First Exploratory Geographical and Social Maps of the Maker Movement

Abstract

The Maker Movement emerged in the last decades through a mix of both bottom-up and top-down initiatives, promotions, communities and companies, informal experimentations and rigorous research projects. The result is a global system of design and making actors localized in community places of Maker Laboratories such as Fab Labs, Makerspaces, Hackerspaces, DIYBio Labs, Repair Cafes and so on. This contribution explores the first maps of the Maker Movement in terms of geographical distribution and of architecture of social networks of its Maker Laboratories and proposes a specific data analysis for each of these two directions. This article draws an overview of the social, local and global nature of the Maker Movement and of its laboratories, with the overall aim to provide spaces for democracy, participation and citizenship.