Marinella Ferrara & Shujun Ban
Women and Maker Cultures – the Relevance of Technological Appropriation from History to Current Phenomena Introduction In recent years, consumers and designers’ interest in crafting related to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and maker culture paradigm ( fabbing, hacking, etc.) has grown in Europe, USA, and, lastly, in Asia as well. Crafters and makers’ exhibitions, fairs, shows, magazines, forums, blogs, image banks, tutorials, and web platforms are echoing the Arts and Crafts movements of the past. In Europe, as a matter of fact, the interest in craft has never disappeared. Due to different reasons and implications, the culture of craft cyclically returns to be an issue of debate in the design discourse. This is particularly evident in Italy, for example, where design, artisanal skills and industrial manufacture are strongly connected: the debate on craft has been particularly lively in the 70s, together with a new interest for experimental practices. The protagonists of this debate (Alessandro Mendini, Ettore Sottsass, Andrea Branzi and many others) would have subsequently redefined the role of design, marking the passage from design as a tool for the industry to a process of collective and social creativity. Apart from the numerous and diverse contexts involved in this worldwide phenomenon, one common aspect of the crafting movement is the growing communities of women sharing their creations and activities. This has been regarded as a political act, which can be partly related to a third wave of feminist DIY movement (Carpenter, 2010; Hackney, 2013; Burton, 2015; Salle, 2016). Another peculiar feature of the current makers’ paradigm is the centrality of digital technologies and ICTs: women and ICTs are the harbinger of significant empowerment of our society (Cummings & O’Neil, 2015), as this combination is promising in terms of gender equality, social innovation and sustainability. Women’s maker culture can represent a form of opposition to deterministic trends, by rebalancing the way technology is used and by giving voice to a larger part of the society. Our experience in university teaching has shown us the uncritical adoption of many trends proposed by students and younger colleagues. In 168
