Critical Making Special Issue

Critical Making is a research project that adds scientific insights into the potential of the maker movement. By focusing on critical and socially responsible making, it shows how global maker communities can offer new opportunities for young makers of all genders to contribute to an open society via open source innovation.The research project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020, and the consortium consists of five partners: The Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI), Global Innovation Gathering (GIG), VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Technische Universität Berlin (TUB), and Wikifactory (WIF).

This special issue summarises the project's outcomes on the various aspects of Critical Making in a collection of scientific publications, which approach Critical Making from different angles. The research focus of the Critical Making project has been on the exploration of responsible innovation processes in the global maker community. More specifically aspects of gender and inclusiveness, openness, and the engagement of young people have been at the centre of our participatory research approach. This led to a series of academic findings, presented at conferences and published in academic outlets. Participatory research also led to very practical output formats and alternative publishing formats, next to the scientific publications. The Critical Making zine is such an example.

Next to the findings directly derived from the Critical Making project and our intense collaboration with the global maker community, this summary also includes references to relevant work we encountered during our Critical Making journey. We would like to highlight some of the influential experts - academics and practitioners - who have been and keep exploring critical making practices from different perspectives. This ranges from more artistic approaches of Garnet Hertz to feminist and intersectional views of Stefanie Wuschitz.

In the end, we hope that this collection of Critical Making publications inspires scholars to further explore and highlight the potential of responsible grassroots innovations in makerspaces.