaživanje i građansku akciju (Sangüesa, 2011), ali i fizičke manifestacije hakerske kulture i etike.…”

The First Latina Hackathon

“…Race and class intersect across a terrain of transnational labor that values technical expertise yet differentially recognizes and rewards this expertise. These racialized and ethnicized workers plug into highly coded and particularized lateral spaces that cross national borders, yet rely on infrastructures that mobilize networks and workers to respond efficiently to market conditions, and shift among different systems of codes that enforce ethnic discipline and social cohesion in segregated labor sites (Murillo, 2020;Ong, 2006). Similarly, I suggest that hackathons can be examined as spaces where hackers come to perform their willingness to become the coding (and coded) workers of the future.…”