Expertise

First, as acknowledged in the title of this paper, there are important changes occurring in the “culture of expertise” by which global production is accomplished because of “making”. Noted STS scholars such as Karin Knorr-Cetina (2009), Hugh Gusterson (1998), and Sharon Traweek (1988) have done ethnographic work inside labs and produced a body of evidence pointing to distinct cultures within these labs. These cultures seem to affect the output of the labs at a deep social level. More recently, scholars have been discussing cultures of expertise in a broader range of work (Boyer 2008) such as financial governance (Holmes & Marcus 2006, 2005) and craft cheesemaking (Paxson 2012). In addition, great ethnographic work has been done by many of my colleagues in the EPIC community inside large industrial companies (see Baba 2012, Jordan 2012, Moeran 2011, Cefkin 2009, etc.). From all of this work we are getting a look at what it means to be an expert in different domains, and what that special status imposes upon the output of each unique environment.

The FabLabs, however, are distinctly open-source and profess a rigid egalitarianism. This marks something of a departure from the corporate environments and standard models of expertise in science and manufacturing. I have observed in my work so far a unique culture of expertise forming in its own way among “makers” in FabLabs. In Japan, this “maker” expertise seems anchored in one’s degree of openness, non-uniformness, and a geeky (otaku) sensibility manifest in personal and online styles, in addition to manufacturing skill. Dr. Tanaka would clearly be seen as an expert. His influence is undoubtable. At FabLab Kannai, however, Mr. Furukawa, perhaps seen by many patrons in 2013 as an expert, was in fact learning a lot himself about “making” as he organized events. In 2014, Mr. Furukawa is no longer managing FabLab Kannai and his status as an expert has probably waned. Reputations or positions of expertise within this community may rise and fall very quickly. Finally, this culture of expertise, aggressively open when compared to the experts who can access larger machines of production inside industrial companies, may be having its effect on the latter, although in the scope of this project I cannot quite get a handle on that influence.

Tools, Actor-Networks, and Cohesion

Another theoretical domain in which this research on “makers” in Japan seems relevant is the consideration of heterogenous actor networks and the question of cohesion in particular. In the actor network model (Latour 2005, Law 2009) the technical tools employed by human agents in FabLabs are not simply dumb objects but rather bear something of an agentive influence on the whole social operation. Robert Oppenheim’s advice is to interrogate ad hoc group cohesion beyond the classic anthropological categories: “class, ethnicity and so on” (Oppenheim 2007:474), by way of technical “intermediaries” (Latour’s word) that can “faithfully transmit the force of cohesive action” (474). As “intermediaries”, newly accessible machines such as 3D printers may be central to the magnetism of “maker” activities. What I mean here is that the answer to why “makers” organize, as Oppenheim suggests by way of the actor network model, may require an inquiry into the objects themselves – 3D printers in this case – that are used as “intermediaries”.

Even in my initial research there is strong evidence that the machines in FabLabs are central to the cohesion of the entire endeavor. The simple fact that each lab, very different in its business model, management structure, local community support, gender makeup, class categories represented by patrons, and dozens of other factors, still has the same three machines: the 3D printer, the laser cutter, and some manner of CNC mill, is one example of this evidence. In fact, among many brands available, the Cube 3D printer was observed in nearly every lab. There is a link between labs – a purpose in the acquisition and employment of these tools – that represents a pivotal position of influence born by technical intermediaries in the cohesion of FabLab and “maker” activities in Japan.

Imagination, Hope and Precarity

A final theoretical postulate that I wish to address in this review is the social force born by the human imagination in our modern world. Arjun Appadurai wrote that:

The imagination is no longer a matter of individual genius, escapism from ordinary life, or just a dimension of aesthetics. It is a faculty that informs the daily lives of ordinary people in myriad ways: It allows people to consider migration, resist state violence, seek social redress, and design new forms of civic association and collaboration, often across national boundaries. This view of the role of the imagination as a popular, social, collective fact in the era of globalization recognises its split character. (2000:6)

Appadurai’s posit seems to match what I have seen among “makers” in Japan – new civic associations and collaborations sparked by the imagination. Especially when prospects seem precarious, I suspect that the imaginative possibilities propounded by “maker” rhetoric are central to the emerging cohesion of the “maker” community in Japan.

Further insight into this operation is offered by a Japanese scholar, Hirokazu Miyazaki, who has done groundbreaking ethnographic work among financial derivatives traders at the top of the economy in Japan, and therefore the world. Miyazaki has traced the impact of new ideas about the world that infused a hope in the minds of these traders, and led to disruptions in the economy. Hope, for Miyazaki, “lies in the reorientation of knowledge” (2006:149) and is an important social factor because the “prevalent … ideas generate concrete effects” (151). It is these concrete effects that I think I have begun to trace among “makers” in Japan. The actions of FabLab proprietors to take risks, make sacrifices, and open a lab, as one example, evince a proactive practice in line with a reorientation of the knowledge they have about manufacturing. They seek to turn it not so much toward profit, as in the standard endgame, but to its recursion on itself in the public domain and the growth of a community that this knowledge helps to formulate (see Christopher Kelty on recursive publics, 2005). As another concrete example, the effect of Dr. Tanaka’s own imagination has been central to the emergence of each FabLab in Japan. Dr. Tanaka writes, speaks, teaches, and talks over coffee about his imagined, or hoped-for, new future: social (not alienated), environmentally stable, and egalitarian. Each FabLab director with whom I spoke (nearly all of them) reported inspiration and continued guidance from Dr. Tanaka.

In precarious Japan, I saw evidence of people reorienting their knowledge for a new future, in Miyazaki’s terms, in all of the “maker” practices and personal imaginings that I observed in FabLabs. Whether utopian, deterministic, or otherwise, this hope still seems to have a centrifugal effect, leading to a cohesion among heterogenous agents that has produced concrete effects, such as the reality of ten FabLabs in Japan in three years. Still, even though I asked often, no one reported anything concrete in the manner of a Linux- or even DIY Drone-equivalent open-source hardware project to speak of in Japan.

CONCLUSIONS

In FabLabs in Japan, at least, my observations lend evidence to the conclusion that some of the high-minded “maker” rhetoric differs from the practices of “makers” I observed ethnographically in Japan. “Makers” in Japan largely see their work as pre-corporate: the domain of hobbyists with shared values and interests, manufacturing for personal utility. There is not a lot of world-changing activity emerging from those labs, at least not in the scope by which Western audiences account for significance. Perhaps, then, companies should have little to fear off their bottom lines. However, from a longer term and social value position the “makers” I observed in Japan are in fact doing something of remarkable social moment. Organizing FabLabs and sharing their ideals – their “hope”, in Miyazaki’s terms – these agents are employing new tools to bring people together when other valences move them apart, as in Alison’s portrait of precarity. This “maker” zeal, or hope, as a centrifugal principle, and its concrete social outcomes seem in any case to merit a continued watchful ethnographic eye.

Matt Krebs is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Kentucky where he also studied diplomacy (M.A., 2005). Matt writes about communication and collaboration for KelCor, Inc. He has been executive director of the Japan/America Society of Kentucky and consulted on economic development projects in rural Kentucky. mattkrebs@KelCor.com

2014 Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings, ISSN 1559-8918. © American Anthropological Association and Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, some rights reserved.

NOTES

Acknowledgments – special thanks to Intel Labs for financial support and lively discussion that improved this research significantly. KelCor, Inc., has graciously supported the presentation of this paper. Thank you to Dawn Nafus and other reviewers for editorial guidance. The work of FabLab directors and patrons in Japan, whom I thank profusely and whom I look forward to seeing again soon, is the reason this paper was written. Particular thanks are due Daisuke Okabe, who hosted me at Tokyo City University, Hideyuki Furukawa, who started FabLab Kannai and was often my guide and advocate, and Hiroya Tanaka who will host me during extended research in 2015. Finally, and never just because it is customary, thanks to my wife, Corinda – the first anthropologist in our family.

This paper reflects the opinions of its author and not KelCor, Inc., or Intel, Inc.

¹ Title translation by me because the book is only published in Japanese and Chinese.

² Notably, published by O’Reilly Media.