In this definitive essay, Gabriella Coleman critiques the stereotype of a hacker as a white male libertarian. In its place, and through a rich history of its varied sources and expressions, she uncovers an underlying hacker commitment to what she calls “craft autonomy,” or the freedom to do technical work that motivates contemporary classes of computing experts. In this, Coleman’s terrific essay engages in productive conversation with Christina Dunbar-Hester’s equally superb essay on geeks, Adam Fish’s mirror, and John Durham Peters’ cloud in the computer classes.
Hackers, among other actors in the technical classes, are not as we may have thought.
This comment may have been adapted from the introduction to Benjamin Peters’ Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture. 25% discount code in 2016: P06197
Excerpted from Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture by Benjamin J. Peters, ed. © 2016 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission.