Paper short abstract:

This research identifies a shared ‘hacker spirit’ that encapsulates what it means, to North American users of hacker and makerspaces, to be a hacker or maker. This spirit was fundamentally one of self-reliance, activity, and the proactive seizure of agency.

Paper long abstract:

The rise of hacker and makerspaces has often been greeted as a means of democratising technology, tools, and innovation. Academic commentators have seen practices such as DIYBio or open source programming as eroding traditional technoscientific authority, while making enthusiasts such as Mark Hatch or Chris Anderson have celebrated opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship through the use of new digital fabrication tools. This paper reflects on these developments by drawing on an interview study of hacker and makerspaces across the US, carried out in 2012 and involving some 12 spaces and 35 individuals. Though hacking and making can be wildly heterogeneous in the practices, sites and imaginations they involve, this research identified a shared 'hacker spirit' that encapsulated what it meant, to these North American users of hacker and makerspaces, to be a hacker or maker. This spirit was fundamentally one of self-reliance, activity, and the proactive seizure of agency. A predilection for 'doing things', 'learning by doing', and personal creativity were viewed as integral to valid use of a hacker or makerspace; by showing yourself to be passive, more interested in talking than doing, or a consumer rather than a maker one ran the risk of revealing oneself as not 'one of our people'. I both report these characteristics and reflect on them. How does this spirit of individual agency and empowerment relate to the concomitant centrality of community in hacker and makerspaces?