Episode 1 (2020): Morgan G. Ames - Throwback Culture: The Role of Nostalgia in Hacker Worlds

          This session's guest is Morgan
G. Ames, who joins us from UC Berkely. There she is an assistant
adjunct professor in the School of Information and interim
associate director of research for the Center for Science,
Technology, Medicine and Society. 

The maintenance of ‘hacker’ identities often involves the
discussion of one’s origin story—the nostalgic rendering of the
path that one took into programming and technical tinkering,
involving the technologies and media of hackers’ childhoods. In
her  paper she explores the ways in which these memories are
mobilized to do cultural work in contemporary technology worlds,
especially among those creating computational devices and
software for children. Origin stories can serve as gatekeepers
within hacker circles, delimiting who is a good “culture fit.” It
can moreover shape the design process by influencing who hackers
view as their primary audience and what they think this audience
will find captivating.