ABSTRACT

Tucson, Arizona’s makerspace, Xerocraft, is positioned/envisioned to support community. Using power tools to make things for myself is about getting off the patriarchy grid and stabilizing gender/queer agency. People participate for a variety of purposes: some access financial self-support by creating items in the space to sell; some find friendship, learn skill-building, and practice self-care. As an artist and academic, Xerocraft offers refuge from academia. Gendered divisions of labor have historically segregated paternal and maternal knowledges, assuming eventual shared knowledge economies within heterosexual, monogamous partnerships. The visual and social culture of Xerocraft does not indicate they are actively feminist or critical, or tinkering with or hacking power. The outsider feeling was also present among some members of Xerocraft.