[ecrea] CfP Journal of Peer Production - JoPP #12: Shared Machine Shop Institutionalization

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////// Call for Papers + Practitioner Commentaries!
Journal of Peer Production #12: Shared Machine Shop Institutionalization
URL: http://bit.ly/SharedMachineInst
Editors: Kat Braybrooke, Adrian Smith
Contact: (sharedmachines /at/ peerproduction.net) 
<mailto:(sharedmachines /at/ peerproduction.net)>
////// Abstracts and proposals due 30 March, 2017 ////////
Two years ago, a special issue of the Journal of Peer Production on 
shared machine shops described them as the "occupied factories of peer 
production theory". The authors of that issue compiled a 
theoretically-grounded and empirically informed analysis of member-owned 
spaces like hacklabs, hackerspaces and makerspaces -- spaces that first 
appeared to be signalling the power of an emerging democratic revolution 
in community-based design and manufacturing, but which on closer look 
also revealed the many contradictions of making and peer production 
movements themselves.
This special issue builds on these efforts by taking a deeper look into 
the complex contradictions and possibilities of making, hacking, 
fabrication and commons-based practices -- practices that are themselves 
increasingly characterised by institutional interventions. The dilemmas 
of institutionalisation (regarding both the formalization of practices 
and the fact that many practice-based spaces are now being embedded 
within larger organizations like museums, municipalities and businesses) 
provide us with an opportunity to critically examine networks, spaces 
and futures that may be assembling in this new phase.
We invite papers that provide theoretically-informed empirical research 
aimed at advancing our understanding of dilemmas and contradictions in 
institutionalisation of shared machine shops. Contributions are 
particularly encouraged that examine what has changed regarding the 
practices, user experiences and regional networks that surround these 
sites of institutionalisation -- not only in the last few years, but 
also across shared community histories around the world, drawing upon 
stories of similar digital spaces, like art-based media labs, that have 
preceded today’s shared machine shops. Contradictions between the 
so-called agencies and revolutions introduced by digital design and 
fabrication tools within these sites will be explored along with the 
structures of control and power that surround them. What do these 
continued contradictions and struggles tell us about the promised 
futures of peer production?
Because this issue looks not only at theory but also at practice, we 
also invite practitioner commentaries and/or photo series from key 
makers and thinkers working in the field, reflecting on what happens 
when communities of peer-based making and production attract increased 
attention from mainstreamed entities, including schools, galleries, tech 
companies, local authorities, and agencies promoting entrepreneurship. 
Such attention brings with it ambivalent and complicated opportunities 
linked to outside agendas. These institutional encounters additionally 
bring to the surface multiple political dilemmas regarding digital 
fabrication itself. After all, these are technologies whose computer 
numerically-controlled histories include the displacement of skilled 
workers and the undermining of historic manufacturing communities. Are 
practices in maker communities today actually transforming development 
processes, or are they simply refreshing new inputs for business as 
usual? Educational institutions seek ways of building public 
understanding about technosciences and job opportunities. Local 
governments get excited about entrepreneurial possibilities. 
Corporations see easy design prototypes offered up by the free labour of 
skilled fans. How are economies of labour redefined? How 
transformational, precisely, are these new peer productions?
This being said, it would be much too easy (and, we argue, lazy) to 
simply critique and dismiss. Instead, this special issue aspires to 
constructively scrutinize practices through critical, hands-on analyses 
of both discourses and practices. What remains of the original 
transformational aims of a digitally empowered peer production-based 
revolution when some of the core practices are embraced by the very 
powers that the revolutionary theory set itself up originally to 
confront? What new antitheses and innovative reactions are arising today 
from recent disappointments? What kinds of challenges, transformations 
and opportunities does institutionalization engender for a new 
generation’s coming of age? Most importantly, whose revolution will it 
now be? The papers and commentaries of this issue will aim to move 
beyond condemnation and/or adulation into deliberately complex and 
multifaceted understandings of transformation, collaboration and revolution.
Contributions will address this new phase of contradictions and 
possibilities through three organisational themes which view shared 
machine shop innovations and experiences through their tensions, 
contradictions and possibilities. First, we will explore whether 
reconfigurations of new locations and sites change conceptions and 
understandings of making and fabrication within them, a phenomenon we 
refer to as “new spaces in new places”. Second, we will ask what new 
practices are being introduced by (and in reaction to) increased 
institutional advances. And thirdly, we will examine what happens when 
shared machine shops are situated within new urban and regional matrices 
and processes which bring their own expectations about how machine shops 
should perform.
Papers and contributions will be organized around 3 thematic areas:
Theme One: New spaces in new kinds of places
Theme Two: New practices + experiences in new places and spaces.
Theme Three: New places in (outer) spaces, from urban to regional.
/////// Important dates and deadlines /////////
5 Feb 2017: Open call goes out.
30 March 2017: Paper abstracts + proposals for alternative pieces due.
30 April 2017: Confirmed paper authors and practitioners notified.
30 July 2017: Full papers + alternative pieces due.
30 October 2017: Peer review process ends, papers returned.
30 December 2017: Revised papers due.
28 February 2018: Final acceptance / rejection of papers.
1st March 2018 - 1st April 2018: Group intros, texts + alternative 
pieces finalized.
April 2018: JoPP Issue #12 published!
/////// Submission guidelines ///////
Extended paper abstracts of up to 750 words + alternative practitioner 
pieces are due to the editors at (sharedmachines /at/ peerproduction.net) 
<mailto:(sharedmachines /at/ peerproduction.net)> by /// 30 March, 2018 ///. 
Peer reviewed papers should be no more than 8,000 words. At this time we 
also welcome experimental, alternative contributions from practitioners 
+ makers, in the form of 500 word commentaries or photo series that 
provide reflections from the field on transformations, changes and 
impacts with regards to shared machine shops today. The format of these 
thought pieces will be discussed on a case by case basis. All peer 
reviewed papers will be reviewed according to Journal of Peer Production 
guidelines. See http://peerproduction.net/peer-review/process for 
details. Full papers for peer review and alternative pieces will be due 
by 30 July, 2017.
***** This special issue has been initiated thanks to the ideas and 
collaborations of the talented thinkers and makers who participated in 
the 4S/EASST 2016 panel “Digital fabrications amongst hackers, makers 
and manufacturers: whose ‘industrial revolution’?” this summer in Barcelona.
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