Hacker Cultures: The Conference Podcast
As Covid-19 turned most conferences virtual, so to combat Zoom-fatigue, at 4S/EASST 2020 we decided to try another format and turn a conference session into a podcast. Among hundreds of panels, papers and sessions, our panels rounded up all sorts of researchers who study what it is to be a hacker, and what hacking, programming, tinkering and working with computers is all about. We have continued biennally for full three seasons.
The newest season comes to you from the 2024 join Society for Social Studies of Science/European Association for the Study of Science and Technology conference (4S/EASST) in Amsterdam, titled "Making and Doing Transformations".
The second series was from EASST 2022 titled "The Politics of Technoscientific Futures" held in Madrid in July 2022. Our panel was titled "Hacking Everything. The cultures and politics of hackers and software workers". The first series was from 4S/EASST in "virtual Prague" in August 2020, titled "Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and agency of STS in emerging worlds".
We the hosts are Paula Bialski, who is an Associate Professor at the University of St. Gallen, Andreas Bischof who is a Research Group Leader at Chemnitz University of Technology, and Mace Ojala, a PhD scholar at Ruhr-University Bochum. Audio production by Heights Beats at Hotmilk Records. The theme track of first series is "Rocky" by Paula & Karol. Heights Beats produced the theme track of the second series. Funding for the editing of this first series comes from University of St. Gallen, the second from Chemnitz University of Technology.
Hacker Cultures: The Conference Podcast
Episode 2 (2020): Minna Saariketo & Mareike Glöss - In the grey zone of hacking? Two cases in the political economy of software and the Right to Repair
Minna Saariketo is a postdoc at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University. Mareike Glöss is a lecturer Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University.
In their research, they address the ‘grey zone of hacking’: end users subverting software and hardware controls imposed by manufacturers. We discuss one empirical case in particular: farmers claiming the ‘right to repair’ of agricultural equipment. The ‘Right to Repair’ movement has brought together users and developers to circumvent products that cannot be repaired or modified freely. Manufactures have responded by ‘lock-ins’ by not supplying spare parts, service manuals, disassembly and diagnostic tools, as well as forbidding modification of software in their licenses. Hackers have worked around these lock-ins, creating parallel networks of software and hardware distribution, supplying hacking tools to end users. So in their session, they will talk about the political economy of software: how the control of technical artefacts is achieved both legally and economically. Second is the issue of agency, expertise, and technological literacy.