Makers, Crafters, Tinkerers: How Identities and Biographies Come into Being

Interest in making, crafting, and tinkering persists across hobbyist pursuits, professional applications, and academic research endeavors. However, there remains a significant gap in our understanding of the journey individuals undertake to develop respective identities, which, in turn, seem to define how people develop practices, make use of infrastructures, and become part of networks. In this half-day workshop, we aim to explore such biographies and identities, asking how maker, crafter, or tinkerer identities are developed and how they change during people’s lives. Participants will bring snippets of their making (such as artifacts, materials, tools, etc.) with them as means to reflect individually and discuss together. The envisioned outcome is a collection of relevant variables of maker, crafter, and tinkerer biographies and identities to be articulated as inspiration for future making, and as motivation to break down potential barriers.