TY - JOUR

T1 - Interrogating innovation

T2 - silence, citizenship, and the figure of the hacker

AU - Davies, Sarah R.

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - The maker movement has risen to recent public prominence, imagined by governments, industry, and educators as leading to economic growth. This article examines this movement through analysis of the figure of the hacker and the way in which scientific citizenship is represented through it. Hacking and making’s widely claimed salience to public policy, education, and social enterprise has been enabled by a public imagination of hackers as ideal (scientific) citizens. By using political theory concerning the role and value of silence in citizenship, the article explores what is rendered other through this promotion of the figure of the hacker, suggesting that practices of care, watching and waiting, thinking and reflecting, and sitting with are all valuable aspects of citizenship that are elided in contemporary accounts. The argument has implications for the maker movement, wider conceptions of scientific citizenship, and public imaginations of innovation: by focusing on the “noise” of active participation and personal responsibility, we miss the “silence” of other ways of being.

AB - The maker movement has risen to recent public prominence, imagined by governments, industry, and educators as leading to economic growth. This article examines this movement through analysis of the figure of the hacker and the way in which scientific citizenship is represented through it. Hacking and making’s widely claimed salience to public policy, education, and social enterprise has been enabled by a public imagination of hackers as ideal (scientific) citizens. By using political theory concerning the role and value of silence in citizenship, the article explores what is rendered other through this promotion of the figure of the hacker, suggesting that practices of care, watching and waiting, thinking and reflecting, and sitting with are all valuable aspects of citizenship that are elided in contemporary accounts. The argument has implications for the maker movement, wider conceptions of scientific citizenship, and public imaginations of innovation: by focusing on the “noise” of active participation and personal responsibility, we miss the “silence” of other ways of being.

KW - Citizenship

KW - Hacking

KW - Maker movement

KW - Silence

U2 - 10.1215/17432197-7093366

DO - 10.1215/17432197-7093366

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85061717800

VL - 14

SP - 354

EP - 371

JO - Cultural Politics

JF - Cultural Politics

SN - 1743-2197

IS - 3

ER -