Maker culture from "summary" of Radical Technologies by Adam Greenfield
The culture of making things is one of the most striking emergent social forms of the early twenty-first century. It is characterized by a passionate commitment to re-engaging with the material world, to taking control of the means of production and to reinserting human values into objects that have been mass-produced for far too long. This can take many forms, from the fabrication of electronic devices in one’s own home to the crafting of bespoke furniture or apparel in small ateliers or workshops. The maker movement is a potent synthesis of both the artisanal and the technological, a collective effort to reclaim agency from the hands of a few large corporations and to place it in the hands of individuals and small groups.
The maker culture is underpinned by a profound commitment to the democratization of technology and of the knowledge required to manipulate it. This commitment is expressed in numerous ways, from the free sharing of schematics and code to the organization of communal workshops and the teaching of craft skills. A significant proportion of the movement’s adherents are partisans of the principles of open source and open access, and see the liberation of information and tools from the control of corporations and governments as fundamentally political acts. This commitment to free knowledge and tools also expresses itself in the maker culture’s engagement with education and pedagogy, as a space for the development of critical thinking skills and for the fostering of a sense of empowerment and agency.
The maker culture is not only a response to the alienation that many people feel from the objects that surround them, but also to the alienation that they feel from the systems of production and distribution that underpin their lives. It is a concentrated expression of a desire to re-establish a sense of connection to the world, and to reject the vicariousness and passivity that characterize so much of contemporary life. At its most ambitious, the culture of making things is a harbinger of a new kind of society, one in which individuals take responsibility not only for what they consume but also for what they produce, and in which the boundaries between producer and consumer are increasingly blurred.
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