No subject

ons of Possibility" by SSL Nagbot (a.k.a Lilly Nguyen, Sophie Toupin, and S=
haowen Bardzell)

This special issue of the Journal of Peer Production shows a growing body o=
f work that brings together feminism with hacking and making. To date, femi=
nist thinking has been taken up by hacking and making researchers to reveal=
 the gendering of techno-labor, to facilitate emancipatory efforts, to cult=
ivate alternative perspectives, and to make visible the infrastructural rel=
ations of technology. This combination of visualization with emancipatory a=
lterity demonstrates the ways that feminism in hacking is largely based on =
a politics of visibility; that is, hacking and making serve the broader obj=
ectives of bringing to light the invisible infra/structures of power that r=
ender technological achievement possible. In this special issue, we see tha=
t the extant forms of feminist research and practice critique gendered form=
s of marginalization in hacking and making in several ways. First, many fem=
inist hackers and makers seek to redress the lack of gender diversity withi=
n these techno-communities through the designs of women, queer, and trans-f=
riendly spaces for hacking and making or addressing women-centered concerns=
 such as improving breast-pumps for nursing. Second, we also see that hacki=
ng and making comprise both a method and a framework to introduce new kinds=
 of expertise, such as craft and care, into conversations of information te=
chnology. These configurations of hacking and making as a method and framew=
ork depart from the strict focus on technology associated with the masculin=
ity of hacking. Instead, we find that the feminist inquiry and intervention=
s within the essays in this special issue alter the very notions of hacking=
 and making and thus introduce alternate values of inclusion and intimacy.


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or - short version