Diversity in FabLabs: Culture, Role Models and the Gendering of Making

Abstract

Diversity and inclusion in the technology sector is increasingly debated, specially in the context of equal opportunities for all and a shortage of experts in many tech related industries. The need to be more inclusive can refer to different age groups, people with diverse culturally and linguistically backgrounds or gender. All in all, ethnic, gender and socio-economic diversity is not yet at the forefront of fabrication laboratories (FabLabs) agendas for change. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion of diversity and inclusion by primarily elaborating gender relations in FabLabs and, to a lesser extent, discussing age and socio-economic conditions of makers. Our analysis is based on 39 interviews and the analysis of 55,450 data points extracted from the log files of 3d-printers, CNC milling machines, laser cutters and cutting plotters. This combination of qualitative and quantitative data reveals that, indeed, some machines are used more frequently by men or women. However, the main difference is in absolute numbers, i.e. women are not joining FabLabs for a variety of reasons ranging from uninviting cultures to the lack of role models in technology driven areas in general.

Not Every Remix is an Innovation

“…The reverse situation, called homophily and referring to a node's propensity to connect with similar nodes, is only given along the dotted line, on which the original nodes have as many connections as their neighbours. In social networks for examples, we see more homogeneous groupings which counteracts the diversity of the maker community [42].…”

Movimiento FabLab: diseño de investigación mediante métodos mixtos

“…Paralelamente, la obtención de información se complementó con la asistencia a diversos eventos y la visita a varios de los FabLabs españoles tal y como se indica en Tabla 8 y la Tabla 9 respectivamente con objeto de contrastar la información obtenida en los otros cursos de la investigación. Finalmente, aunque la perspectiva de género no es uno de los objetivos de esta investigación, vemos necesario destacar que el número de mujeres presentes en los FabLabs es muy reducido (Voigt, Unterfrauner, & Stelzer, 2017;Maric, 2018;Forte et al, 2012). Aunque en España contamos con algunas FabManager, y su aportación se recoge en algunas de las entrevistas (FabLab Barcelona, FabLab Tinkerers Castelldefels, FabLab León, FabLab CEU), en la mayoría de laboratorios es mayoritaria la presencia masculina.…”

Hacking the Knowledge of Maker Communities in Support of 21st Century Education

“…Innovation networks in education can be seen as an amalgamate of Wenger's communities of practice [34] and Kazmer's idea that knowledge is shaped by learners' membership in multiple overlapping communities [21]. The benefit that comes with considering communities is primarily based on their purpose giving nature, even though we must be aware of overstating the homogeneity of communities [33]. Wenger argues that throughout life, communities motivate our learning by defining the relevancy of problems and providing orientation in terms of where answers can be found or where previous attempts to find solutions have been unsuccessful.…”