Hackathons Final w Pics

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Recursive Identities in

Sociopolitical Movements:

A Case Study of HackathonsNathanael Bassett and Danny Kim

Participatory Research and Social Inquiry

Fall 2012 The New School


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Abstract

In todays network society, individuals are highly connected, due in large part to the increased

public access to information technologies. The Internet, mobile communications and digital

networks provide communication channels through which most social actors with access canexercise some control over the flow of information to which they are exposed. Hacktivists, part

of a broader range of media activists, can take advantage of the connectivity between

individuated identities to explore the possibilities of collectivizing personalist concerns into

communal action or movements.

Our goal is to investigate for researchers, activists, and hackathon organizers, in what ways a

hackathon exhibits a unique mode of civic engagement and/or socio-political activism. Second,

can hacktivist-oriented hackathons be designed to emphasize the conscious organization of

participants into collectives? If so, these could subsequently be capable of providing support and

advocacy for their corresponding socio-political movements. Finally, we intend to explore therecursive nature of the connection between individual and communal identities of collective

socio-political movements and their participants, framed in cyclical relationships around power

and knowledge.Our findings in this limited study indicate that hackathons are not inherently concerned with

solving social problems, even when they are the theme of the event, but are about solving

technology problems. Collaboration is the key to understanding hackathons, but it may be

possible to encourage collectivity if the organizers make the effort.

Overview: Hackathons,Hacktivism and Hackers

In this study, we are looking at the relationship between

technology and personal/collective political agency.

Hackathons are social events, where participants gather

under a theme to intensively work on problems (usually

related to computer programing) for a fixed amount of

time. These events cross virtual and physical barriers by

happening physically and online in a shared information space. By doing so, they create hybrid

environments where individual participants can directly negotiate goals and agendas with others.

Participants are connected, sometimes combining personal goals and agenda to complete their

projects.

This research began as a way to investigate how to organize disparate agendas under a core,

collectivized consensus. Hackathons seem like the ideal opportunity to do hacktivism, a type of

digital activism (Samuel) encompassing a wide range of activities, including "computer


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programing, circumventing security systems designed to protect computer networks and digital

data stores, designing and executing solutions to solve problems by combining software and

hardware in unconventional ways, and modifying and re-purposing digital products of all

kinds" (Alleyne, 1-2). People who do this sort of hacking, or hackers, can be thought of as

social actors engaged in the investigation and collection of data with social or political goals,

intervening in the exchange of information occurring in digital networks. Hackathons with thesegoals may constitute as modes of political action or activism.1

The question we are looking to make some sense of is how individual hacker identities and

collective consensus of hacker communities inform each other. How do individual political

beliefs and agendas shape the practices of data collection, interception, distribution, and

visualization? Inversely, how does a politically conscious community help form hackers

interested in their work? Do the common goals and relationships with other participants make

hackathons a site for intense, collective hacktivism?

Ultimately, we are interested in how within a highly mediated space, where people and digitalmedia technologies construct the social environment, participants contribute their personal

political agendas and objectives into a collective dynamic of a movement/initiative (for social

change); and inversely, how a consensus on the cultural make-up or political ideology of the

collective affects the individuals negotiation of his/her political identity and level of

involvement in the collective action.

Research Claim/Questions

Our claim is that people doing hacktivism form collectives, whether unwitting or intentional.

Hackathons are important, interposing virtual and physical events between individuals and

potential communities, where each informs

the other, helping establish their respective

identities and roles. With the necessary

planning and facilitation, a hackathon can

offer a particular spatial organization

conducive to enabling participants to form a

cultural dynamic and negotiate individual

agendas in order to arrive at a consensus

determining a set of goals and strategies

required for collective hacktivist action.

How do hackathons uniquely challenge the

notion that civic engagement through digital media isnt collective? And how can a hackathon

like the OccupyResearch/OccupyData enable hacktivism?

1 For a more in depth definition of the terms of hacker and hacktivism, see Gunkel, D J. Editorial:Introduction to Hacking and Hacktivism. New Media & Society (2005): n. pag. Print.


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Part of this involves some assumption, as to whether or not hackathon participants identify as

hacktivists, hackers, or merely technology enthusiasts or professionals. Whats important is how

they contribute and what their goals are for themselves and for the event.

Background Research

The expansion of the online digital media landscape and the proliferation of access to digital

media technologies have re-configured the spatial organizations of heterogeneous power

relations existing within the contemporary social environment. Over the past few decades,

techniques of controlling information have shifted dramatically, as the emergence of certain

technologies enabled or empowered more people to access sites of information exchange and

knowledge production. People with access to the right technology can engage in the processes of

collecting information previously reserved for the more privileged sectors of society (that had the

means of producing/transmitting information), and can make sense of the data to produce new

knowledge systems or even develop ideological claims.

The new set of global communication systems does not merely serve as an intermediary to

bilateral human-to-human interactions. Knowledge and information have been inscribed and

embedded into a digital network system that not only mediates cultural exchange but also

formulates new cultural expressions. The vertical approach to cultural production has become far

less relevant among information networks. Whereas those who owned the most influential

spheres of the culture and media industries (television broadcasting companies, Hollywood,

advertising industries) controlled the means of cultural production in the previous era, the so-

called Information Age provides the public with open access to the process of producing

communicative transmissions or media content. The defined roles of producing agent, who has

the power to transmit messages that contribute to formation of cultural codes, and passive

consumer, who accepts and consents to the formation of cultural codes by receiving the

messages, are becoming less distinguishable within the network society. As Manuel Castells

suggests, Culture is constructed by the actor, self-produced and self-consumed (Castells, 21).

The dissemination of these products has a new method of viral transmission through networks,

rather than the past form of top-down mass mediated cultural production. For these new viral

modes of transmission and distribution, greater exposure legitimizes the message or media

object. Where media is produced by numerous actors, going viral indicates a particular media

object is noteworthy, and legitimate.

The asymmetric dyad of transmitter/producer versus receiver/consumer had to be radically re-

structured for social actors to operate new information technologies under the logic of the

network system. This resulted in the de-centralization of culture production, thereby enabling a

larger populous with access to information technologies to become active participants in the

process of cultural formation. In terms of culture, power has been transferred to the social actors

who participate in sharing as well as collecting multi-lateral communication of knowledge,


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information, and meaning (Poster, 267). Cultural consensus or hegemony, based singularly on

historical precedence or a pre-existing set of common understandings, is gradually deconstructed

and replaced by multiple collections of codes to which a multi-vocality of meanings can be

attributed. Castells writes, The fragmentation of culture leads to the individualization of

cultural meaning in the communication of networks (22).

The democratization of technology also poses a challenge to technocapitalist values. At present,

information and systems are structured to maximize priorities of the establishment, embodying

the cultural horizon of capitalism. This namely comes in the form of efficiency, with other

concerns being displaced. Using technology in ways that contrast majority practice raises the

chance of democratic technological change without the destructive acts and insurmountable

challenge of dismantling such a technological infrastructure (Hands, 39-41).

With the introduction of information technologies to

the public and the surge of media activism, so-

called hacklabs emerged to account for changingsubjectivites of social actors, as they gained access

to producing new cultural dynamics and meanings.

Indeed, this work was seen as in continuation with

overturning those property relations in the area of

media, culture and technology (Maxigas, 3). We

understand in its initial emergence, the culture of

hacklabs has embraced acts of intervention that

disrupt the normative conditions of communication exchange and flow. This historically

subversive act can redistribute access to information databases and re-organize the power

relations around knowledge production that occurs within digital media networks.

The term hacker has contentious meaning, but is usually applied to actors behaving outside the

norms of these technological systems, beyond majority practice. The popular understanding of

the word is rooted in criminal acts of information theft and vandalism, but has an emerging

articulation used to describe a diverse body of actions and motivations (Coleman, Turgeman-

Goldschmidt). Hackathons themselves are not necessarily related to hacking, being more of a

programming marathon, but can involve work which falls under the description of hacktivism,

which Jordan describes as mass embodied online protest, internet infrastructure and

information politics, and communicative practices and organization" (258). For the sake of this

study, we are focusing on hackathons which fall under the second and third definitions.

Although there is an abundance of discussions around the vast networks of active individuals

expressing dissent over certain socio-political conditions and norms, it is critical to distinguish

the networks of interconnected nodes from more collectivized entities consisting of individuals

that have consciously organized themselves around consensus on action motives and strategies,


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which have been formed out of collective negotiations.2 Hacklabs are examples of conscious

efforts made by individual media/virtual activists to organize themselves into collectives and

collaboratively investigate strategies for political action or advocacy and support. As opposed to

merely retaining the properties of connectivity, which is more of a status of the relation or

affinity between individuated units. It is not the nature of the relation itself but indicates some

level of overlap or connection between individual nodes, particularly in social structuresconsisting of network systems. This distinction is necessary to make because the misconception

that connectivity automatically or inherently supposes collectivity leads to a kind of thinking that

simply participating in the trends of virtual activity can be considered to be political activism.

Hacktivism itself is part of a new set of strategies

that do not fit into current theoretical models of

activism. Mediated strategies do not just change

the scope of activism, but how it takes place, and

the nature of participation (Earl and Kimport,

29). It is important to critically think about theagency of technology in the process of motivating

social change and how people determine its social

purpose, as in the case of mediated political

movements and events like the Arab Spring, the

Iranian Revolution of 2009, and Occupy Wall

Street. New technologies enable certain types of political and social activism, yet it is unclear if

they determine the agendas of those movements (Earl and Kimport, 14). By examining the role

of individual actors and how they contribute to such movements, we can study whether

individual political agency is increased through the use of such technologies. New media

literacies (Jenkins et al, 19) affect the politics of information and in turn, public discourse. As westruggle to reconcile our dynamic relationship within the public sphere with changes to our

mediated experience of the world, we must find how people contribute to, and articulate the

reality in which we exist. Clearly, people play a role in this. To think otherwise suggest the sort

of technological determinism of Herbert Marcuse. Avoiding the view of technology as

monolithic and that social changes must occur through mass movements turns us away from

forms of change which are more localized yet cumulative, that lead to flexible instances that

contribute to larger examples of political or social resistance and protest (Hands, 37). It is our

belief that technology does not change the world, but people who use technology do.

We are looking at hacktivism as a mode of civic engagement emerging out of a longer tradition

of media activism. Like media activists have historically endeavored to do, hacktivists also

criticize the culture of intellectual property and attempt to re-program the systems of information

and knowledge privatization. Hacklabs, in particular, have historically been sites in which

2 In his article Networks, Swarms, Multitudes, Eugene Thacker discusses the emergence of mutationsor deviations from the contemporary body politic as symptomatic of a fundamental shift in the global

social structure. He explores the formations of alternative configurations of the body politic manifesting invarious modes of social organization including networks, swarms, and multitudes.


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hacktivists emerged to focus on re-appropriating computer networks and media technologies for

political uses. Maxigas describes, [D]ue to their historical situatedness in anticapitalist

movements and the barriers of access to contemporary communication infrastructure, hacklabs

tended to focus on the adoption of computer networks... for political uses... championing folk

creativity (Maxigas 4). These hacktivists engage in the practices of disseminating access to the

dispossessed and encouraging the masses to participate in producing as well as transmittingpolitically critical content. Thus, the politics of communication and information sharing become

re-shaped as the power relations around the flows of information are re-organized by hacktivism.

These iterations of hacktivism and new

forms of mediated activism also lead to a

change in the collective identity of a

cumulative movement. Shared concerns

and values contribute to the self-concept of

participants, which serves as a compelling

effect of collective action. This in turnfeeds a desire to participate more, but

shared identity is also leveraged against

desires for anonymity. Whether low-risk

actions (such as e-tactics that do not

require physical co-presence) or other

strategies requiring mediation of disparate of individuals through online networks creates a new,

less significant form of collective identity is not clear. However, dynamics of online protest

suggest new wrinkles in how we theorize collective identity (Earl and Kimport, 145) and

hackathons serve as sites to examine both the physical co-presence and mediated work of

individuals collaborating towards common goals. To understand these wrinkles, we chose tostudy hackathons and the potential they have to facilitate hacktivism and create collective

identities around shared goals and motivations.

Methodology

We approached this research with a social constructivist perspective. Given our concern over

how individuals form their political identities under various constraints, this seemed like the

most appropriate epistemological framework. Participants are dealing with prescribed cultural

norms, pre-existing social conditions, and commonly accepted political ideologies of the current

historical moment. As stated above, hacktivism and hackathons provide a case study and site forthis research. At each hackathon event, we attempted to learn about the processes by which

individual participants reach a consensus on the goals and conditions of their collective effort. It

was also important to take note of the ways in which individuals communicate with each other in

order to make sense of the multiplicity of ideas expressed in regards to collecting information

and utilizing digital media technologies as well as networks. During our participant observation,

we attempted to identify the common language employed by individuals in order to share and


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understand the knowledge needed to operate the tools used to facilitate the flows of information.

However, we assume that each hacker collective forms its own unique ethos and implements a

different belief or value system, under which to perform the work needed to achieve the

determined goals. While our results may not be representative, they serve as instantiations of this

process, and the differences between hackathons exemplify that.

An interview component to this work calls for reflexivity among subjects and ourselves, and

inviting the contributions of interviewees. Further work on this would allow significant portion

of the outcomes to emerge in the form of an action product, through which participants will be

able to both reflect on their involvement and to plan for more organized or collectivized work in

the future, creating a potential for this to be participatory action research (see Appendix).

Methods

In an attempt to understand the movement of individuals within particular collective/communal

environments, we have to consider ethnographic data collection strategies. In this case, we used

participant observation with various hacker communities, in which individuals convene in both

physical spaces as well as shared virtual media networks. Our goal was to study the events of co-

presence in physical and virtual space, as they relate

to this process of recursive identity construction.

What do participants bring to the table (physical and

virtual), and what do they leave there for others?

Our plan was to engage in participant observations to

find out how participants and members of

hackathons, hacklabs, or hackerspaces navigatethrough the physical spaces of such events. The

means of how they interact with other participants to

discuss the processes of constructing and fulfilling

meaningful objectives is crucial to understanding their roles in such work. As participant

observation is concerned with space, we observed both the environment of these hackathons and

the information space where they are involved in completing communal goals. We were also

concerned with who was drawn to participating in the physical gatherings, what their

contributions to forming the cultural dynamic and identity of the hacker collective were, and how

individual participants distinguish themselves from other members moving through the same

space. By observing their physical co-presence at these events, we examined how individualhackers were coming together to share knowledge about information technologies, creating new

knowledge, and taking control of digital media software and tools.

In addition, studying the mediated information networks organized by hacker communities was

useful. In the information space, we can see how the data (central to such events) are being used

and shared with others. We will also observe where data is located, who is privileged in these

encounters, and who is participating. We can also compare these physical and virtual encounters,


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how they contribute to the overall process of the event, and the ways they reflect on the

participants themselves.

Hackathons

Participating in three different hackathons with loosely related themes and agendas led to some

revelations about hackathon events and how it is difficult to correlate them with actual acts of

hacktivism. Between September and November 2012, we attended OccupyData III, EcoHack III

and Hack NJill II (in part). As the names imply, these were not the first gatherings of these

groups - they had met on previous occasions, and were each loosely organized by the same

groups and individuals, with similar goals and agendas as their previous iterations.

OccupyDataNYC

OccupyData, as the name implies, has been engendered by ideas and individuals inspired by orinvolved in the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The first hackathon took place in December of

2011, the second in March 2012, and the most recent (which we attended) September 2012.

Virtual documentation provided by organizers, public websites and repositories on the previous

two provided ample resources for us to study the outcomes and projects surrounding these

events. Organizers and participants of these events collaborated on projects using technology to

affect social/political agenda, and the footprints of their work are still visible on public web sites

such as http://searchunderoccupy.parsons.edu/, http://

occupydatanyc.org/, and collaborative Google docs

contianing a wealth of information.3 There is no evident

funding of these events.

Occupy Wall Street is perhaps the best documented and

over-represented example of a new political movement,

originating within the media space through Adbusters and

activist networks, and physically coming to fruition in the

media capital of the United States, where coverage

quickly went national. Iterations of Occupy groups across

the country and even overseas, as well as the colonizing aspect of how members identified and

associated their image with anti-austerity protests, the Arab spring, and other recent class

conflicts, ensured its totalizing appeal and encompassing nature. This gave researchers a huge

wealth of data to draw on, and a large banner with which they could identify causes and issues.Projects were conceived at the event without much prior thought, but used datasets which were

3 See the collaborative Google doc for Occupy Data Hackathon Data Mining and Visualization,

Accessed December 17, 2012. https://docs.google.com/document/d/11kSdBA42bbCw08Et1PG2VEtgHXHFlMaJzWaLoisNHI4/edit?hl=es
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11kSdBA42bbCw08Et1PG2VEtgHXHFlMaJzWaLoisNHI4/edit?hl=eshttp://occupydatanyc.org/http://searchunderoccupy.parsons.edu/http://occupydatanyc.org/https://docs.google.com/document/d/11kSdBA42bbCw08Et1PG2VEtgHXHFlMaJzWaLoisNHI4/edit?hl=eshttps://docs.google.com/document/d/11kSdBA42bbCw08Et1PG2VEtgHXHFlMaJzWaLoisNHI4/edit?hl=eshttps://docs.google.com/document/d/11kSdBA42bbCw08Et1PG2VEtgHXHFlMaJzWaLoisNHI4/edit?hl=eshttps://docs.google.com/document/d/11kSdBA42bbCw08Et1PG2VEtgHXHFlMaJzWaLoisNHI4/edit?hl=eshttp://occupydatanyc.org/http://occupydatanyc.org/http://occupydatanyc.org/http://occupydatanyc.org/http://searchunderoccupy.parsons.edu/http://searchunderoccupy.parsons.edu/


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either publicly available or previously built by participants.4

OccupyData I and II were explicitly multilocational, taking place in locations across the United

States (OccupyData I included a group in Utrecht, NL). These events were loosely organized,

working on different projects but taking place at the same time and having all their work

aggregated together. In contrast, OccupyDataNYC/OccupyData III (which we attended) wasopen to cooperation from participants who couldnt physically be present, but there was little to

no inclusion for them. During the event, participants talked about people online tweeting at them

and trying to get involved, but not being able to (after which they presumably lost interest).

OccupyDataNYC took place in the James Gallery in The Graduate Center at the City University

of New York. This setting somewhat repeated the choice of organizers to meet at the Arnold and

Sheila Aronson Gallery at The New School during the March event. Participants at this event

included researchers, students, developers and activists who were largely either technologically

literate (in coding and programming), invested in causes related to Occupy, or both. The lack of

technical skill in some participants was somewhat amended by the organizers designing aprocess where the importance of the research question (goal of a project) was just as privileged

as the development of that project and the results. Research questions were up for intense

discussion and formulation at the start of the hackathon, and while some coding work was done

the first day, the focus was the project questions and motivations.

EcoHack

EcoHack involves participants organized around

the theme of environmental issues. Organizers

include an activist and a genomicist, but they aremostly professional developers and self described

data geeks. EcoHack is presented by Vizzuality,

an open-source company that describes EcoHack

as an unconference5 while working with

conservation organizations in its regular business

operations.

EcoHack is also supported by other organizations,

including MailChimp, MapBox, The Public

Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, REDD Metrics, and CARTODB. It attracts a widebody of professional developers and programmers who, as they explained at the event, would be

doing this sort of work anyway.

4 See Datasets on the Occupy Data Hackathon Data Mining and Visualization Google Doc.

5 See Craig, Kathleen (June 6 2006). "Why "unconferences" are fun conferences". Business 2.0Magazine. http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/05/technology/business2_unconference0606/index.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/05/technology/business2_unconference0606/index.htmhttp://money.cnn.com/2006/06/05/technology/business2_unconference0606/index.htmhttp://money.cnn.com/2006/06/05/technology/business2_unconference0606/index.htmhttp://money.cnn.com/2006/06/05/technology/business2_unconference0606/index.htmhttp://money.cnn.com/2006/06/05/technology/business2_unconference0606/index.htmhttp://money.cnn.com/2006/06/05/technology/business2_unconference0606/index.htm


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In the course of our participant observation, we spoke with programmers attending the event who

stated they were not as interested in the issues or topics of discussion at hackathons, but the

challenges of programming itself and the opportunity for collaboration. The projects at EcoHack

were somewhat preconceived - one group was using the setting as an intensive start to a 5 year

research project. Others brought an idea and drew from those assembled to develop it in the bestway possible.

Setting for EcoHack seemed less pertinent than it was for OccupyData or Hack NJill -

originally, organizers planned to hold the hackathon at the Museum of Natural History, but

instead it was held at an industrial building (formerly owned by Pfizer) in Bedford-Stuyvesant,

Brooklyn. A large, carpeted dining room served as a place to both assemble in the center and to

split off into larger groups in their own areas. Attendees estimated about half of those

participating had been at previous EcoHacks, and half were new. Many also implied that they

went to other hackathons regularly, and that this means of casual engagement with technology

and programing was a recreational activity stemming from their professional skills. This meantthat a significant portion of the participants had some level of pre-existing relationships or at

least encountered each other before even stepping into the physical space of the event.

Some of the participants indicated that the most difficult part about being immersed in the culture

of the EcoHack is learning the language of data analysis, visualization, mapping, etc. It is a kind

of rite of passage for those who desire to collaborate. For those who lacked technical skills or

even the language to talk about the different methods of approaching the data, it was difficult to

participate in projects because very few people reached out to explicitly demonstrate inclusivity

or invite them to contribute in whatever way possible. Generally, there was a sense that the

majority of participants still emphasized programming skills and application of data tools overthe issues of environmental sustainability and protection. We also have to be conscious of our

own situation, as those who lacked access to the common language and understanding of the

cultural dynamics. It was difficult for us to initiate contact and develop relationships that would

help us be more immersed in the action, without skills or knowledge of digital hacking

processes.

Hack NJill

Of the three hackathons, Hack NJill appeared to be the most structured event. Hack N Jill is

organized chiefly by four female professionals involved with tech companies as well as businessand public relations. It is also the most well sponsored by established, commercial entities.

Presented in collaboration with NYTechMeetUp, GirlDevelopIt and ControlGroup, Hack NJill

was hosted by Etsy in their offices in Brooklyn, and the preliminaries included an hour worth of

application programming interface (API) demos by companies such as Microsoft, RedHat,

Spotify and Mashery, among many others.


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We did not attend this hackathon during the day of

actual collaborative work, but we observed several

interesting features about the opening night. First, while

Hack NJill adopted the unconference guise of a

hackathon, its structure and organization privlidged the

commercial APIs and encouraged participants to workon including those features through a prize initiative.

Second, Hack NJills goals were not as explicitly

activist-oriented, as were OccupyData and EcoHack,

though the theme was to highlight the role of women in

the tech industry. There was a significantly more diverse

group of participants at Hack NJill, in terms of both race and gender. Third, organizers created

rules around the projects, including fresh code only - nothing the participants submitted as part

of the event could have been developed beforehand. These projects were also pitched by

participants immediately following the API presentations.

Another interesting feature: while the organizers were female and the participants who pitched

ideas and formed teams were female, nearly all of the commercial API presenters were male. The

event was geared to promote inclusiveness, and there were jokes and discussions about

companies specifically trying to hire women, and this event reflected that issue within the tech

industry.

While the agenda of female empowerment is inherently a political and social issue, the projects

did not need to be - however, the previous week Hurricane Sandy had made landfall in New

York. Due to the timing of the event, many of the projects focused around disaster relief efforts,

with few exceptions.

Analysis

No two hackathons are exactly alike. Depending on the organizers, the nature and goals of the

event, the participants, the level of corporate support, and even the setting, hackathons can have

wildly different atmospheres which encourage different sorts of work and agendas. They can be

aggressively casual, in the sense that participants are not concerned with formalities and

structure. One participant became agitated when we asked if they would sign a formal informed

consent form. At another point, an organizer asked our research work to be discrete and not

bother participants, because thats not what theyre here for. Participants attend for differentreasons, including networking, learning, and a desire to make something interesting.

One participant described to us the three different types of hackathons. There are API events,

where participants are encouraged to use a cool and interesting new piece of technology. In a

sense, participants are invited to do a companys work for them, by testing out and debugging

tools which they havent promoted to a wider audience yet. Participants are happy to do this


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because it means learning new skills and creating interesting solutions which benefit them

personally, by raising their professional skill set and allowing them to collaborate with others on

the same, normally esoteric issues. EcoHack featured some API opportunities, but not as strongly

as Hack NJill

Second, there are contest hackathons, where individuals compete to produce projects that arejudged by organizers or an independent panel. Hack NJill served as an example of both of these

first two categories, featuring tasty prizes from various API developers. This seems like a

minor incentive. Participants may not to come to a hackathon for prizes, but it could guide their

work in certain directions, and it rewards them for certain types of participation.

Lastly, there are the socially conscious hackathons. These include EcoHack and OccupyData.

These events are organized around the sort of political themes and efforts which we originally

wanted to investigate, and seem like the most probably site for hacktivism or civically engaged

hacking.

What we found was quite different from our initial assumptions. Unless there is a deliberative

effort, hackathons are not collectivizing. Instead they are collaborative, encouraging participants

to work with new individuals and groups, allowing for an open and free sharing of skills, ability

and information. While there is a need for formalized planning to make a hackathon happen,

participation is informal. Someone may show up one day and not the next. Groups working on

the same project may include members who drift in and out of discussion and work. Some

individuals may aid multiple groups at the same time, particularly if they have a high skill level.

Hacktivism is by no means integral to hackathons. Hacktivism may be a part of a hackathon, but

not all projects are hacktivism.

This is possibly because of a disconnect between policy, advocacy and technology. The

participants we met at hackathons were most likely to be developers, coders and people involved

in the technology industry attending to learn new skills, to network with other professionals, and

to work on projects they think are interesting. As one participant told us, these are projects that

they might consider during the week, but cant pursue in a professional capacity. These are by no

means necessarily political projects or social causes, but instead they are technical problems,

which improve the participants ability once it is solved.

There is a very social experience of organizing at a hackathon - the informality of the event

means that attendees have to navigate new social situations and groups quickly and effectively.

Informal conversations revolve around tech skills. People launch right into the work, and begin

collaboration as soon as possible. A hackathon is a recreational performance of skill, a social

experience of collaborative ability which encourages individuals to work together on whatever

piques their interest.

We noticed that part of the reason for such swift and efficient formation of working groups had

to do with the participants familiarity with each other. As we mentioned earlier, many


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participants of hackathons are not so new to them. Many frequently participate in different types

of hackathons, therefore a significant number of them encounter each other in previous

hackathon events. Based on this understanding, we can make the connection between these pre-

existing ties between participants and the cultural dynamics of the hackathon events. We think

that that participants regular attendance of different hackathon events and their prior

engagement in activities with one another gave them the experience to form groups andcollaboratively work on projects efficiently, without the need for the event organizers and

facilitators to explain protocols or rules for initiating projects and maintaining collaborative work

spaces. In fact, many of the activities, including group organizations, sharing of skills, and

division of labor, occurred organically and were largely participant led. At OccupyData,

participants were encouraged to circulate and see what different groups were doing, but

eventually settled into roles that they saw fit. A group focused around narratives of OWS

emerged from people who had both the skills and the interest to make it happen, without any

direction from the organizers.

In this sense, we can interpret hackathons, like the EcoHack event, to have facilitated theformation of a community of people interested in collecting and making sense of data related to

environmental science and contemporary ecological issues. There seemed to be an implicit

consensus and perhaps even a set of norms on how the participants physically present in the

space, called forth by the hackathon, would navigate through and interact with other participants

to achieve the goal of analyzing, making sense, and visualizing various data collected. On the

one hand, participants seem to have more agency in leading group discussions and coming up

with their own methods or approaches to collecting, organizing, analyzing, and making sense of

data. However, on the other hand, the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion become more

revealed, as those who lack the understanding of how the hackathon operates or lack the ability

to communicate using the shared language of those with more experience in hacking cultureshave a difficult time engaging themselves and contributing to the progress of the collaborative

projects.

Even at a socially conscious hackathon, solving those problems does not mean participants are

deliberately engaged in hacktivism, with the goal of answering social problems. Instead they are

interested in technology problems. Technology helps to inform agenda and goals of advocates for

issues, but itself does not to purport a solution. As stated above, there is a disconnect with

advocacy and technology. Additional participation by activists who are familiar with those

problems may improve this problem, but programmers who are interested in applying a dataset

to provide a visualization of some political issue seem to believe that the data itself will affect

change - there doesnt seem to be much concern with any long-term impact of their work, or

even with the way it lasts beyond the event. Many of these projects seem like digital ephemera,

not actually designed with the intent of lasting beyond the event itself, but just to satisfy a contest

or make something interesting. Whether or not the group that will meet again is unclear, but a

study over time would reveal more.


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Personal reflections

A crucial part of executing the data collection methods was thinking about how to situate

ourselves and perform our roles as researchers with specific preconceived assumptions and

biases. There were aspects of our data collection processes in which we attempted deductively to

find instances and moments that would constitute as evidentiary support for our initial

arguments. For example, we approached our participant observations with an assumption that

hackathons are sites at which hacktivists organized themselves into a collective with specific

action agendas or mission statements that guide the continued formation into active communities

with consensus on certain norms and operational protocol (in other words, how the group was to

function, for what purpose and to what extent). However, we found out that different hackathons

serve different purposes, but in most cases, they are more sites of collaborations than they are

organizations consisting of negotiations for collectivization. Therefore, we also had to take up

inductive strategies of data collection. This meant that we also needed to be opened to

participating in the activities of hackathons in the effort of allowing the data to emerge from the

engagement and interactions with other participants. However, this task proved to be difficult

and it required time and effort on our parts to adjust to the unconscious cultural norms of these

events.

Given our lack of skill in programming, we had to seek means of participation that did not rely

on performing tasks involving programming and coding. This made us more dependent on

participant interaction to fully understand and clarify what we do not understand in the

hackerspace. However, without much to contribute to the processes taken up by the different

project groups at hackathons, we found it difficult to engage in conversations or interact with

many participants. While many participants were able to identify the roles they could effectively

perform (programming, mapping, scraping, etc.), we had difficulties articulating which roleswould best fit our attributes. The fact of participants dividing up the work according to types of

skills indicated that the interactions amongst heterogeneous identities were more nuanced than

simply distinguishing the hackers from the non-hackers. On the contrary, participants rarely

used the term, hacker to identify themselves.

Many of the participants were goal-oriented and intently focused on their projects rather than

taking the time to include those like us, who lacked the ability to give constructive suggestions

on how to produce solutions for problems relating to the handling of digital data. This

observation was useful in revealing to us some of the internal social dynamics of hackathons,

which we have articulated to be distinctly social events. Each hackathon had a unique culturethat enabled people to work effectively on collaborations. However, a common theme that ran

through all of the attended events had to do with our struggle with engaging in activities and

contribute to the collaborative processes that are emphasized and fostered at hackathons. Often

times, we felt as though we could only observe from a distance without the necessary skills or

experiences to warrant interest from the other participants in what helpful attributes we might be

able to offer.


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Keeping that reflexivity as a feature of future research (see Appendix) helps to ensure the

legitimacy of our claims. In future studies, having participants evaluate themselves would be

helpful to guarantee that we do not misrepresent or misconstrue the subjects or their perceptions.

It will be useful to immerse ourselves into the diverse cultures of hackathons and develop

relationships with both organizers and participants in order to gauge how participants maintainconnections with one another, continue to collaborate on hacking processes, and/or habituate

themselves under particular cultural norms. If we are able to build rapport, learn basic skills, and

take the initiative to be more involved, we foresee possibilities of helping to support or even

facilitate the formation of communities arising out of the relationships made through the

collaborative processes emerging at hackathons. In order for us to see the different

manifestations of social or interpersonal relationships, we must actively seek to share how our

identities, understandings, skills, and thinking could fit into the group dynamics constituting

hackathons.

Conclusions

The hackathon is space where developers, designers and people who are interested or

experienced in relevant areas can join together to "crowdsource" the thought process and

development aspect of technological tools, which may or may not have social applications.

Hackathons are unique in the way they aggregate skill levels and encourage participants to

collaborate, but they do not coalesce those efforts, and participants do not become collectivized,

unless there is an explicitly deliberate effort on behalf of the organizers. In this case, those

barriers of entry may exclude people who would not already identify with those causes, and

hackathons become a site where they can work on those problems together.

While these events are participant driven, the individual stakes make collaboration a process of

mutual benefit within the event itself, and directing those efforts beyond the hackathon takes

effort on behalf of the organizers. To use a hackathon for hacktivism, there needs to be a specific

policy or cause that participants are encouraged to address. An action agenda driven by

technology solutions can be privileged in the same way that APIs and tech industry interests are

in contest driven hackathons. This may balance out some discouragement arising from

organization that is too strict or structured.

Further study is necessary to fully explore the potential of hackathons for hacktivism, and to

understand the relationship between the identities of the participants and the collective identity(or lack thereof, as this study indicates) of a hackathon.


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Appendix

Future Research

There is a wealth of additional questions and issues that come out of this work, which can be

addressed in future study. In what ways are the various processes of hacking action-oriented

and in what ways can the process mobilize participants to contribute to social change? How do

media technologies appropriated for the process of hacking help to form the political position

or identity of an individual? How does the specific usage of particular media tools help to define

the objectives and purpose of a unique gathering of hackers like a hackathon? These are

questions we started with, and would pursue with further study. How do participants they compel

others to become invested in their own personal stakes, and how do they become invested in the

stakes of others? Is this an authentic investment?

As to our original questions, it is important to follow up our observational approaches with semi-

structured interviews. These interviews are necessary to delve deeper into the insights ofindividuals that have participated in the hackathons. Due to the constraints of our timeline, this is

where further study could be done. Organizers and participants who are willing to consent can be

interviewed, and researches could ask questions specifically related to their experiences leading

up to such events and how they conceptualize their roles in the middle of this communal work. In

further work, researchers can ask participants questions such as, how they would describe

significant experiences in their lives that led them to their sociopolitical outlook. What are their

views on activism and hacktivism? Do hackathons (and their work in such a context) feel like the

work of a collective? Do they see themselves as part of such a group? The semistructured nature

of the interviews and the expertise of the participants means these questions should guide the

work but not restrictive. We feel a conversational approach would be most beneficial. This workwas part of our original study design and will be included in future results.

Ideally, in the course of research we would like to enable more control of the study by

participants over time (Garcia-Iriarte et al.). It would be key to formulate a way to leave the work

in the hands of the participants, as a means of continual refinement and improvement of their

own collective work. However, the existing ethics of this strategy mean that it could be co-opted

for causes and interests which may seek to generate a false sense of authenticity. Such a method

would be extremely useful to hegemonic interests at building false grounds for support, such as

government, corporate or commercial advocates of some purpose potentially not to the public

interest. The associational guise of such a study (Kindon, 22) and delegitimization of theoriginal positioning of participants would undermine the idea of natural, organic decision-

making and identity construction.

As part of future research, we would invite organizers and key participants of these hackathons

to a focus group, in which we will lead group discussions around the themes we have already

explored in our semi-structured interviews. Lastly, there is a wealth of information available

from previous hackathons, including raw data and the products. We can also search for any


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further documentation, which we can add to a retrospective analysis, such as comparing the most

recent OccupyResearch hackathon with previous iterations.

As researchers, we have to remain reflexive about our status as participants lacking the

knowledge particular to a hacker community that has been always in the process of production

since before our involvement. While this complicates our situation, being forced to rethink andre-evaluate how we categorize actual findings will provide a good critical weight against our

own assumptions imposed upon the community. This should not limit us to the extent that we do

not participate at all. Instead, we must carefully consider how we want to help pose the questions

needed to initiate hacker inquiry and find the desired sources of specific data production.

We would also like to incorporate a more participatory action research study design to this work,

by moving the research within the context of the hackathon itself. Conducting a meta-hack,

where we modify and repurpose the event to be more reflexive, and including the participants to

improve on a hackathon would be a useful way of creating an action agenda for future events.

Since this study is intended to produce understanding and inform us on the process of self-concept and crowd-sourced ideology, our use of an action oriented hackathon with political or

social agendas as a field of study rests heavily on the goals and intentions of the subjects.

Providing them with a stake in the work would be ethical. It would also give us richer findings,

better results and a proper application for the work.


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