Methodological Learnings

This thesis is certainly not the final statement on makerspaces, though I hope that it is a valuable part of a conversation, prying open the door of these under- researched spaces with a practice-theoretic lens. To close this chapter, I will try to reflect on the research process, in order to highlight the promise, and limitations, of the broader research approach.

Firstly, data collection was relatively ‘unstructured’ and this came with challenges

and repercussions for the final product. Retrospectively, I would like to have used a more immediate and forthright note-taking approach, rather than compiling notes at private moments. I think my uncertainty on this front, stemming from inexperience and an over-zealous desire to remain unobtrusive, prevented me from noting or recalling more closely mundane happenings. Relatedly, I regret not making more use of visual methods by filming workshop activities. At the time, this made sense, as the material presence of filming and photography in general can be quite intrusive and disruptive, but there were occasions, particularly in the Remakery, where this would probably not have been the case, and I should have been more assertive in realising this.

I think there are also interesting reflections to be made on the duration of ethnographic immersion, which varied between the case sites. As Fine (1993: 280)

notes “the ability to be observant varies, and we should not assume that what is depicted in the ethnography is the whole picture. Obviously for reasons of space, events are excluded, but much is excluded because it passed right under our nose and through our ears and because our hands were too tired to note the happening.” While the general impression in the social sciences seems to be that

the longer the immersion, the better the project which results (Baxter and Eyles, 1997), in reality the ‘shock of the new’ can be very productive in formulating

insights about an evolving project. I saw value on both fronts: longer immersion ensures greater familiarity, yet as more time is spent in the field and the researcher identifies more with the participant group, behaviours, speech acts and practices can begin to be taken for granted. There is certainly a balance which needs to be struck here.

On this topic of identification and immersion, I had received a warm welcome from the Grassmarket, but this was more muted in the case of the two others. This was unexpected, and something which I should have been more prepared for, especially given the differing organisational and membership structures. For example, the Remakery was extremely busy at this time, having not yet been fully established, and I took this to mean that my questions and presence could become a burden (indeed, arranging some interviews proved quite difficult). This hampered data collection, though it certainly struck me that had I taken more of

an explicitly ‘action research’ approach, I could have overcome such concerns about ‘buy in’ to the research early on.

Online methods ended up being valuable for keeping track of organisational

activities, both present and historic, and the paradox of using such ‘distanced’

tools, along with, say, photography, in a study espousing the ‘more-than-

representational,’ needs to be addressed. I don’t want to create a duality between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ methods, depending on their distance from language, cognition and representation. Are digital methods the ‘best’ way to access the colour and atmosphere of social life? Almost certainly not. However, they can be a valuable starting point, particularly if creatively interpreted, analysed, and read between the lines. Such methods do have their own strength, in turn. The Hacklab mailing list data are potentially ‘less tainted’, through their unsolicited nature, much of it having come into existence before the current study was even conceived.

3.8

Concluding Remarks

While setting out the study’s methodological orientation, this chapter has begun to address RQ4 on qualitative methods, in an era increasingly attuned to posthumanism and more-than-representational approaches. There is certainly an irony in producing a traditional written dissertation extolling the virtues of practice, material agency and non-representational approaches to social science. I began by arguing that a valuable theoretical and methodological focus has been increasingly evident in the academy in recent years, focusing on questions of embodiment, habit and practice, and it would be remiss of qualitative researchers to ignore this. That said, the chapter tried to avoid drawing a hard dichotomy

between qualitative methods like interviewing and the ‘witnessing’ spoken of by

non-representational researchers. Rather, a plurality of approaches were called

for, with participants’ reflection being complemented by observational methods more attuned to more-than-representational aspects of social life. This balance is hard to strike and it remains to be seen whether the resulting thesis falls too heavily on one side or the other.

However, an enactive ethnographic approach was put forward as most closely suiting a study of this nature, providing space for multiple traditional and non- traditional qualitative techniques, while placing practice centre-stage. The selection of field sites, as well as the modes of data collection and analysis, were outlined, before important concerns regarding positional reflexivity, textual reflexivity and ethics in qualitative research were addressed. The chapter closed with reflections on methodological challenges faced, and learnings which can be applied in future research.

By now, I hope to have set the scene for the chapters which follow, and outlined the basis for the tentative knowledge claims made therein. The following empirical chapters examine the more-than-human and more-than-representational geographies of community workshops in three different ways. Firstly, I examine the performance of making and the intricacies of the embodied materiality which

characterise various workshop activities. With this foundation in place, I will then zoom out somewhat to explore questions of practice and pro-environmental social change. Then, finally, I examine the resulting implications for what we could term

4

Practice-as-Performance: The Mangle of Craft From

Pyrography to 3D Printing

Figure 13: Bauhaus Chess Set

[Field Notes, December 2016] To engage practically with the tools, techniques and materials that I need to understand, and to gain a fuller insight into the material practices of the Hacklab, in particular, I have decided to make something41_{. After}

considering what is practical in terms of my current living situation (a small apartment, no transport etc.), as well as something that’s varied enough to allow

me to engage in a variety of relatively new maker activities, I will make a chess set. I will begin by 3D printing one set of pieces, making the other set by hand using some more traditional techniques, and then make the board, to fit around and contrast with these.

After experimenting with various shapes and sizes of chess sets, with varying degrees of success, I have been pulled towards a Bauhaus-inspired design. It seems

41 _{Davies (2017b: 109) refers to such projects as ‘Trojan Horses,’ necessary for workshop}

attendees because “The hacker emphasis on doing and making meant that simply hanging out in

an apt choice, in spite of my relative ignorance of art history, given that the

Bauhaus school (founded in 1919) aimed to replace “the traditional pupil-teacher relationship with the idea of a community of artists working together. Its aim was to bring art back into contact with everyday life…”42 _{Furthermore, Bauhaus is}

renowned for its attempts to bridge and/or unify William Morris-inspired craft production with the rapidly-developing factory production technologies of the era.

4.1

Introduction

“Building…is a process that is continually going on, for as long as people dwell in an environment. It does not begin here, with

a pre-formed plan, and end there, with a finished artefact. The

‘final form’ is but a fleeting moment in the life of any feature…”

Ingold (2000: 188)

This chapter explores the material practices of craft across my three field sites. It achieves two things: Firstly, it sets the scene for the broader elements of maker practice – the materials, competences and meanings – examined in the next chapter, by providing detailed insight into the performance of craft practice (practice-as-performance). Secondly, it responds to RQ3 on how the study of craft can be informed by theoretical developments in new materialism and posthumanism. Through empirical examples drawn from across the field sites, and taking seriously Ingold’s (2007) contention that abstract notions of ‘materiality’ –

now widespread in work across the social sciences – have sometimes obscured

more than they have illuminated, I will argue for the existence of a dynamic and material-specific ‘mangle of craft’.

The chapter begins in the Grassmarket furniture workshop, focusing on wood preparation, processing and finishing. It then moves to examine pyrography as practiced across both the Grassmarket and the Remakery43_{. Pyrography involves}

the inscription and marking of wood with high-temperature metal and, I contend, demonstrates the more-than-human emergence of craft practices. The chapter finally explores newer forms of making – 3D printing and laser cutting – which are less traditionally associated with ‘crafts,’ and which could be seen as to accord more with a ‘hylomorphic’ view of making. I will conclude, however, that these technologies too require that workshop participants negotiate the posthuman mangle of material resistance and accommodation.