Document Type
Contribution to Book
Publication Date
2020
First Page
227
Last Page
245
ORCID
0000-0003-4442-1053
Book Title
Re-making the Library Makerspace: Critical Theories, Reflections, and Practices
Publisher
Library Juice Press
City
Sacramento
Editor(s)
Maggie Melo and Jennifer T. Nichols
Keywords
neoliberalism, makerspaces, dialogue, collaboration, systems librarianship
Abstract
Collaboration is central to the work of librarianship, including technological initiatives such as the establishment of a makerspace. Librarians typically understand collaboration as a rational process in which partners reach agreements to yield efficiencies. However, this predominant understanding of collaboration ignores the nature of institutions founded on structural inequities and aligns with neoliberal ideology and objectivist understandings of technology.
In this chapter from an edited anthology that critically examines makerspaces and the Maker Movement, I reframe technology as relational and grounded in the needs of human communities, and I propose an alternative understanding of collaboration as a process of dialogue, drawing on the ideas of Paulo Freire. This alternative understanding of collaboration impacts what motivates us to establish a new partnership, the way we draw up formal documents and generate ideas with our partners, and the methods we choose to learn about our users' needs.
Rights
CC-BY Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Recommended Citation
Mann, Sanjeet, "Makerspace Collaboration as Dialogue and Resistance" (2020). Library Faculty Publications & Presentations. 62.
https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/library-publications/62
