Live from DML2013: Ignite Talk - Meryl Alper

From Round One of the Ignite Talks at the 2013 Digital Media & Learning Conference:

Meryl Alper, Making Space in the Makerspace: Building a Mixed-Ability Maker Culture

[background noise, discussing arrangements]

So, the growing maker movement has recently drawn some social critiques.

As you can see here from this clever send-up of Make magazine by Professor Garnet Hertz

and his book series Critical Making.

For example, just how revolutionary is it to join the Arduino revolution?

There needs to be space, Hertz argues, to study the social, cultural, and political implications of making.

And as evidenced by yesterday's Make-To-Learn symposium, many within the DML community

are committed to broadening participation in DIY activities

for socioeconomically, racially, ethnically diverse youth.

To complement that initiative, I'm here to make a pitch for broadening that focus even further,

to encompass youth with disabilities.

I'm going to talk about what I'm calling a mixed-ability maker culture,

why it's important and how you all can support it.

By mixed-ability maker culture,

I mean a collaborative culture within which people with and without disabilities

can co-create and co-exist as they work to maximize and develop their own skills.

This includes making useful things for people with disabilities, but also getting people with disabilities

involved in making. A mixed-ability maker culture is one that embraces the differences

not only between people who do and do not identify as having a disability,

but also the wide range of differences that exist among people with disabilities themselves.

So now why this this important?

So the U.S. Department of Education reports that there are 6 million kids with disabilities

in the public education system. And so while those 6 million experience disability on an individual level,

our collective institutions and social practices directly impact opportunities for participation.

Disability isn't an isolated social justice issue either.

It intersects with race, ethnicity, income, gender, sexuality in complex ways.

And those complex intersections and the challenges they pose for young people

merits more attention among all of us.

Historically, as you can see here, there has been a lot of hope around new technologies being an equalizer

for youth with disabilities. At the same time, though,

kids with disabilities are rarely portrayed as cultural producers.

And special education has received little attention at DML over the years.

The irony is that the technological world as we know it has been fundamentally shaped

by youth with disabilities who found their way around complex systems.

For example, take phone phreaking, which was essentially computer hacking before there were computers.

In the 1950s, blind youth like Joe Engressia were the first to discover that they could hack the telephone system

using perfect pitch to trigger automated switches.

They became central figures in the phone phreaking movement and in hacking history,

influencing the likes of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Maker culture, and specifically 3D printing, also have huge implications for assistive technology.

Customized, lightweight, easily-replacable parts, such as this 3D-printed brace, open up new possibilities

for mobility and experience. So, cultivating a mixed ability maker culture is important

because on one side, youth with disabilities are part of the past, present, and future of making.

And at the same time, they have been,

their participation has been undervalued in society and understudied in the DML community.

So, then how can we support a more mixed-ability maker culture?

First, we can learn about making and hacking from people with disabilities themselves.

I highly recommend checking out ZebredaMakesItWork.com, a series of videos and blogposts

created by a woman named Zebreda Dunham. Mixed ability maker culture recognizes

that different bodies produce different types of knowledge.

And I can't speak on behalf of people with disabilities,

but as an ally, I think that it's important to amplify the voices and the innovations of people like Zebreda.

Second, you can support mixed ability maker culture

by following the lead of those who already building mixed-ability maker spaces.

Like the organization DIYAbility in New York City which is co-run by John Schimmel of NYU's ITP department

and Holly Cohen of NYU's Occupational Therapy department.

You can also collaborate with others. For example, at this year's Interaction Design and Children conference in New York City

there's going to be a workshop on evaluating accessibility and fabrication tools.

So, not designed specifically for kids with disabilities, tools like Makey Makey offer

whole new ways of working with technology. And I am personally at the early stages of a project

looking at how parents, therapists, and special education teachers rewire and hack toys

to make them more accessible, as opposed to way more expensive other assistive technologies.

I'm interested in how accessibility becomes hackcessibility.

So, novel directions for the maker movement require new ways of looking at maker culture.

And mixed-ability maker culture, is one committed to an equitable, ethical, and sustainable democratic future.

It requires us to look closer not only at the materiality of making, but also the social context

that surrounds participation in and exclusion from it.

To repeat, with disabilities, making can be both a hobby and a necessity.

And through the lens of mixed-ability maker culture, I'm hoping to prompt a serious discussion

about what we talk about and what we don't talk about when we talk about maker culture.

Thanks! [applause]