[Air-L] new book: Hacking Diversity

[christina dunbar-hester]

Dear AoIR list,

Forgive the self promotion (and x-posting), but I wanted to announce a new
book:

NEW FROM PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS—*Hacking Diversity: The Politics of
Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures
<https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691192888/hacking-diversity>*
by
Christina Dunbar-Hester. A firsthand look at efforts to improve diversity
in software and hackerspace communities. Enter discount code *LIST30* on
the PUP website to get *30% off* the paperback, through June 30, 2020. (Ok
to share/forward the code.)

I'm indebted to scholarship by and conversations with many in the AoIR
community! And will look forward to future conversations.

-c

"*Hacking Diversity* takes us into the hackerspaces, makerspaces, and
unconferences where diversity advocates hack their social order to open up
volunteer technologies along multiple dimensions. Dunbar-Hester shows that
much more than 'stuff' is produced—issues of gender, race, power, and class
emerge and are interrogated. This is essential reading for anyone wanting
to understand how diversity becomes productive in open technology movements
and corporate tech cultures."—Sareeta Amrute, University of Washington

"This book provides a clear-eyed critical exploration of diversity advocacy
within today's market-saturated culture of open technology, fractured by
the sediments of racial capitalism. Dunbar-Hester brilliantly combines
historical analysis with ethnographic insights to show why DIY
interventions by voluntaristic open technologists and computing devotees,
however well-meaning, struggle to resolve the foundational tensions between
individual freedom and collective emancipation."—Paula Chakravartty, New
York University

"Written with grace, clarity, and generosity, *Hacking Diversity* critically
probes inclusion initiatives in open content and hacker communities. Giving
credit where it is due, Dunbar-Hester shows how diversity advocacy
engendered laudable changes that nevertheless have fallen short of securing
substantive equity and justice. This widely relevant book will become
central to reorienting the public debate around diversity in
technology."—Gabriella Coleman, McGill University

"Unraveling threads of identity, open technology, and activism over the
past decade, *Hacking Diversity* sympathetically but critically analyzes
the daily life, utopian desires, and critical awareness of participants in
hackerspaces, free software communities, maker movements, and activist tech
collectives. Dunbar-Hester reveals the poignant tensions at work in
communities struggling to address problems of global political inequality
with new technologies and practices that promise liberation—but all too
rarely deliver it."—Christopher M. Kelty, University of California, Los
Angeles

"Well-written, sophisticated, theoretically limber, and often clever and
humorous, *Hacking Diversity* unpacks the concept of diversity advocacy and
how to create, nurture, and sustain feminist hacker/maker spaces. It will
make an impact in feminist media studies, critical communication studies,
digital activism studies, and science and technology studies."—Leslie Regan
Shade, University of Toronto