When open source design is vital: critical making of DIY healthcare equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical devices needed during the COVID-19 pandemic were widely reported in early 2020. In response, civic DIY volunteers explored how they could produce the required equipment. Members of communities such as hacker- and makerspaces employed their skills and tools to manufacture, for example, face shields and masks. The article discusses these civic innovation practices and their broader social implications by relating them to critical making theory. Methodologically, it is based on a digital ethnography approach, focusing on hacker and maker communities in the UK. Communities’ DIY initiatives display characteristics of critical making and ‘craftivism’, as they assessed and counteracted politicised healthcare supply shortages. It is argued that their manufacturing activities during the COVID pandemic relate to UK austerity politics’ effects on healthcare and government failure to ensure medical crisis supplies. Facilitated by open source design, communities’ innovation enabled healthcare emergency equipment. At the same time, their DIY manufacturing raises practical as well as ethical issues concerning, among other things, efficacy and safety of use.

Keywords:

• DIY communities
• COVID-19
• healthcare equipment
• critical making
• hacking
• open source

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Tim Jordan, Stefan Meuleman, and the reviewers for their feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research for this paper was funded by the European Union/European Commission Horizon 2020 Framework Programme: H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (funding scheme: MSCA-IF-EF-ST, grant no. 790777).