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在今天如何理解和追求“技术主权”。自新冠肺炎大流行全球供应链破裂以来，各国政府已将国内高科技供应链政策作为其主权议程的一部分。为了更好地理解这些新兴的技术主权结构的政治影响，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。这项研究使政策制定者对技术、贸易和制造业政策及其对工业和福祉的影响感兴趣。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。该项目的发现将为开发一个研讨会提供基础，以使政策制定者和开发人员关注技术生产中组件采购和劳动力采购的伦理维度。该项目通过对开放硬件实践的研究，审查技术主权及其对工人、工程师和公民的各种影响。它使用了定性的方法，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人种学观察将展示技术主权是如何通过开放硬件实践影响和创造的。机构档案馆的档案研究将有助于跟踪这些建筑随着时间的推移而发生的变化。人种学和档案数据将通过采访主要利益相关者来补充，内容包括围绕开放硬件的动机、理由、紧张和矛盾。最后，该项目将数字化电子制造工人的档案，有助于他们朝着更符合道德的供应链的组织实践。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.