What does it mean to make things? Why are some people valorised as “makers”, while others are rendered invisible? And what duty do sociologists have as makers of knowledge and narratives? The “sewing cycling sociologist” Kat Jungnickel joins Uncommon Sense to discuss all this and more; including her years of research celebrating historic female cyclists as radical inventors, makers and hackers, responding to barriers to their freedom of movement and raising crucial questions about power and space.

Rosie (no stranger to DIY) and Alexis (a lifelong fan of taking things apart) ask Kat: what exactly is “Science and Technology Studies” (STS) and what’s the idea of the “black box” all about? How are the factory workers who make “our” clothes regarded in academia and beyond? Aren’t we all “makers” now, feeding our “smart” devices? And what can we learn from “Do It Together” (DIT) communities, like those Kat studied for her doctoral work in Australia, where she met people building their own wi-fi networks? Are they performing radical resistance to capitalism, or simply dealing with its downsides?

Plus: Kat celebrates the work of thinkers who inspire her, including Saidiya Hartman. Hartman’s “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments”, Kat suggests, invites us to interrogate and remake established narratives, and to make space for those previously dismissed and denied a voice. Also discussed: John Urry, John Law, Angela McRobbie, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour and more.

Production Note: This episode was recorded before Kat Jungnickel's home institution of Goldsmiths, University of London announced organisational restructuring, which includes plans to make more than 50% of academic staff in the Department of Sociology redundant.

Guest: Kat Jungnickel
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker

Find more about Uncommon Sense

Episode Resources

By Kat Jungnickel

• Bikes and Bloomers and the project’s open-source sewing patterns
• Politics of Patents
• Making Things to make Sense of Things
• Making WiFi
• Kat’s website

From The Sociological Review

• Words failed us: Repairing sociology’s haunted past means finding new language to write about the social world – Gala Rexer
• “The Promises of Practice” – Christopher Gad, Casper Bruun Jensen
• “Fixing the future? How architects make time in buildings for later life care” – Siân M. Beynon-Jones, et al.

Further reading

• “Science in Action” – Bruno Latour
• “Staying with the Trouble” – Donna Haraway
• “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments” – Saidiya Hartman
• “A Social History of American Technology” (2nd edition) – Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Matthew H. Hersch

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