Suchergebnisse

Who makes WiFi? Why do different makers matter? What do barbeques and backyards have to do with the internet? This book explores how WiFi is made from the ground up, or in this case from the backyard out. Forged around barbeques, made of found, adapted and off-the-shelf materials and installed in ordinary domestic spaces, this book documents the collective work of individuals committed to making 'Ournet not the internet'. Drawing on rich ethnographic material, Jungnickel's research on community WiFi networking provides an overdue account of the innovative digital cultures and practices of ordinary people making extra-ordinary things. What make-do methods, mods and tales of resourceful ingenuity permit is another way of seeing how technologies come into being. It brings to life an Australian version of WiFi, enriching global studies of wireless technology by signalling the potential of comparative studies. Critically, the book presents the first sustained study of homebrew high-tech backyard technologists who imbue a DIY ethos but do not do it alone - they Do-It-Together (DIT). This timely critique of collective DIT innovation in an increasingly networked society will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of maker culture.

Attention in ethnographic fieldwork, and particularly in multi-sited studies, has traditionally focused on the movement of people, things and ideas across distributed points. Recently, interest has gained purchase, particularly in mobilities and science and technology studies, on how the researcher physically gets from one place to another for the purpose of exploring the bearing, if any, mobility decisions and positionalities have on the nature of study and findings. The article contributes to this literature by defining four kinds of ethnographic mobility and focusing specifically on how a researcher gets there and back, or what can be termed ethnographic commuting. It draws on research conducted in two groups of backyard technologists in Australia (an initial study of a grassroots wireless network, which, as a result of my ethnographic commuting, grew to include a freakbike community). I discuss how cycling, initially adopted as a convenient form of transport between fieldsites, became an unexpected tool of enquiry, opening up new sites for study, providing entry into related social groups, catalysing new ways of thinking and, ultimately, (re)shaping my research. I highlight lessons learned and offer suggestions for approaching the ethnographic commute.

This article contributes to a growing literature examining the sociological significance of mobile places, exploring mobile place-making through an analysis of the practice of weekend group leisure cycling. These rides represent a mobility practice where the main aim of participants may be 'leisure' but most infrastructure used is designated for 'transport'. Using ethnographic methods, the article provides an analysis of rhythm, positioning and communication on two group rides, one from Hull into the East Yorkshire countryside and one in London. External (including motor traffic flow and route type) and internal (including group composition and experience) factors shape the relationship between the riders and their ride, and hence the mobile places that they co-create. The article argues that cyclists riding in groups create distinctively flexible social spaces. These group cycling practices variously challenge, mimic and adapt to the motorized orientation of much road space.