Build It Better: Tinkering in Feminist Maker Pedagogy

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Notes

¹ Similar to the argument Steve Mann makes in “Learning by Being.”

² For an example of feminist, anticolonial science in a lab, see the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research; https://civiclaboratory.nl/.

³ For an example, Clare Jen at Denison University teaches laboratory courses at the intersection of Women’s Studies and Biology.

⁴ Even when linked to explicitly radical politics, the term DIY and its attendant narratives run the risk of promoting individual solutions for structural problems, a persistent problem in underground movements. See Duncombe. Alternatives to DIY include DIT, do-it-together and DIO, do-it-ourselves. Although I use the term DIY in this article, note that my formation of feminist maker pedagogy distinguishes between self-reliance and isolationism and engages making as a cultural creative process that fosters connection. See Foster; Gauntlett.

⁵ As a practice, critical making is related to material thinking; some versions of hacktivism, especially as interpreted in maktivism, praxistemology, or tinquiry; civic technoscience, craftivism, digital craft, and fabriculture; constructionism; critical technical practice; and critical, adversarial, and participatory design. There is also a direct relationship between articulations of critical making and engagements with democratic (and sometimes anarchic) forms of citizenship. See Ratto and Boler.

⁶ See work on craftivism: Garber; Levine and Heimerl.

⁷ Internal quotation from Henwood.

⁸ Similar to the final phase of a transformed biology curriculum described in Peggy McIntosh’s classic work on interactive phases of curriculum development (2).

⁹ See also Barad, “A Feminist Approach to Teaching Quantum Physics.”

¹⁰ This quotation and all following excerpted from student work with permission and under condition of anonymity. Internal quotations from Muñoz.

¹¹ For more on the radical potentials of tinkering with theory, see Higgins, Wallace, and Bazzul.

¹² All syllabi and a full course description are available on my website, cydcipolla.com.

¹³ I have tried incorporating making into the classroom in various ways, including blending the seminar and the lab together, holding weekly optional drop-in lab hours, an intensive six-week summer course where we held lab each week, and holding single lab sessions within larger seminar courses.

¹⁴ An introductory pseudo-coding language. See Inform7.org.

¹⁵ Arduinos are programmable microcontrollers that allow you to build interactive objects and wearables. See Arduino.cc.

¹⁶ My students were caught in what Banu Subramaniam calls the space between the Matildas (the forgotten women of science) and the Curies (the extraordinary women of science) (203).