Makers as a new working conditions between self-employment and community peer-production. Insights from a survey on Makers in Italy (original) (raw)
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Peer production has emerged as a new and relevant way of organising the work of distributed and autonomous individuals in the production and distribution of digital content. Increasingly, the adoption of peer production is taking place not only in the development of digital and immaterial content, but also in the design, manufacturing and distribution of physical goods. Furthermore, Open Design and Open Hardware projects are developed, discussed, manufactured and distributed thanks to digital fabrication technologies, digital communication technologies, advanced funding initiatives (like crowdfunding platforms and hardware incubators) and globally integrated supply chains. This new systemic dimension of work is possible, among other factors, thanks to local facilities like Fab Labs, Makerspaces and Hackerspaces (that can be generally called Maker laboratories), where individuals can gather and form communities with other people, designing and manufacturing together. Generally, these people are referred to as Makers and, while their existence is still an emergent phenomenon, it is widely acknowledged that they could exemplify a new modality of work. We investigated the knowledge, values and working dimensions of Makers in Italy with the Makers' Inquiry, a survey that focused on Makers, Indie Designers and managers of Maker laboratories. This research generated a rst overview of the phenomenon in Italy, improving the knowledge of the proles of Makers; an important step because Makers are usually dened in a very broad way. Furthermore, we investigated their proles regarding their values and motivations, in order to understand how much Makers engage in peer production or in traditional businesses and whether their working condition is sustainable or not. Finally, we compared these proles with data regarding traditional designers and businesses and the national context. Given the recent nature of the Maker movement, the focus of this article is on providing a rst overview of the phenomenon in Italy with an exploratory analysis and with comparison with existing related literature or national data, rather than contextualising the Maker movement in sociological and political contributions. Far from happening in a void, Italian Makers have a strong relationship with their localities and established industry. Therefore, this is a recent evolution, where Makers work with a broader palette of projects and strategies: With both non-commercial and commercial activities, both peer production and traditional approaches. The activity of making is still a secondary working activity that partially covers the Makers' income, who are mostly self-employed working at home, in a craft workshop or in a Fab Lab in self-funded or non-commercial initiatives, where technology is not the only critical issue. As a conclusion, we identied current patterns in the working condition of Italian Makers. The data gathered shows some interesting information that, however, could be applicable only to an Italian context. Nevertheless, the survey could be a starting point to compare the same phenomenon in dierent countries. Therefore, we released the survey les, software and data as open source in order to facilitate the adoption, modication, verication and replication of the survey. INTRODUCTION The development and adoption of digital technologies in the past few decades has introduced new working conditions and modied some of the existing ones. New forms of organisation and new forms of distribution of resources have been enabled (or old forms have been modied or rendered obsolete) especially thanks to infrastructures such as the Internet (a global network of devices and technologies) and the World Wide Web (a global network of information and documents). Furthermore, there are also protocols and softwares that manage the interaction between both of these networks. Digital technologies have always been in part digital and immaterial with data and software, and physical and material with hardware and connections. This ecosystem has enabled the emerging of new forms of work, organisation, business and economic activity in many elds such as music, biotechnology, movies, science, art and so on, including design. Free Software, Open Source, Peer-to-Peer, Crowdsourcing, Sharing Economy, Diuse, Distributed and Decentralised Systems are some of the many new denitions created in order to understand better the new phenomena of organisation of work emerged from the adoption of digital technologies, and especially the Internet and the World Wide Web. The concept of peer production emerged as a framework that aims at identifying the common traits in all these denitions regarding a new and relevant way of organising the work of distributed and autonomous individuals
Peer production has emerged as a new and relevant way of organizing the work of distributed and autonomous individuals in the production and distribution of digital content. Increasingly, the adoption of peer production is taking place not only in the development of digital and immaterial content, but also in the design, manufacturing and distribution of physical goods. Furthermore, Open Design and Open Hardware projects are developed, discussed, manufactured and distributed thanks to digital fabrication technologies, digital communication technologies, advanced funding initiatives (like crowdfunding platforms and hardware incubators) and globally integrated supply chains. This new systemic dimension of work is possible, among other factors, thanks to local facilities like Fab Labs, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces (that can be generally called Maker laboratories), where individuals can gather and form communities with other people, designing and manufacturing together. Generally, these people are referred to as Makers, and, while their existence is still an emergent phenomenon, it is widely acknowledged that they could exemplify a new modality of work. We investigated the knowledge, values and working dimensions of Makers in Italy with the Makers' Inquiry, a survey that focused on Makers, Indie Designers and managers of Maker laboratories. This research generated a first overview of the phenomenon in Italy, improving the knowledge of the profiles of Makers; an important step because Makers are usually defined in a very broad way. Furthermore, we investigated their profiles regarding their values and motivations, in order to understand how much Makers engage in peer production or in traditional businesses and whether their working condition is sustainable or not. Finally, we compared these profiles with data regarding traditional designers and businesses and the national context. Given the recent nature of the Maker movement, the focus of this article is on providing a first overview of the phenomenon in Italy with an exploratory analysis and with comparison with existing related literature or national data, rather than contextualizing the Maker movement in sociological and political contributions. Far from happening in a void, Italian Makers have a strong relationship with their localities and established industry. Therefore, this is a recent evolution, where Makers work with a broader palette of projects and strategies: with both non-commercial and commercial activities, both peer production and traditional approaches. The activity of making is still a secondary working activity that partially covers the Makers' income, who are mostly self-employed working at home, in a craft workshop or in a Fab Lab in self-funded or non-commercial initiatives, where technology is not the only critical issue. As a conclusion, we identified current patterns in the working condition of Italian Makers. The data gathered shows some interesting information that, however, could be applicable only to an Italian context. Nevertheless, the survey could be a starting point to compare the same phenomenon in different countries. Therefore, we released the survey files, software and data as open source in order to facilitate the adoption, modification, verification and replication of the survey.
Grassroots digital fabrication in makerpaces. Report from a World Café
2014
In these spaces people access networked, digital design and fabrication tools and, it is argued, can therefore make almost anything they wish. Ideas, designs, experiences and viewpoints are shared between spaces through on-line social media. Makerspaces are globally connected. Indeed, observers and participants consider makerspaces to connect to and express materially various broader social movements, such as the maker movement, hacking, and free/ open hardware movements, to name just a few.
Connected Communities of Makers
The paper analyses the idea of crowd to understand how design is being influenced by the practices of mass participation both in the idea generation and innovation processes.
A Thematic Analysis of the Maker Movement in Cyberspace Across Cultural Contexts
2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings, 2000
Avneet is a doctoral student in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. Her research interests include K-12 education and first year engineering in the light of the engineering design process, and inclusion of digital fabrication labs into classrooms. Her current work at the FACE lab is on the use of classroom Makerspaces for an interest-based framework of engineering design. She is also interested in cross-cultural work in engineering education to promote access and equity. She holds a B.E. in Aeronautical Engineering and is presently completing her M.S. in Aerospace Systems Engineering.
The Design Journal
We are living in a moment of radical change. The environmental and economic crisis have been undermining the strength of democratic societies, causing, mainly in western communities, a widespread sense of alienation and insecurity. By the way, new social structures are emerging from bottom-up initiatives, as a response to the lack of good political practices. These actions often reveal themselves as strong creative think tanks; they play a key role in the decision-making process concerning commons and contribute to the definition of the community identity, by acting as connectors between both social and environmental factors. Founded in 2012 by a group of young people from different backgrounds, Roma Makers has been the first fab lab in Rome, Italy, and in the last four years, it has grown in terms of network and community. Started from scratch, with limited economic resources and during a peak of the Italian economic and political crisis, Roma Makers has been able to build a bridge between citizens and authorities, using the global innovation network as a mean to join different urban realities. With the direction of four public labs widespread among the Lazio Region, several mini-labs in public schools, the collaboration with trade associations, universities and high educational centers, together with the organisation of several technological events, Roma Makers has built an active infrastructure of knowledge focused on the empowerment of citizens in technological innovation and digital manufacturing. The infrastructure operates at different levels of society and creates a connection between professionals, students, hobbyists, urban associations, companies and institutions so that they can meet and share projects and ideas. This new layer of knowledge is expanding from a very local scale (the neighbourhood of Garbatella in Rome) to the Lazio Region area, and it allows local economies to be developed by giving access to innovative and advanced manufacturing machines and processes. In this system, a new role of design is emerging and changing the linear relationship client/designer/user with collaborative networks that generate an open knowledge repository, in which everyone is included and can contribute by finding the most suitable field to share one's skills. The knowledge ecosystem fosters the encounter between local know-how and innovation, creating new S3121 ALESSANDRA FASOLI, SILVIO TASSINARI markets and encouraging new economies. In 2015 Roma Makers has expanded by becoming an incubator for two start-ups that connect the infrastructure with two important economic sectors: design firms and arts, introducing digital manufacturing tools and networked design into the industry process. This scenario leads to a new concept of participatory design as a tool for an active engagement of individuals in the development of their communities. The current paper will analyse how the new collaborative design and production processes emerging from the Roma Makers Infrastructure is contributing to building a sustainable and inclusive social ecosystem. The research will highlight the peculiar urban context in which it develops and focuses on how a self-generating network of knowledge based on a peer-to-peer system can be a key agent to enhance civic engagement for urban development.
Maker and DIY cultures, as well as the trend towards personal fabrication have gained recent visibility in HCI research. While first reflecting on makers as a new user and " social actor " , current rhetoric has shifted towards the maker movement's potential for empowerment and democratization. By focusing on places and the organization of personal fabrication we are drawing lines between amateur vs. professional, and home vs. work settings as well as leisure vs. educational motivations. Here we discuss and map out the characteristics of semi-professional places for making in the light of a small study from a hackathon event.
A Makerspace Network as Part of a Regional Innovation Ecosystem, the Case of Emilia-Romagna
European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes, 2020
Makerspaces and their various declinations are a widespread initiative of workshops that offer open access to digital and traditional production equipment, with the aim of democratizing access to technologies and supporting bottom-up innovation. They are recognized as a new form of ‘third places’ in a contemporary perspective. As the number of such places grows along with their active communities, business models, contamination projects with universities, companies, and civil society, many researchers have explored the ability of makerspaces to serve as innovation facilitators. Over the last few years, networks and coalitions of makerspaces have started to pop-up with a range of objectives, such as the advocacy and coordination of territorial or project-oriented coalitions; however, they remain largely unanalyzed and undocumented. The paper explores the phenomenon of these networks, drawing on a case study that describes the development of a makerspace regional network in Northern Italy, providing insights concerning its impact on both relationships at a local level and on the acceptance of third places within a regional innovation system, contributing to opening a new field of discussion about the potential of such networked organizations.
2016
Understanding the Maker Economy "A new type of producer society [is] taking shape [that] … has the potential to transform how we think and talk about American manufacturing-as well as its role in the U.S. economy."-(Stangler and Maxwell, DIY Producer Society, 2012) "Makers are currently serving the 'long tail' of demand with unique products that embody a range of customization and/or localization…over time, we could see customized products making up an increasing portion of the market."-(Maker Media & Deloitte Center for the Edge, Impact of the Maker Movement: Notes from the Maker Impact Summit, 2013) "The maker movement is centered in cities. And this new, hyperlocal manufacturing environment holds potential not only for individual hobbyists but also for community-wide advances in local entrepreneurship and job creation. Cities have a great opportunity to catalyze this movement as a way to improve our local economies, diversify workforce opportunities, and support the creative economy."