Activist: 2/2

Article proposes a critique of a policy or practice with specific action proposals or suggestions.

Academic: 2/2*

Article follows conventions of academic research article ­­ e.g. position in literature, cited sources, and claimed contribution.

Prospective: 0/2

Article is based on developments that have not yet occurred.

Formalised: 2/2

Article is based on formal logic or mathematical technique.

Language quality: 2/2*

Standard of English expression in article is excellent.

Comprehensiveness: 2/2*

Most related sources are mentioned in article [this is an invitation to careful selection rather than a demonstration of prowess in citation collection ­­ i.e. apt and representative choices made in source citations].

Logical flow: 2/2*

Ideas are well organised in article.

Originality: 2/2*

The argument presented in article is new.

Reviewer A

This article is very interesting because it talks from a first hand personal perspective about different issues, in which a feminist approach to technology and to everyday life must be taken into consideration. It contributes to a feminist view/approach of the caring attentions, as something that must be interconnected to technological development.

Reviewer B

As a feminist scholar with a disability, I found this work refreshing. Some more comfortable with positivist science might balk at the personal and reflexive nature of this piece, but feminist disability research in the technology space is sorely lacking.  This is a strong reflexive piece well situated in theory, and I believe the personal perspective makes it accessible.

General Review: This paper reflexivity discusses personal experience with an insulin monitor and pump, and how a “feminist Hacker ethic” as a lens for deconstructing this relationship.  It uses Haraway’s notion of a cyborg to discuss the relationship between human and machine, and personal experience through a critical lens of reflexivity to explore the topic.  The work is well presented.  There is not a lot of feminist work on disability (though the author frames this as illness not disability) and I feel this work makes an important contribution.  The critical discussion of personal experiences makes the topic much more accessible than abstracted data, we can imagine a colleague not too different from ourselves using this technology as extension of self.  As such I feel this work will make it much less difficult to other the work and bring much needed attention to need to consider health and disability in discussions of making and peer production

I have a few areas of concern, or rather suggestions for improvement:

First, I was a concerned that that this was framed in the context of illness and not disability.  Under the American’s with Disability’s Act diabetes while an illness is also a protected disability. While I recognize the author might not be American and this is an international journal, sensitivities to the cross-cultural division between disability and illness is prudent.  I would consider pulling the disability studies literature in as well, especially as maker culture literature is often SO very abelist. To this end when you state “Furthermore, they require participation in time and skills that are biased by gender, race and socio-economic status.” consider adding ability.

You briefly mention sex and disability, but do not expand.  So often the disabled body loses its status as a sexual being.  On the flip side there is a fetishization of the machine.  How does the disabled cyborg body play into this?  This would be fascinating to explore, if not here elsewhere.

As far as literature I expected a citation of Marion Iris Young’s Lived Body Experience, and perhaps her work might be of use to explore.  Similarly, Trotshynski, Lee and Dourish discuss the role of location tracking in parolees, and the boundaries between technology and self.  That paper is fairly well known in the HCI part of the maker culture thus might make a good touchstone.  Finally, in feminist STS particularly with regards to birth control and pregnancy there is a critical discourse of male doctors and technicians working on the female body as object. There is a marked lack of discussion of power explicitly. Your work has strong potential as a counter narrative, and your discussions of hacking and subverting capitalism are more powerful in this context.

I very much want to see this piece accepted with only minor changes.