Making When Ends Don’t Meet: Articulation Work and Visibility of Domestic Labor during Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Innovation on the Margins

ABSTRACT

Makerspaces, hackathons, and technology incubators are key-emerging sites for communication practice and research. Yet, little is known about how resource-constrained, non-Western families practice DIY (Do It Yourself). Revisiting craft’s roots in families practicing artisanal trades, I find that the visibility of DIY innovation relies on the infrastructuring of family members who perform articulation work despite tremendous economic risk through traditional and transgressive family and gender roles and identities.

KEYWORDS:

• DIY
• innovation
• making
• family
• articulation
• gender
• agency
• Global South

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

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Prashant Rajan

Prashant Rajan is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication Studies at the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University. He studies technology design and use in resource-constrained settings.