Alternative histories in DIY cultures and maker utopias

Digital maker culture is increasingly studied for its impact on production and consumption patterns, technological innovation, educational potential and citizen engagement in design and technology. As making practices proliferate globally and begin to institutionalise, research on these practices is also maturing beyond mere conceptual speculation and propositional dogma. Nevertheless, particular terminologies tend to dominate beyond their Anglo-Saxon contexts (even the term “maker” itself ), and technocultural histories of digital making are often rendered as over-simplified technomyths and hagiographies of selected gurus. Such story-making reinforces a specific represented history in the maker imaginary: typically, a white, male, well-educated (often engineering or computer science), middle-class, Western-situated narrative.This special issue presents a targeted examination of DIY maker culture that profoundly acknowledges and investigates some of its diverse historical precedents, which play an important role in present practices and strategic visions even if unseen