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Produsage in hybrid networks sociotechnical skills in the case of Arduino

Stefano De Paolia; Cristiano StornibaDepartment of Sociology and NIRSA, Iontas Building, National University of Ireland Maynooth,

Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Rep. of Ireland bInteraction Design Centre, Department of Computer Scienceand Information Systems, University of Limerick, Co. Limerick, Rep. of Ireland

Online publication date: 28 March 2011

To cite this ArticleDe Paoli, Stefano and Storni, Cristiano(2011) 'Produsage in hybrid networks: sociotechnical skills in thecase of Arduino', New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 17: 1, 31 52

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Produsage in hybrid networks:sociotechnical skills in the case ofArduino

STEFANO DE PAOLI$ and CRISTIANO STORNI%,1*$Department of Sociology and NIRSA, Iontas Building, National University of Ireland

Maynooth, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Rep. of Ireland

%Interaction Design Centre, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems,

University of Limerick, Co. Limerick, Rep. of Ireland

(Received 12 July 2010; final version received 26 November 2010)

In this paper we investigate produsage using Actor-Network Theory with a focus on(produsage) skills, their development, and transformation. We argue that produsage isnot a model that determines a change in the traditional consumption/productionparadigm through a series of essential preconditions (such as open participation, peer-sharing, or common ownership). Rather, we explain produsage as the open-ended resultof a series of heterogeneous actor-networking strategies. In this view, the so-calledpreconditions do not explain produsage but have to be explained along with itsestablishment as an actor-network. Drawing on this approach, we discuss a case study of

an open hardware project: the Arduino board, and we develop a perspective that mapsthe skills of human and non-human entities in produsage actor-networks, showing howskills are symmetrical, relational, and circulating.

Keywords: Produsage; Actor-network; Skills; Symmetry; Circulation; Relationality

1. Introduction

Produsage is a concept that tries to capture a range of emerging practices thatshift away from more traditional understandings about how production and

innovation occur in society (Bruns 2008). In a traditional paradigm,production and innovation are the province of large corporations, theorganization of labor is hierarchical, relatively fixed and structured, thuscreating a clear separation between the roles of producers and consumers,managers and managed, and designers and users. Innovation is thereforesecluded, top-down, and usually follows a linear series of predeterminedstages (Rogers 1995). On the contrary, recent developments in Informationand Communication Technologies (ICTs) and New Media have seen theemergence of new produsage practices: these are based on a decentralized

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia,Vol. 17, No. 1, April 2011, 3152

New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia

ISSN 1361-4568 print/ISSN 1740-7842 online # 2011 Taylor & Francis

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DOI: 10.1080/13614568.2011.552641


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and open-ended (often peer-to-peer) organization of labor whereby produc-tion and innovation are distributed, bottom-up processes without a pre-dictable path, and that spread among a number of proactive people (e.g. vonHippel 2005).

In this paper we draw on Actor-Network Theory (hereafter ANT) (Callon1986, Law 1987, Latour 1987b), discussing the case study of a very popularopen-hardware microcontroller: the Arduino board. We use the notion ofactor-network to refer to a web of human and non-human entities associatedtogether that act as a whole to produce technological innovations or scientificfacts (Latour 1987b). In this frame, we particularly focus our investigation onskills, understood as the ability of people and artifacts to perform actions.Specifically, we argue for: (1) the symmetrical nature of skills and the need toacknowledge their attribution to both humans and non-humans; (2) themovement/circulation of skills from human to non-human and vice versa;

and (3) the relationality of skills, where skills emerge as effect of thearticulation of human and non-human relations. The aim of our work is toprovide a critical perspective that challenges some of the assumptions of themainstream conceptualization of produsage.

Indeed, an increasing number of works in this area appeal to a series ofneologisms to address the new roles played by people practicing produsage:from the concept of prosumers early developed by Toffler (1980) and morerecently revived in Tapscott and Williams (2006), to the idea ofproduserlatelyput forward by Bruns (2008). Toffler was a pioneer in discussing a shift fromtraditional standardized mass production to a production based on masscustomization, whereby the consumer is more than just the end user of aproduct, but actively contributes to alter and modify the products he/sheacquires. Hence, Toffler foresaw a future type of consumer involved in thedesign and manufacture of material products that could be tailored toindividual specifications:

In the end, the consumer, not merely providing specs but punching the buttonthat sets the entire process in action, will become as much [a] part of theproduction process as the denim-clad assembly-line worker was in the worldnow dying. . . .If linked via a telephone to a personal computer, it will permit acustomer to feed in his or her various dimensions, select appropriate cloth(material) and then actually activate the laser cutter*without leaving his or herhome. (1980, p. 45)

More recently, Tapscott and Williams (2006) described consumers asprosumers, proposing the idea of Wikonomics in order to re-address theshift from traditional economics to a Web 2.0 a-like economic paradigm.Openness, sharing, peering, and acting globally are for them the new essentialpillars to establish another new model of production in society. Similarly,Benkler (2006) talks about commons-based peer production. Bruns (2007,2008) proposes the notions ofproduser and produsage by framing the shiftbetween different modes of production in terms of the relation between

production and use and also focusing on the change of the production valuechain, triggered by the popularization of the Internet. Bruns produserdiffers

32 S. De Paoli and C. Storni


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from Toffler prosumer. Bruns acknowledges that the Internet embodiestechnosocial affordances that provide the means for a many-to-many,collaborative and communal production process, with the convergencebetween user and producer (Jenkins 2006). This differs from an ad-hoc

participation of consumers in altering the material products they purchase,which was foreseen by Toffler. For Bruns, prosumption describes merely theperfection of the feedback loop from consumer to producer (2008, p. 12)without radically altering the traditional production value chain that goes*mono-directionally*from the producer to the consumer, and in which arestill present the separation of roles and vertical hierarchies. The phenomenonof produsage is, instead, a significant change in which

[T]he production value chain is transformed to the point of being entirelyunrecognizable*in the absence of producers, distributors, or consumers, andthe presence of a seemingly endless string of users acting incrementally as

content producers by gradually extending and improving the informationpresent in the information common. (Bruns 2008, p. 21)

Similarly to Tapscott and Williams, the concept of produsage, proposed byBruns, is based on a list of essential elements and key principles that aresupposed to explain the new paradigm. These principles are indeed a sort ofnecessary condition for the produsage productive process and specifically are:the open participation of people to the produsage, a fluid heterarchy withleadership roles emerging bottom-up, unfinished artifacts always open tomodification, and re-appropriation and common property of the finalproduct.

In the area of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) research there arecontributions that have provided analogous descriptions, usually based onopposing ideal-typical production paradigms: the proprietary softwareproductive paradigm opposed to the FOSS productive paradigm. Examplesof this opposition are: (1) the exclusive (intellectual) property of innovation oflarge software corporations (via restrictive licenses) opposed to the commu-nal character of innovations in user communities (Wark 2004); (2) theprotestant ethic of labor based on formally free work (Weber 19041905) andscientific management (Taylor 1911) opposed to the hacker ethic of laborbased on free labor and unstructured work (Himanen 2001); (3) a waterfall

model of software development (whereby implementation is followed bydebugging, usability testing, release, maintenance, and so on)opposed to a flat division of labor in which the aforementioned phasescollapse in a unique, ongoing hacking activity (Hannemyr 1999); and (4) acentralized software development methodology with managerial control in alarge software corporation (the Cathedral), opposed to a distributed one inwhich communities of people cooperate in distributed organizational forms(the Bazaar) (Raymond 1999).

While the differences between the two paradigms are clear, we are skepticalabout explaining the traditional production paradigm and the produsage

one by appealing to a series of structural elements that dichotomizeproduction paradigms (e.g. such as the more or less clear-cut separation

Produsage in hybrid networks 33


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between user and designer, the hierarchical or flat organizational structure,the more or less centralized ownership of products, or the organization ofproduction). We believe that these explanations put in play a form ofreductionism. Although we recognize differences between certain practices

of production/design and consumption/use in different contexts, we believewe should also look at how produsage actor-networks are built and how theabove-mentioned structural elements are achieved and maintained. Ourapproach considers that these elements have to be explained as effects andnot as causes of produsage. Instead of explaining produsage by listing thedifferent essential elements that determine it, our approach focuses onmapping the dynamics of the formation of the web of humans and nothumans that establish and maintain produsage actor-networks: in ourframework, therefore, what existing theories use to explain produsage,becomes instead what requires to be explained along with the formation of

actor-networks. The paper is organized as follows: in section 2 we introduceANT and the debate on skills; in section 3 we introduce a case study based onthe Arduino board; in sections 4, 5, and 6 we analyze the case and argue forlooking at skills as symmetrical, relational, and circulating. Finally, in section7 we draw some general conclusions.

2. Actor-Network Theory: networking strategies, inscriptions, and skills

The ANT is an approach that finds its origins in science and technologystudies (Hackett et al. 2008) and that looks at technological innovations asthe result of the formation of hybrid networks of humans and non-humans.In ANT the action of building a machine (a technological innovation or ascientific fact) is the action of building a machination in which differenthuman and non-human entities are first interested in, and then enrolled andmobilized by scientists and engineers into a hybrid network that functions asa whole. Scientists and engineers are the key actors that network these entitiestogether. One of the pedagogical examples used to introduce ANT is that ofthe sleeping policemen (namely, a speed bump). Sleeping policemen canbe used by town councils to control traffic on streets (figure 1).

Figure 1. Speed bump.



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The ANT would suggest that the action of controlling traffic is performedby the association and mobilization of a series of human and non-humanentities: the sleeping policeman (whose goal is to slow down traffic), thedrivers (who just drive), the motorcars, the pedestrian, the town council

(which tries to regulate traffic), and so on. All these actors are positioned inrelation with one another in order to perform traffic regulation as a whole.Therefore, traffic regulation is not reducible to any of the single entities, butto the formed actor-network and how it is built and maintained. This actor-networking of humans and non-humans is often called translation (Callon1986, Latour 1987b) and it consists in the ability of scientists or engineers(town councils in our example) to act as an intermediary between differententities. Latour reaffirmed:

[T]he problem of the builder of fact is that of the builder of Arti-facts: how toconvince others, how to control their behavior, how to gather sufficientresources in one place, how to have the claim or the object spread out in timeand space. In both cases it is others who have the power to transform the claimor the object into a durable whole. (1987b, p. 133)

In this sense, innovation (e.g. successfully controlling the traffic) is the result ofcomplex enrolling strategies. The sleeping policeman placed on the road byregulators has indeed the goal to convince drivers to slow down. Therefore, thecity councils claim we control the traffic by slowing down cars is transferredinto an artifact and becomes a durable fact. However, although engineers andscientists try to interest and enroll what/who they need, the result is always an

open-ended collective product (for instance, drivers can ignore the sleepingpolicemen at the cost of ruining their cars suspension) whereby mobilizedentities shape and reshape the identity of one another. Hence, the innovator isnot an innovator per se but only when he/she is associated with compliant users(drivers), mobilized distribution infrastructure (streets), artifacts (cars andsleeping policemen), and co-workers (human policemen) that work togethertoward a common outcome (a city with controlled traffic). This links withanother ANT notion*that of inscription*whose goal is to capture howdesigners, engineers, and scientists often rely on non-human actors in theattempt to enroll other actors in their projects. In fact a large part of the work of

innovators is that of inscribing a prediction about the (future) world in thetechnical content of non-humans (Callon 1986). To continue with the sleepingpoliceman example, city planners use this artifact to enroll drivers in the projectof controlling traffic. The ability to control traffic is therefore inscribed into thesleeping policeman. According to Akrich (1992), the end product of this canbe understood in terms of Goffmans concept of script:

The technical realization of the innovators beliefs about the relationshipsbetween an object and its surrounding actors is thus an attempt topredetermine the settings that users are asked to imagine for a particular pieceof technology and the pre-scriptions that accompany it. [ . . .] Thus, like a film

script, technical objects define a framework of action together with the actorsand the space in which they are supposed to act. (p. 208)



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The process of designing a new technology (like a speed bump) then becomesthe process through which engineersdesigners inscribe a particular scriptthat reflects their vision of the future user*and of his/her supposed skills*into the technological artifact. Engineersdesigners therefore try to apply a

sort of foresight method similar to that used in future studies (Bell 2003,Slaughter 2004), whose aim is to shape a normative or preferred future user,by the means of technological design choices. Woolgar (1991) similarlyproposed that designers enact their user by the means of affordances andconstraints enabling them to do one thing, but not something else. Thecirculation of certain scripts (inscribed in new designs) therefore affords thedefinition of certain interdependencies between users and designer/producers,and the establishment of a specific actor-network.

However, at any stage, users can violate the script thus opening up a spacefor the formation of new sociotechnical associations among the actors. This

aspect of the theory is particularly addressed by a series of studies drawing onthe notions of social shaping of technology (Williams and Edge 1996,MacKenzie and Wajcman 1999), domestication of technology (Silverstoneand Hirsch 1992), and appropriation of technology (Eglash et al. 2004). Forinstance, Silverstone and Hirsch (1992) talked about domestication as thetaming of a new technology. They argued that a new technology, beforebeing incorporated into users everyday life, goes through various stages suchas appropriation, objectification, incorporation, and conversion. Morerecently, Eglash et al. (2004) claimed that there are various types of userappropriation of technologies, from a simple reinterpretation to adaptationfor different context and even a re-invention.

All these studies reaffirm the need to see how an actor-network getsestablished and stabilizes, but also how that same actor-network ismaintained and transformed by the behavior of the actors that constituteand engage with it.

2.1 ANT and skills

In the next sections of the paper we will analyze in detail a produsage actor-network and develop an ANT view of skills that contributes to a betterunderstanding of produsage. The strategies and inscriptions used to build

actor-networks will be our central focus, along with their effects on skills andtheir circulation. In a remarkably concise way, Latour summarized atranslation process as:

A shifting network of actions redistributing competencies and performanceseither to humans or non-humans in order to assemble into a more durablewhole an association of humans and things, and to resist the multipleinterpretations of other actors that tend to dissolve this association. (Latour1992, p. 379)

The distribution and circulation of competences/skills and performances is

central in the translation process and represents a crucial aspect of



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networking strategies. Given ANT emphasis on the role of non-humans, weare invited to look at the role of (mobilized) non-human actors in thedistribution of competencies. Indeed, non-humans can not only performactions in place of humans (sleeping policemen perform actions in place of

real policemen), but they can also afford and facilitate the establishment ofcertain associations between different entities. Therefore, actor-networkingstrategies are often enacted by non-human actors that support the interac-tions between other actors in the networks (for instance, the sleepingpoliceman regulates the interaction between pedestrians and car drivers),thus also partly shaping their performance.

To develop an ANT view on skills (what Law call competences andperformances) we draw in particular on a number of papers by Latour (1987a,1988, 1992, 1994). However, before introducing our analysis we believe a briefoverview of the traditional debate on skills in production regimes would be

helpful.Focusing on skills/competencies relates to the traditional debate about de-

skilling of workers. InThe Capital(Vol. 1) Marx set the framework for futurediscussions on the subject by describing the passage from handicraft tomanufacture production, and then from manufacture to large scale industryin the eighteenth century. Marx showed how these passages*with the use ofnew machineries*often implied a transfer of the workers skills to machinery.Following Marx, in Labour and Monopoly Capital, Braverman (1974)provided an analysis and a critique of the scientific organization of labor.Braverman argued that, in capitalist organizations, work is exploitative and

alienating and that workers are coerced into servitude through the process ofde-skilling. Skills that belonged originally to humans are eventuallytransferred to machines, while others are suppressed by management.

This de-skilling thesis has been criticized in different ways. Authors such asBell (1976) and Touraine (1971) have argued that the introduction of newtechnologies in production processes can also lead to re-skilling and en-skilling. Touraine, in particular, linked different levels of technologicalevolution with different forms of divisions of labor. He highlighted thatthere is not just one best way (i.e. Taylorism) to organize labor, but thatthere is a relative relationship between technological and organizationalforms. Therefore, previously fragmented working skills can also be succes-sively recomposed with the introduction of new technologies, hence alsogiving room for re-skilling and en-skilling processes.

However, according to the de-skilling thesis, whenever a machine isintroduced into a production process, this will de-skill and discipline workers.For Latour the main problem of this position is that, when the de-skillingdoes not happen, this is interpreted as a deviation from a deterministicstandard according to which skills always go from humans to non-humans.For instance, Latour (1987a) argues that capitalists strategies cannot bereduced to mere exploitation of de-skilled workers because capitalists mightbe engaged in a series of different concerns and struggles that ask for different

networking strategies:



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[A]ccording to need, he [the capitalist] sometimes exploits, sometimes rewards,sometimes lies, sometimes tells the truth, sometimes skills, sometimes deskills.(Latour 1987a)

Therefore, we cannot reduce the traditional production model to a process ofde-skilling: although tempting, it is too simple to draw a link betweenprodusage and the consequent en-skilling of users. For us, re/en-skilling andde-skilling are rather the results of a networking strategy whereby all enrolledentities shape one another. What is important therefore is to map thedistribution and circulation of skills/competences in actor-networks. In orderto achieve this goal, we argue, we need to look at three aspects of skills: (1)their symmetrical nature, where skills belong to both human and non-humanentities; (2) their relational definition, where they are products of thearticulation between humans and non-humans in actor-networks; and (3)their circulation, where skills are not static attributes belonging to specific

entities/actors, but circulate in hybrid networks. In this way we emphasize themapping of the formation of the actor-network and the movement of skills insuch a network, over the identification of static and reductionist determi-nants.

3. The Arduino case study

Open-Source Hardware (OH; 2010) and the recently increased popularity ofthis field represent an interesting case for investigating produsage. We areparticularly interested in the situated networking practices that are put into

play by different actors, the way they unfold in practice, and how they affectthe definition and circulation of skills in large hybrid networks. Wikipediadefines OH as:

[C]omputer and electronic hardware that is designed in the same fashion as freeand open source software (FOSS). Open source hardware is part of the opensource culture that takes the open source ideas to fields other than software . . .The term has primarily been used to reflect the free release of informationabout the hardware design, such as schematics, bill of materials and PCB layoutdata, often with the use of FOSS to drive the hardware.

Free and open source software is a way of developing software based on the

notion of sharing the software. The source code of FOSS is generallyavailable to users who, in this way, can take part in the development. This ismade possible by using specific FOSS licenses (Weber 2004). The OH takesdirect inspiration from FOSS and opens up the hardware design resources toactive communities of hobbyists who are invited to do whatever they wantwith the original design: build new things with it, modify it to adapt to newcontexts and exigencies, or radically redesign it. Among a series of emergingOH projects, the Arduino board represents a paradigmatic illustration of thisnew set of practices and strategies. As such, it is a good case with which todiscuss produsage.

In the data collection we have followed the ANT methodological principleof following the actors and their actions (Callon 1986, Latour 1987b), with an



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attention to emerging sociotechnical controversies in the Arduino actor-network. This case study is therefore based on the following empiricalmaterials:

1. A number of in-depth open interviews conducted by one of the authorwith some of the original developers of the Arduino board. Theseinterviews have been conducted during the period of September 2008and November 2009, essentially via the Internet using Skype. The focus ofthese interviews was to understand the point of view of the Arduino actor-network builders, and in particular the actions involved in the earlydevelopment of the board, the context of the boards original develop-ment, and the boards early use and promotion;

2. A review of Arduino material available online, including the officialArduino web site (2010) and the official forums and the web sites of other

similar microcontrollers. This material has provided insights on the varietyof the Arduino uses and on existing users and also shed light into licensingand legal issues of the Arduino project and its relation with other opensource projects;

3. Some of the most important online forums where Arduino is discussed(such as http://www.slashdot.com, http://www.wired.com, http://www.make.com, http://www.ponoko.com), with collection of relevant discussionsrelated with the interlinks between the Arduino project and its communityof users.

4. A number of empirical anecdotes have also been observed and collectedduring an Interaction Design workshop where the Arduino Board wasused by students to build their projects.

The data have been systematically analyzed using a Grounded Theoryapproach (Charmaz 2006) based on the iterative coding of the data relatedwith relevant aspects of the Arduino, such as the interactions betweenmembers of the community, references to specific aspects of the board (e.g.the programming language, the license, the schematics of the board, the use ofsensors, etc.). Based on our coding, we have built our categories and on thiswe derived our ANT perspective on produsage and skills.

3.1 The Arduino microcontroller: what is it?

According to the official community web site (http://www.arduino.cc/), theArduino is:

[A]n open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. Its intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, andanyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments . . . Its anopen-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontrollerboard, and a development environment for writing software for the board.

Arduino is therefore a hardware and software platform whose goal is toenable people to create interactive products or environments through the use

http://www.slashdot.com/http://www.wired.com/http://www.make.com/http://www.make.com/http://www.ponoko.com/http://www.arduino.cc/http://www.arduino.cc/http://www.ponoko.com/http://www.make.com/http://www.make.com/http://www.wired.com/http://www.slashdot.com/


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of electronic material that is widely available, inexpensive, and quite easy touse. Essentially the board is composed of: (1) a series of digital and analogports for inputs (inputs can come from a variety of switches or sensors likemotion, light, proximity sensors, etc.); (2) a series of output ports connected

with whatever actuator is used (motor, lights, computerized devices); and (3) acentral processor (a microcontroller chip) with a flash memory where the userwrites and flashes specific instructions (via USB) on how to process inputsinto outputs (figure 2). The Source Code for controlling the board is writtenby using a specific FOSS programming language called Processing (http://www.proce55ing.org).

The Arduino was initially designed for teaching purposes in a well-knowndesign institute in Italy. As one of the main three original developers of theboard recalled in an interview:

We already worked with Processing a lot. At that time Processing was limited to

graphical animation. Basically students used it to do graphics. When dealingwith tangible and real-time interaction we had to use another language. Oneday we asked ourselves: why not use Processing to generate programs for ourhardware too? (Arduino Developer, Interview October 2008)

Initially, a hardware-specific programming language was used with anotherboard, one more expensive and less open than the actual Arduino. The ideasoon emerged of developing an agile, easy-to-use and open board, with anintegrated development environment. A specific module for the Processinglanguage was consequently implemented by the original developers so thatstudents would not have to learn another language in order to program

hardware in their tangible computing prototypes. A couple of months later,the first Arduino Board was ready, paid out of the developers own pockets.Along with it, a first series of demonstration workshops was arranged by thethree developers, where the boards were provided to students and teachers.Interviewees recall a big design workshop in Madrid in 2005, followed by one

Figure 2. Simplified Arduinos map of components (adapted from Creative Common Imageon Arduino.cc).

http://www.proce55ing.org/http://www.proce55ing.org/http://www.proce55ing.org/http://www.proce55ing.org/


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in London and then in Copenhagen. Many Arduino boards were given awayfor free to teachers who wanted to explore the possibility of adopting theArduino for their classrooms. In a few months, the Arduino board gainedwidespread popularity in design institutes all over Europe and*due to word-

of-mouth*within many Do It Yourself communities.In this OH project the role of users*in terms of inscribed affordances and

constraints*is only partially defined by the developers. The Arduino board isintended to be the central core for the implementation and prototyping ofinteractive products or environments designed by the users themselves. In thissense, the design possibilities and the different ways of appropriation for usersare endless, also because Arduino developers*in their strategy*haveinscribed quite weak forms of control over future uses. The board designdoes not anticipate the negotiation of its role as would happen in proprietarysoftware. Instead, it remains equally open through a series of inscriptions that

sustain a specific strategy, one which we now describe in detail.

3.2 Network building strategies behind the Arduino

On the Arduino web site, users can access all the schematics, design files, andsoftware, as well as manufacture their own Arduino board (figure 3).

In a provocative article on OH and the Arduino project, the magazineWired (2008) noted:

You can send the plans off to a Chinese factory, mass-produce the circuit

boards, and sell them yourself*pocketing the profit without paying the creator

Figure 3. One of the schematics used to illustrate the Arduinos circuit.



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a penny in royalties. Arduino developers wont sue you. Actually, they are sortof hoping youll do it.

The board schematics and design files are released under the Attributionshare alike 3.0 Creative Commons (2010) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). In this way, anyone can produce copies of the board,redesign it, or even sell boards that copy the design. Under the provisions ofthis license, one does not need to pay a fee to the Arduino team or even asktheir permission. However, anyone republishing the reference design, has tocredit the original Arduino group (this is the Attribution part of thelicense). Moreover, if someone tweaks or changes the board, the new designmust use the same or a similar Creative Commons license to ensure that newversions of the boards schematic will be equally without fees and open tofuture modification and redesign. In this case, the mentioned language usedto program the microcontroller (Processing) is a FOSS language readapted by

the Arduino team to deal with microcontroller-enabled tangible computing.The Arduino integrated development environment is a software (where

one edits the Processing language) released under GNU General PublicLicense (GPL), and it is used to write and flash the code into the boardsmemory. The GPL embodies a Copyleft clause that gives the user the rights tochange and distribute the software, provided that new enhancements arereleased under the same license (Stallman 2002). Finally, the Arduino website, where a collection of libraries of code examples from the user communitygrows on a daily basis, has also been released under Creative Commons sothat people can freely make use of all the scripts, code, and tricks posted by

users. This makes the appropriation of Arduino even easier becauseinexperienced users can take advantage of solutions and tutorials preparedby peer users who share their expertise online. The only thing that is outsidethe direct control of users is the name Arduino, which is a registeredtrademark. Indeed, there is a specific strategy in place here, as an intervieweepointed out:

The only protection we have in play regards the name of the board that istrademarked. If you want to make a board and called it Gino, it is ok with meand I do not care. But if you make a board and you called it Arduino youcannot. We want to prevent the diffusion of low quality copies. Arduino for us

means that the design respects certain quality as the ease of use, the quality ofthe components and of their assemblage.Another developer stated: we aimed to create a brand, and brand matters!

According to our frame of analysis, the set of strategic elements inscribed inthe original design (such as those inscribed in software licenses) tells only onepart of the story. In fact the development of the Arduino actor-networkdepends equally on how other mobilized actors act, and whether they align ornot with the strategy of the original developers. In the example of trafficcontrol, a quiet city is not reducible to the diffusion of sleeping policemenonly but also to the acceptance of their script by drivers and their cars.

Moreover, a traditional explanation may also neglect that hard and ofteninvisible work often establishes and maintains key elements. These include:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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the ongoing organization of Arduino workshops all around Europe, the needto update and constantly moderate the Arduino web site, the need to engagewith users and the hacker community, the initial tendency to gift Arduinoboard to design teachers, the need to improve and differentiate the design

(currently we have different versions of Arduino for different contexts anddesign requirements), the registration of a name and the work branding it, thepublication of a Wiredarticle, and so on and so forth.

In all of this, the mobilization of skills plays an important role in theachievement and maintenance of produsage. In this sense, the Arduino casestudy also represents a good opportunity to look at skills in produsage andinnovation, and to develop an approach that reframes the way we talk aboutprodusage in general, and produsage skills in particular.

4. The symmetry of skills

According to Latour (1988), the traditional approaches to skills areasymmetrical as they ascribe skills only to human actors:

Although the deskilling thesis appears to be the general case, this is far fromtrue.[ . . .] With your self-serving and self-righteous social problems, you alwaysplead against machines and for deskilled workers; are you aware of yourdiscriminatory biases? You discriminate between the human and the inhuman.I do not hold this bias but see only actors*some human, some nonhuman,some skilled, some unskilled*that exchange their properties. (p. 305)

If we follow this argument we can look at skills not only as human attributes

that eventually will be suppressed by machines, but abilities, competences,and qualities that pertain to actors/entities regardless of whether they arehuman or not. This means that skills can also move from non-humans tohumans, from extra somatic to intra-somatic. Latour (1988) offers theexample of the car manual:

The same incorporation from written injunction to body skills is at work withcar user manuals. No one, I guess, will cast more than a cursory glance at themanual before igniting the engine. There is a large body of skills that we havenow so well embodied or incorporated that the mediations of the writteninstructions are useless. From extra-somatic they have become intra-somatic.

(p. 305)In following the establishment of Arduinos actor-network we can map thedynamic distribution of skills. Within months of the first series of promotingArduino-workshops, hobbyists from around the world started to suggestchanges and improvements to the programming language, to the software,and to the physical board. From intra-somatic, skills to make the board moreefficient and versatile were incorporated into the board itself. Companies alsooffered to act as distributors, thus supporting with their network andexpertise the growing hybrid network. People used Arduino to build theirown robots, amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, electronic music gadgets,

and interactive installations. Expert users published their projects whileinexperienced users*even those who knew little about electronics*took



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advantage of the many step-by-step tutorials available online. From extra-somatic, online tutorials tend to form intra-somatic skills of inexperiencedusers that are in the position to take advantage of other peoples skillsthrough the web, hence facilitating the diffusion. For those who were already

familiar with the Processing programming language, the game was eveneasier.

Several quirky companies have also emerged. For example, a firm calledBotanicals has developed an Arduino powered device that monitors house-plants: this phones (or tweets) when the plant needs to be watered. The website Makezine.com inaugurated an Arduino section by introducing the boardas the best all around centerpiece to a modern electronics project, and listinga huge series of step-by-step tutorials on how to build Arduino-poweredgadgets. Also Ponoko.com*one of the biggest DIY technology web sites*sells Arduino-based products along with a series of add-ons that extend the

possibility of the board. Skills move as a flow, sometimes taking the soft formof embodied capabilities, at other times translated into a tutorial, oftenenriched by pictures and video. Attempts to reduce produsage to an en-skilling process (as opposed to de-skilling of traditional production) will fallshort and reproduce a discrimination between humans and non-humans,where skills are necessarily human, and machines unavoidably de-skill theirusers. This point reinforces our second argument addressing the relationalnature of skills.

5. Produsage and the relationality of skills

Skills are also relational: they are not possessed in turn by humans or non-humans as if they were contained within human skin or a machinesmechanisms. Skills are instead outcomes of relational associations betweenheterogeneous actors. Here there is another interesting link with Marx forwhom, in manufacture production, there is a relational articulation-tensionbetween the tool and the ability of the worker to use it: the handcrafting skillis therefore not the quality of the handcraft (the human) but emerges from theassociation of the handcraft with his/her tools (non-human). When Marxobserved organizational changes in production processes, he acknowledgedthat they do not only involve a different division of labor but also amodification of the tools (Marx 1976, p. 460). That is to say that as relationsshift, an entitys definition shifts too*and so do its skills.

For instance, the Arduino board needs to be assembled and programmed.Its assemblage requires soldering skills and soldering tools. Soldering (whichmight also be dangerous) is a mandatory skill if someone wants to use theboard. This was true at the beginning and was probably part of the originalinscriptions of the initial developers. One person recalled in an interview:

During the first series of workshops, we had the Arduino assembled by

students. We provided the board, the resistances, all kinds of pins and chips and

asked them to build the board before starting the workshop. Then we realized itwas too time-consuming and that the students might not be precise enough in



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the connection of pins, thus assembling boards that do not work or stopworking . . . we decided to assemble our board ourselves and to provide studentswith already assembled boards. (Arduino Developer, Interview October 2008)

The pre-assembly operation done by the developers did not prevent the needto solder electronic components in an Arduino-based project. Thus, solderingacts as a barrier for students to learn how to do it by themselves. As theArduino has been adopted for teaching purposes, the need to solder partstogether is an obligatory skill with some downsides: for instance, soldering isa regulated activity that should be performed in specific places, with securityconditions and equipment that prevent*for example*the inhalation of toxicfumes. To solve this problem, a technician in a university lab in Ireland hasstarted to use a breadboard that can be adapted on top of the Arduino, andthat allows making electronic connections without the need to solder parts.Figure 4 shows the Arduinos extension (breadboard) where the (previouslynecessary) soldering skills as well as the dangers connected with such activityare replaced by a customized material breadboard.

What we learn here is that anyone can contribute to the evolution of theArduino and extend the original technology for whatever purpose withoutviolating its design. The original developers might not even know aboutthis further contribution (the breadboard) and this is an emerging aspect oftheir strategy. Moreover, we illustrate the symmetrical and relationalcharacter of skills in the Arduino actor-network.

With the breadboard the Arduino does not need soldering skills or tools,thus allowing different actors to partake in the hybrid network: soldering

tools have been put aside at the cost of letting in a new customizedbreadboard that can be mounted on top of the Arduino. This allows studentsto use the Arduino in class without the need of special laboratories ordangerous tools. In terms of division of labor and circulation of skills, abreadboard stands for soldering tools and the soldering activity. Thisconfirms that soldering is not a skill owned by someone (or something); itis the relation between the Arduinos students and soldering tools or thesubstituting breadboard. In conflict with any epistemology of possession thatdefines knowledge and skills as things owned by humans (thus making themtransferable, as commodities are), we can see that skills are not essential and

embodied properties of subjects but open-ended and distributable elements of

Figure 4. The breadboard that renders soldering needless.



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practices, they are neither purely human nor non-human but rather circulatethrough their relations within larger hybrid networks. Skills are thereforemovements or trajectories and they can abruptly and radically change as theirrelational conditions of existence do. In this sense, skills are also circulating.

6. Skills as circulating

Bearing in mind the relational and symmetrical character of skills, we canalso see that skills circulate, and in their circulation they do not remain thesame but translate because their carriers (human and non-human) are neversimply neutral vehicles. This means that translation processes are neverperfect and full, but partial and transforming. The circulation of skills istherefore always skills transformation as well as sociotechnical transforma-tion: we can witness the inhibition of some aspects, the introduction of others,

or their complete disappearance. For example, Latour (1988) discusses thecase of the mechanisms that automatically close a door as one passes through(door-closer) and compares it with the human porter (who also does the taskof closing the door):

We have all experienced having a door with a powerful spring mechanism slamin our face. For sure, springs do the job of replacing grooms, but they play therole of a very rude, uneducated porter who obviously prefers the wall version ofthe door to its hole version. They simply slam the door shut. (1988, p. 157)

Skills circulate and in doing so they translate by changing. In the case of thedoor-closer, the skills of the human porter are still there*but exercised by

the mechanism*and have even improved its efficiency to the detriment of thepoliteness of the action, which disappears in the new configuration. But this isnot everything, as Latour (1988) further remarks:

The interesting thing with such impolite doors is this: if they slam shut soviolently, it means that you, the visitor, have to be very quick in passing throughand that you should not be at someone elses heels; otherwise your nose will getshorter and bloody. An unskilled nonhuman groom thus presupposes a skilledhuman user. It is always a trade-off. [ . . .] when humans are displaced anddeskilled non-humans have to be upgraded and reskilled. (p. 301)

Skill translations therefore do not occur in a vacuum but within the very same

actor-networks. This means that a translation always involves third parties:for instance, the visitor is required to change habits and to improve his/herdoor-passing skills. Moreover, a substitution of the human porter with themechanism presupposes at least a designer and the skill to design andproduce the mechanism. Skills translation therefore spreads as fractals do: atwo-term relationship in a de-skilling process (e.g. that between the humanporter and the mechanism), is associated with two 2-term relationships (e.g.that between the designer and the design of the mechanism itself, and thatbetween the visitors and the use of mechanism). The latter are then furtherassociated with four 2-term relationships, and so on. For each de-skilling

movement, we might have several re-skilling ones (of a second order) and theother way around: a re-skilling in one direction triggers correspondent



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de-skillings that will trigger further de-/re-skilling processes of humans or nothumans (see figure 5 for a visualization of this process).

In our case, preventing the development of soldering skills implies the skillsof the technicians to produce and assemble all the Arduino extensions andwith that, perhaps, the extension will suggest further uses and new skills forstudents.

However, what is important to understand is that the distinction betweenwhat de-skills what and what re-skills what is a dynamic process thatneeds to be mapped from the perspective of the actors within the network.

What to follow in produsage should not be the arbitrary hunting of predefined(understood as a precondition of the establishment of one model or another)processes of either re-skilling or de-skilling in order to prove the essence of amodel. We rather believe that this mapping should rely on what the involvedactors define*in their own terms*as de- or en-skilling processes.2

Indeed, it is insufficient (and reductionist) to conclude that the inscriptionsof the Arduino board (open design, available schematics, availability ofaccessible online tutorials) simply enroll users and other elements in acooperative whole that represents an ideal instance of produsage. In thissense, produsage actor networks do not only, or necessarily, create associa-

tions between elements (and so the circulation of skills) but also createseparations and divisions (that might deviate or prevent the circulation ofskills). It is indeed true that the Arduino board*as an inscription associatedwith other inscriptions such as licenses and other tools*also divides usersand things. Some Arduino users, for instance, are not happy with theschematics provided on the web site (which are not traditional PCB files3) asmaking a compatible board is not easy (enough), and users must reverse-engineer the original Arduino board. Other users ask for more computationalpower, or to have PIC processors to program for instead of AVR ones (PICand AVR are two different types of microcontroller). In this way, as a

separation from the design of the original Arduino, we have a whole new seriesof projects based on the actual modification of the board such as Freeduino,

Figure 5. Fractal circulation of skills.



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Saguino, Pinguino, and so on. These operate a separation within the originalactor-network and give birth to new skills and deviations in the Arduinoactor-network. However, in some cases, these deviations and separationsmight occur also as an effect of misunderstandings (for instance between

Copyright and Trademark) that add very little to the actual Arduino boardand that perform as yet unsolved controversies. The following extracts from adiscussion on Slashdot.com shows this aspect. It all starts with this post byYA_Python_dev on Friday October 24, do not forget the ARDUINO!!!

Dont forget the Arduino official homepage [arduino.cc]. Its simple, veryhackable, Mac- and Linux-compatible and its a true free/open source design,so they dont have a monopoly on it and you can buy compatible boards fromother sources or DIY!

Three hours later, SuperBanana replied by contrasting YA_python and wrote:Actually, its not an open-source design; Arduino is an actively protectedtrademark and they do control who manufactures it, because they wont releasethe files necessary to manufacture the circuit board. Without them, you cannot(easily) make a compatible board; you have to reverse-engineer it. Which isprecisely what some people, fed up with not being able to make their ownArduino boards, went and did. Freeduino, *is* actually free and open-source(and compatible) and they have specifically said that people are welcome to usethe Freeduino name. All Arduino proves is that people will slap free andopen source on just about anything, and theres no shortage of people whowill parrot it.

A few hours after a new comment popped up from someone from the MAKEsite who refuted the claim made by SuperBanana:

[W]hat youre saying is not accurate. ill do my best to address your comments.1. Arduinio is open source, anyone can make them and they released all thefiles. just check the site youll see all the downloads, if you cant find them emailme. 2. the *name* is trademarked, this is likely the confusion. you can makeArduino clones all you want in [C]hina, you just cant call them Arduino. justlike you can make other versions of Firefox but you cant call yours Firefox.

Again, the results of building a machine/machination are never predeter-mined/able. Inscriptions can facilitate their success, but they never determineit. This last example also shows how*in growing actor-networks*it isimpossible to reify a model from the outside eye of an observer, just as itis misleading to emphasize a en-skilling process over its opposite. What lookslike a good example of an open source project that challenges traditionalunderstandings (e.g. sharing and openness as opposed to control andclosure), turns out*for some of the actors in the Arduino sociotechnicalcollective*to be understood as a capitalist venture possessing attributessimilar to those of traditional paradigms. Similarly, what can appear as a re-

skilling process from one perspective can resemble a de-skilling from another.The circulation of skills is therefore open-ended and relates to the ongoing



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production and reproduction of actor-networks where different perspectivesco-exist and separations also occur.

7. Conclusion

We began this paper with a critique of essentialism and reductionism incharacterizing produsage and we developed a non-essentialist counter-argument based on ANT. We are aware that essentialist approaches havetheir own strengths and that they can produce accounts usually based ondefinite sets of properties that define specific and apparently stable models.To the contrary, our approach subverts some of these assumptions andproposes a perspective to explain what is usually taken as an explanation.For us, a relational approach is a much-needed step toward a fullappreciation of the phenomenon of produsage that complements more

traditional views.With this in mind, we have mapped the circulation of skills in the case studyof the Arduino open board, showing that elements such as sharing, openparticipation, and common ownership (the characters of essentialist explana-tions) do not necessarily explain users new skills. On the contrary, thesecharacters depend on the distribution and circulation of skills among humansand non-humans in actor-networks. Our argument on the symmetry,relationality and circulation of skills deepens this perspective and opens upfurther exploration of the relationships between new emerging practices andtechnologies.

We can further evaluate the contribution of our work by comparing itbriefly with a previous argument on skills in produsage. According to Bruns(2007) a defining character of produsage is the emergence of a new generationof users who have (design) skills and want to use them. Moreover, produsagecommunities welcome newcomers with the appropriate skills. Finally,Bruns considers that it is important that these skills are also taught inschools so that citizens are prepared to participate in produsage. Although weshare these views, we also see how such an argument produces adiscriminatory bias between humans and non-humans and renders skills asessentially human. Moreover, skills are understood in essential terms (assomething that you own or deliver) and not as a relational articulation

between users and their tools. In this sense, we believe we might be misled inassuming that produsage implies en-skilled users.

First, as much as the sleeping policemen slow down the traffic, produsageartifacts relate with different users to enact a broad range of skills. Thebreadboard that can be mounted on top of the Arduino enacts a skill that waspreviously required on the side of users. However, using the breadboardminimizes the need for soldering tools and the relational skills that derivefrom associating with them. There is therefore a circulation of skills that isalways a symmetrical trade-off between humans and non-humans.

Further, the claim that produsage communities are permeable has, for

example, been criticized by De Paoli et al. (2008) who showed that FOSScommunities can also be impermeable to skilled users/programmers and



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their software. The discussion/confusion about the trademarked name is afurther example that there is also an impermeable aspect in produsage thatneeds to be discussed too: no matter how skilled you are, you can copy theboard, modify it as you like but you are not allowed to use the Arduino

name improperly. Moreover, your participation depends on specific artifactssuch as a computer or the Internet access (which should not be taken forgranted).

Technology and design play a key role in both inscribing certain skills and ininviting certain other skills and interests to be developed. However, far frommaking a universal claim, we have also seen how the most skilled users arethose who engaged more critically with the original Arduino design and endedup creating a separation in the produsage network whereby the Arduinomodel*definitely a produsage case in the eye of the authors of this article*isre-appropriated by others or even rejected as not open enough. Much research

is needed in order to fully appreciate the sociotechnical dynamics that describeprodusage. Our ANT view on produsage, our argument on skills, and ourpoint in looking at what involved actors define in their own terms are intendedas a preliminary way to tackle these challenges. This paper opens up a spacefor follow-up works where the innovative factors of the produsage productiveparadigm (such as the issues related with innovation, labor organization, anddifferent types of users) can be more explicitly framed using an ANTperspective. Similarly, an ANT-informed evaluation framework and a numberof criteria for sociotechnical skills transfer could also be developed andeventually enrich the current debate on produsage.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Irish Higher Education Authority

under the PRTLI 4 program (FutureComm project). We thank in particular Dr. Aphra Kerr for

the support she has given to our research. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for

their insightful comments.

Notes

[1] This paper is based on equal contribution of the authors. Storni is responsible for the

Arduino case study.

[2] PCB files are currently the standard format for circuit schematics that can often be directly

printed.

[3] Available at: http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/08/10/24/0343244.shtml.

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