We Are Biohackers: Exploring the Collective Identity of the DIYbio Movement
Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft, master thesis, (Sep 2, 2014)Abstract
Social movements are important sociological phenomena because they are the key agents that provide societies with new ideas and ideals to change people's behavior or their understanding of the world. This thesis aims to investigate into how the collective identity of the biohacker in the Do-it-Yourself Biology (DIYbio) movement mobilizes collective action to achieve social change. The collective identity of a movement is the “we” that influences how biohackers give meaning to the collectivity and make sense of their actions and the goals they pursue based on shared beliefs, values, critiques and visions of the world. The biohacker can be understood as the bio subgenre of the hacker, whose ethic and practices of free and open-source software and hackerspaces—or in other words practices of Commons- Based Peer-Production—are adapted to the life sciences and technologies. To research how the collective identity is constructed I analyzed the practices and discourses of the DIYbio movement. I performed participant observation in movement areas where they carry out collective action; an online discussion forum and in a biohackerspace. I also performed documentary analysis of popular media articles and discourse analysis of in-depth interviews with biohackers from around the world. To understand the dynamics of how biohackers mobilize collective action I proposed a framework in which biohackers define problems and solutions based on their communal values of openness, freedom, and collaboration. The DIYbio movement coordinates collective action for social change on a political level as it aims to democratize biology and create a commons of the means of production, and on a cultural level by promoting a work ethic of freedom of inquiry and sharing under a collaborative commons.