Histories of Technology Culture Manifestos

Abstract

Abstract Taking impetus from a collaborative conversation about writing a feminist repair manifesto, this article is focused on examining radical feminist manifestos, new technology manifestos, and their intersecting themes and influence upon cyberfeminist manifestos. Its theoretical underpinnings include histories of repair and maintenance and the manifesto as technological form. As a practice, repair and theorisations of repair regarding technology take into account invisible labour and create a relationship of care not only within communities, but in relation to everyday technologies. Since this work to write a feminist fixers’ manifesto was inspired by the iFixit Repair Manifesto, the NYC Fixers Collective manifesto, as well as manifestos from radical feminist technology movements, it seemed appropriate to consider and critically engage the function of manifestos in these various maker and digital technology communities, as well as the history of radical feminist manifestos in response to cultural oppression. By looking more deeply at specific historical instances and their function, I aim to uncover the importance of such artefacts to give voice to alternative narratives and practices, to subvert systemic oppressions while at other times reproducing them in their form. I argue that there is power in iterating and proliferating manifestos with a critical stance and work to establish the knowledge-producing and world-making potentials of manifesto writing.