El ritmo de las actividades de diseño e instalación de redes comunitarias en veredas del municipio de Fusagasugá se ve acrecentado por las convocatorias internas de investigación de la Universidad de Cundinamarca que a lo largo del tiempo de vida de Red FusaLibrehan sido un músculo financiero que les permite acelerar los proc

These models are emerging, which is why its exciting to be involved in the ground floor of this sector, however some models clearly make sense already and thats largely because they closely follow the models free software itself has shaped. If you want status, then you can make a name for yourself by leading a team to write the docs ala free software itself, if you want money then build the reputation for the documentation team and contract out your knowledge (eg. extend the docs on contract ala free software).

Dentro de esta propuesta, bien llamada ‘investigación desde la acción colectiva’ (IAC), “las comunidades hacen parte de la producción del conocimiento como investigadoras y los investigadores e investigadoras hacen parte de las acciones colectivas [de transformación social]”

‘caminar la palabra’, un concepto desarrollado por la minga social y comunitaria de los nasa para señalar la necesidad de hacerse visible, denunciar y tejer conocimientos, resistencias y estrategias de manera colectiva con otros movimientos. Las alianzas requieren la creación de inter-conocimiento y traducción entre movimientos y mundos para permitir la inteligibilidad y una medida de coordinación (

. Cambiar la forma de cambiar para cambiar de manera autónoma y construir una nueva realidad (comunidad, región, nación) desde abajo y a la izquierda, como los zapatistas gustan decir. La autonomía no se logra por medio de la ‘captura del Estado’ sino recuperando del Estado las áreas claves de la vida social que ha colonizado. Crea ámbitos de acción que son autónomos del Estado y nuevos arreglos institucionales con ese propósito (como las conocidas juntas de buen gobierno en los territorios zapatistas). La autonomía pretende el establecimiento de nuevas bases para la vida social.

Maestría en Estudios Interdisciplinarios del Desarrollo de la Universidad del Cauca (un bastión del pensamiento decolonial en América Latina, a pesar de su referencia al desarrollo), busca ser una cátedra abierta en la que pueda tener lugar un diálogo inter-epistémico entre académicos, intelectuales y activistas. Tramas y mingas, al que asisten varios cientos de participantes, en gran parte de movimientos sociales y comunidades de base del suroccidente colombiano, es un maravilloso espacio de conversación entre mundos y conocimientos.

El énfasis en la construcción de lugar y en la práctica colaborativa, así como en el arraigo inequívoco del diseño para la transición a una visión ecológica, constituye, sin duda, una intervención ontológica —una ontología política del diseño

Todo diseño es para ‘uso’ enactivo (pero no involucra sólo ‘usuarios’); produce eficacia operacional (pero no ‘utilidad’); fomenta la autopoiesis de las entidades vivas y de los conjuntos heterogéneos de vida; es consciente de vivir en el pluriverso.

En la creación de ámbitos de conversaciones para la acción pasa, necesariamente, del diseño a la experiencia y viceversa (a través, por ejemplo, de la creación de prototipos y de análisis de escenarios). Se pregunta hasta dónde la creación de nuevos diseños permite la emergencia de mejores dominios de interpretación y de acción (

desde esta perspectiva las organizaciones constituyen conversaciones para la acción. Hay un cierto grado de recurrencia y formalización en estas conversaciones, que Winograd y Flores (1986) caracterizan en términos de actos lingüísticos distintivos. Las organizaciones son redes de compromisos que operan a través de actos lingüísticos, como las promesas y

Las rupturas son momentos en los que se interrumpe el modo habitual de ser-en-el-mundo; cuando ocurre una descomposición de este tipo nuestras prácticas consuetudinarias y el papel de nuestras herramientas en su mantenimiento quedan expuestas y aparecen nuevas soluciones de diseño;

Diseñar, por lo tanto, se convierte en una práctica crítica localizada, que vincula la dimensión abierta (open source) de la tecnología con la práctica cultural del diseño.9Como lo anuncia un reciente texto sobre metodologías de diseño, este tiene lugaren términos de conocimientos, contextos, acciones, y aprendizajes situados, ya no neutrales ni universales (Simonsen et al. 2014). A partir de este debate es importante destacar la relevancia que estos diseñadores dan a las preguntas sobre el lugar, la localidad y la comunidad en su revisión de la práctica del diseño como un correctivo a la aceptación acrítica de las tecnologías digitales móviles y como una manera de redefinir su papel en la vida cotidiana.

La buena noticia, sin embargo, es que ya están sucediendo cosas más allá de lo usual en muchos ámbitos sociales, políticos y tecnológicos (como veremos más adelante, las transiciones civilizatorias ya están surgiendo); la mala noticia es que quizás no están sucediendo con la rapidez suficiente, si nos atenemos a los criterios de científicos y activistas del cambio climático

el metarrelato del ‘razonamiento abstracto’ del conocimiento ignora una característica muy importante de la producción de conocimiento que el pensamiento de diseño no olvida: el hecho de que la creación es siempre emergente, en los dos sentidos del término, es decir, auto-organizada y ‘alter-organizada’. Este último calificativo significa que el académico/diseñador también establece elementos y toma decisiones que permiten que la dinámica de auto-organización despegue y haga su trabajo.

co. El diseño es ontológico porque cada objeto, herramienta, servicio o, incluso, narrativa en los que está involucrado, crea formas particulares de ser, saber y hacer

. Skill, effort and practice are regarded necessary elements in the process by which an actor becomes taken-for-granted (Bourdieu 2000). Accordingly, legitimacy is not simply out there for the asking, but has to be created as well as exploited by actors who seek to gain legitimation.

t from day one the Club complemented its hacks with outward-oriented com-munication aimed to make the hackers’ findings comprehensible and its political demands visible to the largest possible public. The Btx hack itself, for example, would not have been overly effectual if news media had not picked up the story. As news media reported widely on the hack and were largely in support of the hackers’ criticism, the hack gained an event character. Following the Btx hack, the CCC was recognized as a collective actor that had something relevant to say about the communi-cation and information landscape in Germany. The CCC was invited to speak on the main television news magazine of public broadcaster ZDF, the advice of Club members was frequently sought by national newspa-pers, they were asked by corporations to speak on data security and were requested by the newly established Green Party to write a report on the Party’s potential use of networked computing. one of the important details here is that instead of only being the subject of media coverage, the CCC had the opportunity to communicate its point of view to differ-ent audiences

a lower number of partici-pating members also meant a lower number of differing opinions; which, in turn, enabled the group to keep the frames of relevance more focused and to make decisions in a timely manner. Accordingly, performing direct digital action in the form of hacking was directly related to com-municative practices, as they later played an important role in relation to organizing, coordinating and executing the Club’s political project

Thismaynotbestatedexplicitly,butthediscourseoninscribingdigitalrightsashumanrightsininternationalhumanrightslawoftenassumesthattheforceofsuchlawswillguaranteethatindividuals,states,corporations,andotherbodieswillperformthem.Thisassumptionfailstorecognizethathowpeopleexperiencebeingdigitalcitizensandhowtheyperformrightsbybringingthemintobeingthroughenactingthemselvesarethegroundsonwhichrightswillbeguaranteed.Howpeopleexperienceperformingrightsisthekeytounderstandinghowtheyinhabitthatspaceofrightsanddevelopapoliticalsubjectivitynecessarytomakingrightsclaims‘I,we,theyhavearightto’.Withoutsuchunderstandingandwithoutdevelopingconceptsandmethodsappropriatetosuchanunderstanding,mosteffortstoinscriberights,weareafraid,wouldremaininadequate,forthesewouldberightswithoutpoliticalsubjects.Conversely,thesamecanbesaidforthosewhoassumethattheenactmentofrights,ofimaginativelyandperformativelybringingrightsintobeing,wouldguaranteetheirinscription.Withoutunderstandingthelegalityofclaimsandtheirscopeorsubstance,suchenactmentswouldremaininadequate,too.Withouttheforceoflaw,thiswouldamounttosubjectswithoutpoliticalrights.Itisthatspacebetweeninscriptionandenactmentthatprovidescluestounderstandinghowdigitalcitizensareemergingaspoliticalsubjectsofoureraandthosewhosepoliticssidewitheitherinscriptionorenactmentaresomewhatmissingthesignificanceofthatrelation.

First,itisundecidablewhetheranactisindeedcapableofproducingasubjectthatitnames.Forthatreason,withoutguarantees,itmustbedoneregardlessofitsactualeffects,fortheeffectsofcitationanditerationareasmuchaboutbringingthepoliticalsubjectthusnamedintobeingasaboutmakinganattempttoremindourselvesthat‘I,we,theyhavearightto’mustbeperformed.Second,withoutnamingthepoliticalsubject,withoutcitinganditeratingyetagainthat‘I,we,theyhavearightto’,itseventualeffectwillnotbeaccomplished,thatis,bringingtheforceoflawintobeing.

Thecharterincludesnineteenrightsandonesetofduties,whichareimportanttooutline

Howcanthecallingtoparticipatethatwehaveidentifiedproducedigitalcitizenswhoseactsexceedtheirintentions?Toputitdifferently,atensionexistsbetweenthewaysinwhichthefigureofthedigitalcitizenisconceivedinhegemonicimaginariesandlegaldiscoursesandhowsheisperformativelycomingintobeingthroughactionsthatequiphertobeacitizeninwaysthatarenotacknowledgedoralwaysintended.

Mossbergeretal.,forexample,understanddigitalcitizenshipastheabilitytofullyparticipateinsocietyonline,whichrequiresregularaccesstotheInternet,withadequatedevicesandspeeds,technologicalskillsandcompetence,andinformationliteracy.[21]Equippingthusincludesnotonlyhardware,suchasinstallingcomputersinclassroomsandlibrariesandexpandinghigh-speedbroadbandservices,butalsodevelopingskillsandcapabilitiesthroughtrainingcoursesincomputing,coding,andprogramming

Inequalityisexpressedasleadingtotwodivisions:betweenthosewhodoanddonothaveaccessandbetweenthosewhodoordonotcontributetocontentorleavedigitaltraces.

Wecannotsimplyassumethatbeingadigitalcitizenalreadymeanssomething,suchastheabilitytoparticipate,andthenlookforwhoseconductconformstothismeaning.Rather,digitalactsarerefashioning,inventing,andmakingupcitizensubjectsthroughtheplayofobedience,submission,andsubversion

‘Theforceoftheperformativeisthusnotinheritedfrompriorusage,butissuesforthpreciselyfromitsbreakwithanyandallpriorusage.Thatbreak,thatforceofrupture,istheforceoftheperformative,beyondallquestionoftruthormeaning.’[22]Forpoliticalsubjectivity,‘performativitycanworkinpreciselysuchcounter-hegemonicways.Thatmomentinwhichaspeechactwithoutpriorauthorizationneverthelessassumesauthorizationinthecourseofitsperformancemayanticipateandinstatealteredcontextsforitsfuturereception.’[23]Toconceiveruptureasasystemicortotalupheavalwouldbefutile.Rather,ruptureisamomentwherethefuturebreaksthroughintothepresent.[24]Itisthatmomentwhereitbecomespossibletodosomethingdifferentinorbysayingsomethingdifferent.

wewillspecifydigitalacts—callings(demands,pressures,provocations),closings(tensions,conflicts,disputes),andopenings(opportunities,possibilities,beginnings)—aswaysofconductingourselvesthroughtheInternetanddiscusshowthesebringcyberspaceintobeing

Wehaveidentifiedthisasthecontradictionbetweensubmissionandsubversionorconsentanddissent.JacquesRancièrecapturesthisasdissensus.[27]Wewillreturntodissensusinchapter7.Second,whilearticulatingaparticulardemand(forinclusion,recognition),performingcitizenshipenactsauniversalrighttoclaimrights.Thisisthecontradictionbetweentheuniversalismandparticularismofcitizenship.

Ifmakingrightsclaimsisperformative,itfollowsthattheserightsareneitherfixednorguaranteed:theyneedtoberepeatedlyperformed.Theircomingintobeingandremainingeffectiverequiresperformativity.Theperformativeforceofcitizenshipremindsusthatthefigureofthecitizenhastobebroughtintobeingrepeatedlythroughacts(repertoires,declarations,andproclamations)andconventions(rituals,customs,practices,traditions,laws,institutions,technologies,andprotocols).Withouttheperformanceofrights,thefigureofthecitizenwouldmerelyexistintheoryandwouldhavenomeaningindemocraticpolitics.

Givenitspervasivenessandomnipresence,avoidingorshunningcyberspaceisasdystopianasquittingsocialspace;itisalsocertainthatconductingourselvesincyberspacerequires,asmanyactivistsandscholarshavewarned,intensecriticalvigilance.Sincetherecannotbegenericoruniversalanswerstohowweconductourselves,moreorlesseveryincipientorexistingpoliticalsubjectneedstoaskinwhatwaysitisbeingcalleduponandsubjectifiedthroughcyberspace.Inotherwords,toreturnagaintotheconceptualapparatusofthisbook,thekindsofcitizensubjectscyberspacecultivatesarenothomogenousanduniversalbutfragmented,multiple,andagonistic.Atthesametime,thefigureofacitizenyettocomeisnotinevitable;whilecyberspaceisafragileandprecariousspace,italsoaffordsopenings,momentswhenthinking,speaking,andactingdifferentlybecomepossiblebychallengingandresignifyingitsconventions.Thesearethemomentsthatwehighlighttoarguethatdigitalrightsarenotonlyaprojectofinscriptionsbutalsoenactment.

whenweconsiderTwitter,forinstance,wecanask:Howdoconventionssuchasmicrobloggingplatformsconfigureactionsandcreatepossibilitiesfordigitalcitizenstoact?

Butthefigureofcyberspaceisalsoabsentincitizenship

First,bybringingthepoliticalsubjecttothecentreofconcern,weinterferewithdeterministanalysesoftheInternetandhyperbolicassertionsaboutitsimpactthatimaginesubjectsaspassivedatasubjects.Instead,weattendtohowpoliticalsubjectivitiesarealwaysperformedinrelationtosociotechnicalarrangementstothenthinkabouthowtheyarebroughtintobeingthroughtheInternet.[13]WealsointerferewithlibertariananalysesoftheInternetandtheirhyperbolicassertionsofsovereignsubjects.Wecontendthatifweshiftouranalysisfromhowwearebeing‘controlled’(asbothdeterministandlibertarianviewsagree)tothecomplexitiesof‘acting’—byforegroundingcitizensubjectsnotinisolationbutinrelationtothearrangementsofwhichtheyareapart—wecanidentifywaysofbeingnotsimplyobedientandsubmissivebutalsosubversive.Whileusuallyreservedforhigh-profilehacktivistsandwhistle-blowers,weask,howdosubjectsactinwaysthattransgresstheexpectationsofandgobeyondspecificconventionsandindoingsomakerightsclaimsabouthowtoconductthemselvesasdigitalcitizens

Third, the space acted as a recruitment tool for participants and served as a source of solidarity as members rallied around the space. This emphasis on actively inviting new members drew attention to the group's latent desire for open-access, a radical shift from the often insular nature of hacker culture.

The most important shift in learning during this period was members' relationship to knowledge. GeekSpace attempted to democratize hacking and move towards a more inclusive model. This stands in contrast to Jean Burgess' observation that hacking "as an ideal, permits rational mastery ... but in reality, it is only the technical avant-garde (like computer scientists or hacker subcultures) who achieve this mastery" (Burgess, 2012, p. 30). Individualized encounters with software gave way to making and hardware tinkering where users learned by doing (Rosenberg, 1982). Collaborative work in the space took place in small groups clustered around a project, or the projects were passed from person to person to solve specific problems. The frustrations members had with the first phase of the space organically shifted to a set of practices based in materials, routines, and projects. "Collaboration on ideas and [their] physical manifestations," in the words of a GeekSpace director, is "how you tell somebody's part of the community."

Coleman (2010) asserts that previous literature such as Taylor's "fails to substantially address (and sometimes even barely acknowledge) is the existence and growing importance of face-to-face interactions" (p. 48). For example, Vichot (2009) notes how communities of hackers that coalesce online use "real space" to gain visibility needed to accomplish their collective political goals.

The grassroots nature of HMSs provides a contrast to the less popular FabLabs (Gershenfeld, 2005), which operate as franchises that require expensive tools, and Computer Clubhouses (Kaf ai, Peppler, & Chapman, 2009), which are extensions of schools. Hacker and maker space backers such as Mitch Altman claim that hands-on interactions with technology enable a more flexible and personalized learning experience than an institutionalized curriculum (Baichtal, 2011 ).

How might civic hackathons be improved? Balsamo does not deny contradictory influences exist in these spaces nor avoid engaging because they are “neoliberalist.” Rather, she suggests that sites of messy innovation are also potential sites of learning. Accordingly, my hope is that civic hackathons might be treated more seriously as moments for education and public engagement around the politics of technology. This can be a radical notion because culture, narratives, myths, rituals, expressions, and knowledge might still be reworked.

Civic hackathons are undeniably fraught. Our projections about civic futures are entangled with collective fantasies abouttechnology. This is a story at least as old as science fiction, yet never ultimately removed from our social realities. In some cases small tasks stimulated the civic imagination on larger public problems. In others, cultural reproduction led people to imagine technology that was already racialized, reflecting collective fears that rise to the top. Yet, I resist dismissing civic hackathons. Donna Haraway would certainly see the fallacy in demanding we return to the deliberation of Tocqueville’s town hall meetings. Plus, as anyone who has participated in local government can tell you, city council meetings are hardly a gold standard for civic participation. Mills reminds us that our rationalities are bounded and exist within a particular historic context. We might never get technology out of politics, or the politics out of technology. In a sense, civic technology may itself be a cyborg formed from our collective hopes and fears, one that we might better learn to live with.

Put slightly differently, if we want civic hackathons to produce ideas that improve society, we need to more deeply and sincerely shape choices, thought processes, and activities that might make technology civic.

After we were done, pictures were taken of the group and distributed online to groups in other cities performing similar activities, contributing to the spectacle of the day.

The discussion of the rich social life of data behind the scenes stimulated a discussion for a spin-off project on aggregating geographic data about environmental issues in city. The apparently rote task of transcribing the presence of open data was an inroad to broader questions about how data was constructed behind the scenes and ways residents might add to it.

We failed to assemble a pitch because the civic imagination could not simply float alone. It needed a technological metaphor to give practices traction. Many of the pitched projects had the opposite problem. They started with an existing technology and grafted the goals of the city to it, essentially transposing a model of informed citizenship onto it. These technologies were not so much re-drawing government as increasing its utility.

An audience member yelled out, “what skills does a hack require?” Abhi shook his head. “Not much,” he replied, “you could solve a problem through marketing.” When asked, only around a third of the room raised their hands to identify as software developers.

In addition to moments of the expression of civic imagination, I am attentive to failure — times where conceptual roadblocks were encountered, spectacles failed, and cultural reproduction turned ugly. Being attentive to failure is necessary because civic hackathons tend to be universally celebrated as successes in popular literature. As Anne Balsamo noted in the case of Xerox PARC (p. 55), sites of technological production tend to also be involved in their own hype and myth-making (Also see: Balsamo, 1996). It is necessary to see what is entangled with the fiction.

At least since Doug Engelbart’s “mother of all demos” the introduction of new products has been accompanied by showmanship. Demonstrations are theater where possible uses for technology are presented (Smith, 2009). Hackathons have been argued to be the “front stage” for data and can be contrasted with the murky “back stage” of data production, munging, and interpretation (Gregg, 2014b). The difference with Balsamo might be that she does not put performance in scare quotes.

A more diverse range of participants attended, as civic hackathons were more frequented by community organizers, activists, and students than seasoned software engineers. Those who turned up were also more diverse in ways other than occupation – racially, ethnically, and by gender. These events were largely run by Hack for LA with a wide range of partners. Rarely did sponsors emphasize working code

the civic hackathon violated the very conventions of hackathons. It had “no hacking” in the traditional sense of creating or modifying working software. This curious disappearing act of code in hackathons over the last several years was controversial among programmers. Thea Aldrich of Random Hacks of Kindness wondered aloud when I interviewed her in 2013, “don’t community organizers already have ways to engage politically?” To Thea “civic hacking” was a form of civic engagement particular to the technically adept.

civic hackathons in Los Angeles were rich spaces for observing communication about technology throughspeeches, group collaboration, and pitches.

Unlike that of other hacker-spaces, members’ focus was not primarily hobbyist engineers. They built HackerMoms to serve mothers. Although as hobbyist engineers, writers, illustrators and artists these moth-ers could ostensibly join any other “traditional” hackerspace, members of HackerMoms claimed those sites became unaffordable or unmanageable without opportunities for childcare. The HackerMoms environment promised not only childcare but also a safer space to breastfeed and express milk, a sliding scale for membership dues, and access to a community of restless and curious moms.

In fact, the manner in which providers negotiate this transition (how they handle the power shift) matters to the future success of technology and to the likelihood that users will further adopt and experiment.At the end of the repossession stage, a new or modified technology becomes availa-ble, upon which new rounds of adoption, appropriation, and repossession take place

Users do new things in new ways. Users explore new possibilities, including some beyond what motivated initial adoption. For instance, users personalize devices and applications to integrate them within their practices. Some users will re-arrange devices in ways that reflect their personalities

The baroque succeeded because it expressed something all Latin American people (Indians, Africans, mestizos, and even sons and daughters of Spaniards born on the con-tinent) had in common: the rejection of the domineering and distant center. Carpentier (1995) explains that to understand “Why is Latin America the chosen territory of the baroque?” we must look at the people and processes that allowed them to finally own the continent: “Because all symbiosis, all mestisaje engenders the baroque. The American baroque develops [...] with the self-awareness of the American man [...] the awareness of being Other, of being new, of being symbiotic, of being a criollo” (p

Likewise, the interplay between economic, cultural, and political tensions remains largely unexplored.

Surman and Reilly (2003) focus on appropriation of networked technologies in a strategically, politically, and creatively innovative manner oriented toward social change. In this context of advocacy, effective technology appropriation includes strategic Internet use for collaboration, publishing, mobilization, and observation. Here, the delineation between the use and appropriation occurs when technology is adapted to reflect goals and culture. Camacho (2001) describes appropriation by civil society organizations at the pinnacle of a technology use ladder. In the middle of the ladder, organizations focus on adoption of conventional technology. Toward the bottom, organizations and individuals with constrained access or slow adoption rates lag behind and seek access to technology. At the pinnacle, however, pioneers and activists appropriate technology to promote causes, for instance, creating flash mobs through mass text messaging to instantaneously organize large groups of people for social protest

Inconsistencies in ideological perspective are not uncommon in activities which attempt to balance individualism and communalism. These very frictions might belie possibilities for a greater imagination or shared experience. However, we argue that it is only in the disputes and frictions between pluralities of publics that democratization emerges. Dissensus across making and hacking communities allows people to experiment, eventu-ally finding communities and processes in which they feel comfortable and can identify. These very migrations, connected by fluid narratives and practices, drive the capacity of communities to develop and innovate.

Might “utopian realist” be applicable to the practices of civic hackers, intertwined with particular repertoires, technologies, and affective publics? McKenzie Wark (2014) sug-gests that the relationship between utopian and realist might be mutually constitutive rather than dialectical. He re-frames utopia as a realizable fragment or diagram that re-imagines relations. From this perspective, civic hacking gets traction not because they were ever intended to be the sole “solution” to a problem, but they are ways of acting and creating that are immediately apprehensible. Prototypes capture the imagination because they are shards of a possible future and can be created, modified, and argued about (Coleman, 2009).

That “hackers” can model beneficial process disrupts the often presumed subversive nature of hacking as much as it does easy assumptions about a Foucaultian notion of governmentality. Prototypes act as working evidence to lobby for changing government process, particularly those that improve digital infrastructure or direct communication with citizens. The capa-bility of code to act as a persuasive argument has long been noted, and modeling can produce charged debates about the very meaning of “civic.”

The most popular apps to date have been highly instrumental ways to request services to fix city infrastructure, such as SeeClickFix, a platform that lets residents take pictures of issues that need repair, that are delivered to the appropriate city department as an actionable item. We might think of this as a base-level civic act similar to picking litter off the ground or paint-ing over graffiti. Other activities are thicker modes of participation by generating data or metadata. The primary effort of the 2014 CodeAcross effort was to map exist-ing sources of open data. The leader of the event, D.W. Ferrell, described “our role as citizens is to complement” efforts by the government and organizations such as CfA. Contributing to data repositories served purposes for multiple stakeholders:

dis-putes over community as a particular category threatens to distract from a general focus on solidarity by activating “social bases of discursive publics that engage peo-ple across lines of basic difference in collective identities” (p. 374). A mutable, popu-larized hacker identity may have this potential, capable of processing and interpreting abstract systems of regulation.

Civic hackers widely view machine-readable data as more useful because it drives a wider variety of potential uses, even as the shift from informational uses raises the bar to the literacies required to interpret it. In civic hackathons, knowledge of government operations was as useful as technical knowledge.

Yet, the natural equating of “openness” or government transparency (Hood and Heald, 2006) with accountability increasingly became dubious (Tkacz, 2012). The move to “open data” was often an imperative that didn’t make clear where the levers were for social change that benefited citizens (Lessig, 2009). Still, I argue that civic hackers are often uniquely positioned to act on issues of public concern; they are in touch with local communities, with technical skills and, in many cases, institutional and legal literacies. I conclude by connecting the open data movement with a specific set of political tactics—requesting, digesting, contributing, modeling, and contesting data.

Civic hacking can broadly be described as a form of alternative/activist media that “employ or modify the communication artifacts, practices, and social arrangements of new information and communication technologies to challenge or alter dominant, expected, or accepted ways of doing society, culture, and politics” (Lievrouw, 2011: 19). Ample research has considered how changes in technology and access have created “an environment for politics that is increasingly information-rich and communication-inten-sive” (Bimber, 2001). Earl and Kimport (2011) argue that such digital activism draws attention to modes of protest—“digital repertoires of contention” (p. 180)—more than formalized political movements

Projects, as an entanglement, are “open, partial and indeterminate” (Hodder, 2012, p. 159).They might be being showed off at the next open house, orentirely forgotten. Peter noted that his hard drive was filling up with “functionally dead” shelved projects that got boring or require expertise from outside the space. Yet, to Peter failure was an indication of project success. He believed, as scholars of innovation do, that embracing failure contributed to better ideas. Projects also carried an ethical charge. Michael, a quiet member and software professional, reflected at length on what he called the “philosophical” side of projects. He saw them an inroad to “participation in the fabrication process” that was empowering. In his words, projects were “manufacturing liberation.”

These more formalized gatherings were an attempt to get people working and collaborating in a space that had mainly turned into a spot for hanging out, drinking and foosball. The shift to the new space was seen as an opportunity to encourage members to use the space in a more productive way. The space needed members as much as members needed the tools. Members echoed a liberalist concern with increasing freedom of individuals to act, while retaining hobbyist cultures’ engagement with materialities. Often hackerspace members also described the need for a hackerspace as part of a shift in their city’s economy

Interactions through things, and perceptions about their potential, were ways to negotiate between seemingly conflicting imperatives of the individualism and communalism (A. L. Toombs, Bardzell, & Bardzell). Members would deliberately design activities that were incomplete to encourage a playful material improvisation. In these ways, the “material sensibilities” of members were particularly important. Similarly, reading a history of craft into software hacking, Lingel and Regan (2014) found that software hackers identified their work with craft as process, embodiment, and community. These sensitive readings of interactions with stuff seemed to more accurately capture the genre of hackerspaces, more so than action was guided by culture.

This work perceptively suggested that people often don’t arrive at hackerspaces with an identity fully-formed. Tools and projects, as socio-material assemblages, shepherded new arrivals in and helped them understand

Members often toutthat “anyone can be a hacker.”While this claim is dubious– participation is limited by technical inclinations, skills, and comfort hanging around rowdy spaces –hackerspaces certainly helpproduce an “ordinary hacker.” Theyare sites where we can observe hacking’s movement from subculture to mainstream, and from an edgy to popular identity.

Furthermore, the results could focus on drawing the user into the virtual app space (immersive) or could use the portable nature of tablet to extend the experience into the physical space inhabited by the user (something I have called ’emersive’). Generative (emersive) Books that project coloured ambient light and/or audio into a darkened space Generative (immersive) Books that display abstracted video/audio from cameras/microphone, collaged or augmented with pre-designed content Books that contain location specific content from the internet combined with pre-authored/designed content

Some key themes arise from the two NNG reports on iPad usability: App designers should ensure perceived affordances / discoverability There is a lack of consistency between apps, lots of ‘wacky’ interaction methods. Designers should draw upon existing conventions (either OS or web) or users won’t know what to do. These are practical interaction design observations, but from a particular perspective, that of perceptual psychology. These conclusions are arrived at through a linear, rather than lateral process. By giving weight to building upon existing convention, because they are familiar to the user, there is a danger that genuinely new ideas (and the kind of ambition called for by Victor Bret) within tablet design will be suppressed. Kay’s vision of the Dynabook came from lateral thinking, and thinking about how children learn. Shouldn’t the items that we design for this device be generated in the same way?

A first list of projects are available here but more can be found by interacting with mentors from the Pharo community. Join dedicated channels, #gsoc-students for general interactions with students on Pharo slack. In order to get an invitation for pharoproject.slack.com visit the here Discuss with mentors about the complexity and skills required for the different projects. Please help fix bugs, open relevant issues, suggest changes, additional features, help build a roadmap, and interact with mentors on mailing list and/or slack to get a better insight into projects. Better the contributions, Better are the chances of selection. Before applying: Knowledge about OOP Basic idea about Pharo & Smalltalk syntax and ongoing projects Past experience with Pharo & Smalltalk Interaction with organisation You can start with the Pharo MOOC: http://files.pharo.org/mooc/

Smalltalk doesn’t have to be pragmatic, because it’s better than its imitators and the things that make it different are also the things that give it an advantage.

My hope is that the book I’ve written gives people the courage to realize that this isn’t really about math at all, it’s about power.

But ultimately you have to stop being meta. As Jeff Kaufman — a developer in Cambridge who's famous among effective altruists for, along with his wife Julia Wise, donating half their household's income to effective charities — argued in a talk about why global poverty should be a major focus, if you take meta-charity too far, you get a movement that's really good at expanding itself but not necessarily good at actually helping people.

The Gamma: Programming tools for data journalism

I say this despite the fact that my own work has been in much the opposite direction as Julia. Julia inherits the textual interaction of classic Matlab, SciPy and other children of the teletype — source code and command lines.

The catalyst for such a scale-up will necessarily be political. But even with political will, it can’t happen without technology that’s capable of scaling, and economically viable at scale. As technologists, that’s where we come in.

This is aimed at people in the tech industry, and is more about what you can do with your career than at a hackathon. I’m not going to discuss policy and regulation, although they’re no less important than technological innovation. A good way to think about it, via Saul Griffith, is that it’s the role of technologists to create options for policy-makers.