‘Stand back and watch us’: Post-capitalist practices in the maker movement

Thomas S.J. Smith

Environment and Planning A, 2020, vol. 52, issue 3, 593-610

Abstract: This paper examines the economic practices of maker spaces – open workshops that have increased in number over recent years and that aim to provide access to tools, materials and skills for small-scale manufacturing and repair. Scholarly interest in such spaces has been increasing across the social sciences more broadly, parallel to a growing interest in craft and making in economic geography. However, to rectify the ‘capitalocentrism’ of much existing work, the paper examines the case of a workshop in Edinburgh, Scotland, through the dual theoretical lens of diverse economies and social practice theory. This conceptual approach sees the space as a novel form of economic ‘being-in-common’, providing diverse and contradictory opportunities for post-capitalist practice. The paper draws conclusions regarding the limits and potential of such spaces for sowing the prefigurative seeds for a more inclusive, sustainable and democratic urbanism.

Keywords: Making; workshop; diverse economy; post-capitalism; practice; commons (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:52:y:2020:i:3:p:593-610

DOI: 10.1177/0308518X19882731

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