Christina Dunbar-Hester: Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures (2020)
Filed under book | Tags: · care, community, computing, diversity, diy, ethnicity, feminism, floss, gender, hacker culture, hackerspace, hacking, identity, open source, openness, participation, politics, queer, race, technology, women
“A firsthand look at efforts to improve diversity in software and hackerspace communities.
Hacking, as a mode of technical and cultural production, is commonly celebrated for its extraordinary freedoms of creation and circulation. Yet surprisingly few women participate in it: rates of involvement by technologically skilled women are drastically lower in hacking communities than in industry and academia. Hacking Diversity investigates the activists engaged in free and open-source software to understand why, despite their efforts, they fail to achieve the diversity that their ideals support.
Christina Dunbar-Hester shows that within this well-meaning volunteer world, beyond the sway of human resource departments and equal opportunity legislation, members of underrepresented groups face unique challenges. She brings together more than five years of firsthand research: attending software conferences and training events, working on message boards and listservs, and frequenting North American hackerspaces. She explores who participates in voluntaristic technology cultures, to what ends, and with what consequences. Digging deep into the fundamental assumptions underpinning STEM-oriented societies, Dunbar-Hester demonstrates that while the preferred solutions of tech enthusiasts—their “hacks” of projects and cultures—can ameliorate some of the “bugs” within their own communities, these methods come up short for issues of unequal social and economic power. Distributing “diversity” in technical production is not equal to generating justice.
Hacking Diversity reframes questions of diversity advocacy to consider what interventions might appropriately broaden inclusion and participation in the hacking world and beyond.”
Publisher Princeton University Press, 2020
Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology series
ISBN 9780691182070, 0691182078
xi+271 pages
Reviews: Jenna P. Carpenter (Tech & Society, 2021), Rebecca Ortenberg (Lady Science, 2020), Samantha Shorey (International Journal of Communication, 2020).
EPUB (updated on 2022-8-29)
PDF (added on 2022-12-12)
Cyber Folk: Digbee’s Electronic Chronicle (2019)
Filed under catalogue | Tags: · diy, electronic music, music, musical instruments
“Cyber Folk: Digbee’s Electronic Chronicle gives a thorough look into a unique, highly personal approach to musical electronic instrument building, an approach that is many things: naïve, enthusiastic, sincere, alien, and familiar. This strange future/primitive work journal contains the release of tons of data, beautiful photos, schematics, building techniques, and the inside stories behind many of Digbee’s most beloved instruments.
Also inside are artist features for Digbee’s favorite musical electronic practitioners. Within are never-before-published photos and stories of the work of Craig Anderton, Charles Cohen, Michael Johnsen, and Nautical Almanac’s Twig Harper and Carly Ptak.
Peppered throughout the book are examples of connected imagery from comic books and science fiction illustration.
This book was not written for a specific niche. Anyone with a curious mind and interest in musical electronics, experimental music, art, and craft will find a place of connection.
Cyber Folk: Digbee’s Electronic Chronicle is produced by Harpy Gallery and Selfish 60 Studio for the art exhibition entitled New American Instruments which was up from July 20th to August 10th, 2019.”
Publisher Harpy Gallery & Selfish 60 Studio, Rutherford, NJ, 2019
143 pages
PDF (21 MB)
Comment (0)Keep It Simple, Make It Fast! An Approach to Underground Music Scenes, 4 vols (2015-2019)
Filed under proceedings | Tags: · aesthetics, diy, gender, music criticism, music history, punk, rock, underground
Proceedings from a series of conferences, Keep it Simple, Make it Fast! (KISMIF), held in Porto and dedicated to the analysis of punk manifestations in Portugal and elsewhere since the 1970s.
Edited by Paula Guerra (1-4), Tânia Moreira (1-3) and Thiago Pereira Alberto (4)
Publisher Universidade do Porto, Porto, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019
Open access
ISBN 9789898648495 (vol 1), 9789898648631 (vol 2), 9789898648884 (vol 3), 9789895417919 (vol 4)
584, 297, 288, 592 pages
Conf. review: Christine Feldman-Barrett (Volume!, 2016).
Volume 1 (17 MB)
Volume 2 (10 MB)
Volume 3 (9 MB)
Volume 4 (304 MB, updated on 2019-11-8)