Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures: 19 (Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology) - Softcover

Dunbar-Hester, Christina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 069119288X ISBN 13: 9780691192888

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2019

Synopsis

A firsthand look at efforts to improve diversity in software and hackerspace communities

Hacking, as a mode of technical and cultural production, is commonly celebrated for its extraordinary freedoms of creation and circulation. Yet surprisingly few women participate in it: rates of involvement by technologically skilled women are drastically lower in hacking communities than in industry and academia. Hacking Diversity investigates the activists engaged in free and open-source software to understand why, despite their efforts, they fail to achieve the diversity that their ideals support.

Christina Dunbar-Hester shows that within this well-meaning volunteer world, beyond the sway of human resource departments and equal opportunity legislation, members of underrepresented groups face unique challenges. She brings together more than five years of firsthand research: attending software conferences and training events, working on message boards and listservs, and frequenting North American hackerspaces. She explores who participates in voluntaristic technology cultures, to what ends, and with what consequences. Digging deep into the fundamental assumptions underpinning STEM-oriented societies, Dunbar-Hester demonstrates that while the preferred solutions of tech enthusiasts―their “hacks” of projects and cultures―can ameliorate some of the “bugs” within their own communities, these methods come up short for issues of unequal social and economic power. Distributing “diversity” in technical production is not equal to generating justice.

Hacking Diversity reframes questions of diversity advocacy to consider what interventions might appropriately broaden inclusion and participation in the hacking world and beyond.

About this title

About the Author

Christina Dunbar-Hester is associate professor of communication in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 069119288X
• ISBN 13: 9780691192888
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280