HCI's Making Agendas

In this survey, we examine how making emerged as an interdisciplinaryarena of scholarship, research and design that connects entrepreneurs,designers, researchers, critical theorists, historians, anthropologists,computer scientists and engineers. HCI is one among many other fieldsand domains that has declared having a stake in making. And yet,a lot of what and who defines making is happening outside the familiarresearch laboratory or design studio. We take this article as anopportunity to reflect on HCI's relationship to making and how this relationshiphas changed over the last years. Making, we argue, presentsHCI with the opportunity to question and revisit underlying principlesand long-held aspirations and values of the field. Exactly because HCIand making share some fundamental ideals such as user empowermentand the democratization of participation and technology production,making confronts us with both the potential and the unintended consequencesof our own work.