by Liz Corbin & Hannah Stewart<\/strong><\/p>\n
The convergence of emergent digitally-connected technologies and peer production practices has led to aspirations of post-industrial production practices whereby information on how things are made travels globally, whilst the physical production of things can occur locally, on-demand.<\/p>\n
At the same time, ever-increasing labour costs abroad, high transportation costs, sensitivity to global production trends, material scarcity, complex supply chains and increased risk have renewed the focus on the social and environmental impact of manufacturing and its externalities (Policy Connect, 2015). The augmentation and intersection of such ecological issues, technological capacities and economic concerns has given rise to the conceptualisation of Redistributed Manufacturing (RDM). This is an intentional reconfiguration of the distribution of manufacturing, which seeks to utilise emerging digital standards and practices to transition towards a more sustainable and resilient industrial landscape.<\/p>\n
Emergent RDM discourse advocates a transition towards a more sustainable industrial landscape through a recalibration of existing infrastructure and practices (Stewart and Tooze, 2016). From creative commons licensing, to machine sharing, to open APIs; RDM agendas have looked to develop and direct the technical, material and cultural capacities of emergent decentralised production practices in ways that question and restructure how products are manufactured, how waste is managed, and how cultures of consumption operate (Tooze et al., 2014; Corbin, 2015; Policy Connect, 2015; Dewberry et al., 2016). This shift away from globally fragmented supply chains towards more locally oriented, responsive production ecosystems would affect not just products and material flows, but also the distribution of risk and consequence, reward and value (Stewart and Tooze, 2016).<\/p>\n
In recent years, proponents of RDM within academia, industry and policy have sign-posted shared machine shops, and the communities who use them, as key actors for the practical embedding and progression of the RDM agenda (Kohtala, 2015; Prendeville et al., 2016). From the networking of digital tooling and the sharing of production waste solutions, to the normalising of certain artefacts, projects and practices \u2013 shared machine shops have been positioned as demonstrative sites for RDM proof-of-concepts (Tooze et al., 2014; Distributed Everything, 2017). It is our observation as participant observers within these communities of practice and academic interventions that the targeted endorsement of RDM at shared machine shops has spurred a significant level of interest, inquiry and tension amongst the communities who use them.<\/p>\n
As the RDM agenda continues to surround shared machine shops, the tension that arises is between community-based production practices that do and do not subscribe to this RDM agenda. Through a secondary analysis of a national survey dataset and a critical reflection of initial academic programming, this paper will consider how, when and to what impact emergent techno-myths and corresponding national agendas get taken up within shared machine shops. In this paper we will argue that over time, a process of co-institutionalisation has occurred between a digitally-dominant narrative of peer production and a growing national RDM discourse. We will explore how, as individuals and communities find ways to engage within this process of co-institutionalisation, particular hierarchies of technical, material, social and knowledge relations have begun to emerge from within UK shared machine shops.<\/p>\n
In this section we will explore to what extent the emergence of shared machine shops across the UK, and the celebration of particular technosocial practices within them, is privileging a distinct assemblage of technical, material and social actors from the wider arena of community-based production. Through analysing the open dataset of UK Makerspaces completed by Nesta in 2015, we aim to illustrate the technological and material realities that such a technomyth has begun to engender within UK shared machine shops. We will conclude this analysis by asking to what extent the marrying of shared machine shops, and the peer production communities who use them, to notions of digital fabrication so closely may ultimately prompt the homogenisation of culturally complex sociotechnical practices into technologically deterministic modes.<\/p>\n
Shared machine shops have been heralded as \u2018occupied factories of peer production theory\u2019 – as sites for the realisation of a fourth industrial revolution wherein emergent forms of peer production[1]<\/a> and grassroots digital fabrication[2]<\/a> can take hold of previously inaccessible production power towards more democratic ends (Dougherty, 2012; Anderson, 2012; Journal of Peer Production, 2014). Dale Dougherty, founder of Maker Media and token \u2018father of the Maker Movement\u2019 reinforces this emerging assumption, explaining it is through the democratisation of digital tools, that ‘making’ has become a universal element of human identity (Dougherty, 2012). This growing narrative is also commonly placed within academic writing on the topic; for example, when Taylor et al. describe \u2018makerspaces\u2019 as the most visible manifestations of an emergent maker culture, as \u201cthey provide communal facilities in an openly accessible space, giving access to digital fabrication and open electronics, which have been collectively hailed as enabling a revolution in personal manufacturing\u201d (Taylor et al., 2016). The wedding of those peer production practices found within shared machine shops to digital fabrication technologies continues to circulate across the Western world – from academic journals and conferences[3]<\/a> to popular technology publications and outlets[4]<\/a>. In echo of Braybrooke and Jordan, we argue that in this way the maker movement and it\u2019s digitally dominant narrative has become a neatly-packaged and widely disseminated way of understanding a myriad of peer production practices presently bubbling up from within shared machine shops throughout the Western world. In keeping with McGregor et al., Braybrooke and Jordan refer to such a phenomenon as a \u2018technomyth\u2019 whereby technologies are \u2018narrated\u2019 in ways that create a larger story about society whose key component is a determinism of our experiences of the world through our experiences of technology (2017). Advancing from McGregor, Dourish and Bell argue a technomyth acts as a foundational story by which a mythical future is constructed and then predicted simply by inventing it (2011). Dourish and Bell evidence the self-fulfilling nature of the technomyth through an exploration of the narrative that drove contemporary practices surrounding ubiquitous computing in the early 1990s. In this analyses Dourish and Bell argue that the techno-tale of progress which surrounded ubiquitous computing in the early 1990s became itself foundational to scholars in computer science and related fields \u2013 framing one\u2019s understanding of ubiquitous computing as a transformational force which would “change social relations, social order and daily life” \u2013 thus, in turn, shaping future innovations akin to this image (2011, p. 3).<\/p>\n
The open dataset of UK makerspaces, completed by Nesta in 2015, proves a useful mechanism for revealing the types of materials, tools, and users characteristic of shared machine shops across the UK[5]<\/a>. An analysis of the dataset makes clear that shared machine shops across the UK vary greatly from one to the next. They are formed of diverse communities that consist of a broad range of social actors, from machine manufacturers and material developers to individual practitioners and special interest hobby groups. They are home to a diverse set of tools and technologies, from 3D printers and engineering lathes to jacquard looms and potters wheels. They can accommodate a rich palette of materials, from recycled plastic filament to clay, stone and glass. Yet, what also clearly arises from the dataset is a distinct pattern; a specific subset of material, technological and social actors that hold the foreground across the network of spaces \u2013 playing a lead role in shaping the practices that flow within and between these spaces.<\/p>\n
Out of the 97 surveyed shared machine shops in the dataset, 48 spaces contributed data on user-types. User-types include; student, hobbyist, visitor or observer, start up, sole trader or micro-business, corporate or large organisation, teacher, and SME. When measuring the relative prominence of each user-type; the most prominent user-type is hobbyist with 25 sites citing hobbyist as the majority of their membership; and the least prominent user-types include SMEs and Start ups, with 2 sites citing Start ups and zero sites citing SMEs as the majority of their membership (refer to table 1, section 6). Out of the 97 surveyed shared machine shops in the dataset, 52 spaces contributed data on activity-types. Activity-types include; to socialise, to receive training, to get an introduction to making, to make something specific, to prototype, to make one-off pieces, to network or find a maker\/partner\/designer, and to do small-batch production. When measuring the relative prominence of each activity-type, the most prominent activity-types are to socialise (21 sites citing this activity-type as the majority of their membership) and to receive training (18 sites citing this activity-type as the majority of their membership); and the least prominent activity-type is small-batch production, with one site citing this activity-type as the majority of their membership (refer to table 1, section 7).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n