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Legitimacy, boundary objects & participation in transnational DIY biology

Published: 15 August 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Prior research has stipulated that DIY making appeals to many of the concerns central to participatory design: democratization of technology production, individual empowerment and inclusivity. In this paper, we take this stipulation as the starting point of our inquiry, exploring how it happened that making came to be seen as enabler of participatory values and practices. We draw from ethnographic research that followed a transnational collaboration between DIY biologists, scientists, makers, and artists from Indonesia, Europe and India. The paper focuses on the production of three artifacts, tracing their enactment as boundary objects and experimentation in DIY biology. The artifacts did not only help legitimize DIYbio, but also positioned Indonesia itself as a legitimate participant in international networks of knowledge production. The paper contributes to prior research that has challenged stable frames like West/the rest. It draws out a positionality for PD that opens up making by recognizing its multiplicity crucial to the making of alternative and never stable futures.

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  • (2024)Contamination, Otherness, and Negotiating Bottom-Up Sociotechnical Imaginaries in Participatory Speculative DesignProceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Full Papers - Volume 110.1145/3666094.3666110(173-186)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2024
  • (2022)“Short on time and big on ideas”: Perspectives from Lab Members on DIYBio Work in Community BiolabsProceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3532106.3533521(1358-1376)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2022
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cover image ACM Other conferences
PDC '16: Proceedings of the 14th Participatory Design Conference: Full papers - Volume 1
August 2016
192 pages
ISBN:9781450340465
DOI:10.1145/2940299
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 15 August 2016

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Author Tags

  1. DIY
  2. DIYbio
  3. Indonesia
  4. PD
  5. STS
  6. do it yourself
  7. innovation
  8. knowledge production
  9. maker
  10. making
  11. transnational

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PDC '16
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  • Aarhus University
PDC '16: The 14th Participatory Design Conference
August 15 - 19, 2016
Aarhus, Denmark

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Contamination, Otherness, and Negotiating Bottom-Up Sociotechnical Imaginaries in Participatory Speculative DesignProceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2024: Full Papers - Volume 110.1145/3666094.3666110(173-186)Online publication date: 11-Aug-2024
  • (2022)“Short on time and big on ideas”: Perspectives from Lab Members on DIYBio Work in Community BiolabsProceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3532106.3533521(1358-1376)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2022
  • (2022)Opening the Gate to Urban Repair: A Tool for Citizen-Led DesignProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35129526:CSCW1(1-25)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2022
  • (2021)Applying Bioaffordances through an Inquiry-Based Model: A Literature Review of Interactive BiodesignInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2021.1898846(1-15)Online publication date: 5-Apr-2021
  • (2020)10 Years of Research With and On HackathonsProceedings of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3357236.3395543(1073-1088)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2020
  • (2019)Hacking Difference in IndonesiaProceedings of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3322276.3322339(1571-1582)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2019
  • (2018)Empowering children through design and makingProceedings of the 15th Participatory Design Conference: Full Papers - Volume 110.1145/3210586.3210600(1-12)Online publication date: 20-Aug-2018
  • (2018)Antibiotic-Responsive BioartProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3174037(1-14)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018

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