Just Powers Podcast

S3E4 – Feminist Hackerspace as a Place of Infrastructure Production

In this episode we read Selena Savic and Stefanie Wuschitz’s article “Feminist Hackerspace as a Place of Infrastructure Production”, which was published in 2018 by Ada A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology (issue number 13).

In this article, Savic and Wuschitz approach the question of infrastructure by taking a critical stand towards feminist hacking practices, with specific focus on how such practices might offer a way to create and share essential infrastructure with female or transgender identified makers.

“Instead of adding to the growing voice of critique of exclusionist and inclusionist practices, we take a critical stand towards feminist hacking practice itself: we look at what is produced by feminist hackerspaces. Using standpoint theory to analyze the experience of working with one particular self-organized group of feminist artists and developers, this paper looks at practice in feminist hackerspaces as a way to create and share essential infrastructure with female or transgender identified makers. We analyze patterns of mutual self-help through sharing and learning, and their role in creating feminist infrastructure.”

This article is available as online blog and licenced under: a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Reference: Savic, Selena & Stefanie Wuschitz (2018). “Feminist Hackerspace as a Place of Infrastructure Production.” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No. 13. 10.5399/uo/ada.2018.13.10