Technology as Sovereignty: Open Hardware Politics and New Property Relations

这个项目将考察包括工程师和政策制定者在内的公民如何理解和追求“技术主权”。新冠肺炎疫情导致全球供应链中断后，各国政府作为主权议程的一部分，制定了国内高技术产业供应链政策。为了更好地理解这些作为主权的新兴技术结构的政治影响，本项目将研究这些主张如何影响技术生产制度和财产关系。这项研究使对技术、贸易和制造业政策及其对工业和福祉的影响感兴趣的政策制定者受益。这项研究还通过展示政策如何影响创新能力，使从事创新制造实践的设计师和技术人员受益。该项目的研究结果将为举办研讨会提供基础，使政策制定者和开发人员关注技术生产中零部件采购和劳动力采购的道德层面。本项目通过对开放硬件实践的研究，考察技术主权及其对工人、工程师和公民的各种影响。它使用定性方法，包括人种学观察、档案研究和半结构化访谈。对电子工人组织和开放硬件公司的民族志观察将显示技术主权如何影响并通过开放硬件实践产生。机构档案的档案研究将有助于追踪这些结构随时间的变化。人种学和档案数据将通过对关键利益相关者的访谈来补充，讨论围绕开放硬件的动机、理由、紧张关系和矛盾。最后，这个项目将数字化电子制造业工人的档案，有助于他们的组织实践，朝着更道德的供应链。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will examine how citizens, including engineers and policy makers, understand and pursue “technological sovereignty” today. Since the COVID-19 pandemic global supply chain breakdown, various governments have established domestic high-tech supply chains policies as part of their sovereignty agendas. To better understand the political effects of these emergent constructions of technology as sovereignty, this project will examine how these claims affect technology production regimes and the property relations. This research benefits policy makers interested in technology, trade, and manufacturing policies and their impact on industry and well-being. This research also benefits designers and technologists engaged in innovative manufacturing practices by showing how policy affects innovative capacity. Findings from this project will provide the ground for developing a workshop to bring policymakers' and developers’ attention to the ethical dimension of component procurement and labor sourcing in technology production.This project examines technological sovereignty and its varied impacts on workers, engineers, and citizens via the study of open hardware practices. It uses qualitative methods, including ethnographic observations, archival research, and semi-structured interviews. Ethnographic observations at electronic workers’ organizations and open hardware firms will show how technological sovereignty affects and is created through open hardware practices. Archival research at institutional archives will help track changes in these constructions over time. Ethnographic and archival data will be supplemented by interviews with key stakeholders on motivations, justifications, tensions, and contradictions surrounding open hardware . Finally, this project will digitize electronic manufacturing workers' archives, contributing to their organizing practices toward more ethical supply chains.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.