ABSTRACT
The activist and leisurely design of instruments in various hacker, maker, and do-it-yourself (DIY) activities also shape a global culture of alternative networks, described as geek diplomacy. On the one hand, they show pragmatic responses that enable communities to become more resilient and better informed, such as open-source Geiger counters for grassroots radiation monitoring in Japan. On the other hand, many projects remain ambiguous about their political agenda. They test comfort levels around various intrusive technologies or explore unique and informal geopolitical networks. The chapter also discusses the geopolitical ambiguities of the open hardware scene in the manufacturing capital of the world, Shenzhen. The examples show how communities use prototypes to define their vision of the common future and perform their agency over time.
