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Paper short abstract

Challenging euro-centric narratives about makerspaces, this paper offers a story about a makerspace in Nairobi which strives for industrial revolution. Ethnographic insights show the multiplicities of utopian imaginaries, socio-material practices and the political in makerspaces.

Paper long abstract

The growing literature on makerspaces predominantly contain either the hype about innovative spaces that will solve social problems or the euro-centric characterization of makers forming a counterculture or Do-It-Yourself movement against capitalist structures. By neglecting local contexts and detailed analyzes of everyday practices, the functioning of makerspaces is often told as generalized stories.

In my paper, I will challenge those dominant narratives by looking at the emerging makerspace-scene in Kenya. Telling the story of Gearbox in Nairobi - a makerspace which does not want to be called like that and which is still in the making itself - reveals new constellations of actors and socio-material practices. The aim of Gearbox is to offer the usage of high-quality machines to professional entrepreneurs who want to produce high-tech prototypes in order to attract investors to start mass production. Differing from post-industrial contexts Gearbox strives for an 'industrial revolution', which also comprise starting with basics: building a space for manufacturing Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) for instance.

By doing participative ethnographic research with various actors in Nairobi's innovation scene, I am interested in the contextualization and parallel description of specific socio-material practices in makerspaces. Hereby, I emphasize the multiplicities of and various small narratives (Law 2002; Law and Mol 1995) about utopian imaginaries, criticisms, daily life experiences as well as the political dimension of prototyping. In this sense Do-It-Yourself possesses multiple meanings: in Nairobi, it represents more an answer to a government which is not supportive of hardware innovation than an anti-capitalist reaction.