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.