User:Artemis gryllaki/Thesis outline

Thesis outline

Artemis Gryllaki . 14-11-19 . XPUB

Topics

Hackerspaces, Hacklabs, Feminist Tech initiatives

Focus

Feminist Tech initiatives

Introduction

Background

Technologies are situated and socially shaped along with their meanings, functions, domains, and use. We currently live in a sociopolitical reality where ever-growing profit is the main goal; capitalist tech production is a very flexible system, which constantly finds ways to reproduce the existing economic and power structures. "Technological innovation is the main engine of economic development." (Arthur, 2011)

It is a mainstream idea that technology keeps on improving because human needs and demands for technology keep on changing. However, we have to ask: who is being served? "...too often it seems to make things harder, leaving us with fifty-button remote controls, digital cameras with hundreds of mysterious features and book-length manuals, and cars with dashboard systems worthy of the space shuttle." (James Surowiecki)

Technological development is supposed to help our lives in many ways, helping us to do things faster and more efficiently, through high-quality devices and computers. We could say that this points to autonomy, but at the same time, it also raises another very serious matter: dependence. "You depend on those who develop and distribute it, on their business plans or their contributions to social value. And you change with it. Are Whatsapp and Telegram not changing the way we relate to each other? Is Wikipedia not changing the culture of the encyclopedia? And you change it too, in turn." (Margarita Padilla, 2017)

It is critical to keep on asking questions about what technological horizons are relevant for us and how we are building them. Some communities are already practicing and building alternative spaces to gain agency in technological issues. This research looks at spaces where tech practices are happening outside, or at the margins of the tech industry, such as hacklabs and hackerspaces. Then, it questions what their perspectives and directions are, and also looks at how they reproduce social hierarchies or biases. Who fits in?

Finally, it explores the potential of inclusive feminist hack/tech initiatives to re-politicise technology; what do they suggest? what relations do they propose? what issues do they face? why is it important to amplify and protect their work?

Thesis Statement

Local and international feminist tech initiatives and the communities around them are influential and useful in the current sociopolitical technological landscape; their suggestions and practices raise awareness about gender and other social exclusions happening in tech, while they point towards re-politicising technology, by practically engaging with it.