ABSTRACTThis paper examines imaginaries of work and labor in “open technology” projects(especially open source software and hackerspaces), based on ethnographic research inNorth America. It zeroes in on “diversity initiatives” within open technology projects.These initiatives are important because they expose many of the assumptions and tensionsthat surround participatory cultures. On the one hand, these projects and spaces areorganized around voluntarism; in theory, everyone who wishes to participate is welcome todo so. On the other hand, diversity initiatives form in order to address the “problem” ofimbalance in the ranks of participants. Technology is a unique domain for the discharge ofpolitical energies. In collective imagination, it has been vested with the power to initiatechange (even as this belief obscures the role of social and economic relations). Multipleideas circulate about the relationships between diversity in open technology projects andpaid labor. This paper argues that in part due to the legacy of technical hobbies as traininggrounds for technical employment for much of the twentieth century, as documented byhistorians of radio (Douglas, 1987; Haring, 2006), voluntaristic technology projects arevexed sites for imagining political emancipation. To a large degree, diversity initiatives inopen technology projects are consistent with corporate values of diversity as a marketplacevalue. At the same time, collectivity formations around technology that incorporatefeminist, antiracist, or social justice framings may begin to generate connections betweendiversity advocacy in tech fields and social justice movements or policy changes in order toeffect deep social change.

“Freedom from Jobs” or learning to love to labor? Diversity advocacy and working imaginaries in Open Technology Projects PDF

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