Paper short abstract:

Constructive inquiry is the practice of using fabrication practices, including engineering and design, as an inquiry methodology. In what ways does or might making constitute an analogous inquiry practice?

Paper long abstract:

Common to design, craft, art, and engineering is the materialization of ideas through acts of fabrication and construction. Often, such acts are positioned as research. Yet the nature of such constructive inquiry is highly contested: what constitutes methodological rigor, a result, or validity? Into this mix, I add making: how does (or might) making constitute an inquiry practice?

I argue that there are two ways that one might understand making as a research practice. One is that making can inherit research practices from any of the disciplines that it embraces: for example, the user-centered design (UCD) research outcomes in human-computer interaction (HCI) can presumably be achieved in making as well. The other way is to consider what distinctive qualities of making might serve as epistemic resources for pursuing research. I will argue that making's inter-/trans-/un-disciplinary heterogeneity, its commitment to participation in and democratization of technology design/innovation, and its ideological commitment to reverse engineering, unboxing, opening the black box of technology all serve as epistemic resources. That is, these qualities of making facilitate its capacity to contribute to certain kinds of research. Some have leveraged this to suggest that making is well positioned to (crowd-) research the future Internet of Things. Outside of the West, research is showing that making is positioned to do very different kinds of research, including investigations of technology- and production-mediated nation-building and cultural identity.