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Paper short abstract

Due to the development of new open technologies, many social technology-based movements such as “Do It Yourself,” “Hackers” and “Makers” have stand up in recent decades. Our goal in this paper is to perform a comprehensive analysis of all these trends.

Paper long abstract

Due to the development of new open technologies, many social technology-based movements such as "Do It Yourself," "Hackers" and "Makers" have stand up in recent decades. Our goal in this paper is to perform a comprehensive analysis of all these trends and propose "Social Manufacturing" as a term which comprises a new paradigm of personalized manufacturing based on new open technologies. We describe the main features of this movement after reviewing the existing literature, ending with the results of qualitative research completed with the collaboration of different makerspaces based in Spain.

Furthermore, we also describe the opportunities and challenges that are starting to be unveiled for this movement. Paying special attention to policy makers and other stakeholders that might benefit from the innovative and regenerative impact of this new movement on the urban environment.