“Forget about the learning”? Technology expertise and creativity as experiential habit in hacker-/makerspaces

Abstract

This paper discusses to what extent hacker- and makerspaces (HMS) facilitate technology expertise. It draws on a combined qualitative interview and survey study of current/former community members. Study participants relate that HMS encourage learning-by-doing and self-directed creativity involving digital technology and crafts. Despite some being hesitant to label what they do as learning, a notion strongly associated with primary/secondary school, creativity itself is considered a learning ability and an experiential habit: a skill to be nurtured in practice. Members tend to expect that a self-directed approach to technological creativity is cultivated by new members too. As a “rite of passage”, this has implications for members’ in- and exclusion: notably creating challenges for individuals from already underrepresented groups and those perceiving themselves as comparatively low-skilled in technology. While learning and technology expertise are thus potentially facilitated in HMS, this is not equally the case for all members.