The paper reports the current results of analysis and interpretation – from the standpoint of social innovation – of a number of studies1 on the development of Distributed Microproduction (DM). A phenomenological reading of the new forms of small-scale production now developing in various disciplinary contexts – design, modern craft, ‘Make’ and DIY Culture – makes it possible to reconstruct the emergence of a set of ideas, processes, technologies, and shared values, and to hypothesise that DM can be interpreted as a socio-technical paradigm. It can thus generate new areas and paths of innovation. The first part of the paper defines DM, explaining its constitutive features and the factors driving its development. The second part extends the DM model by describing its systemic aspects in social and technological terms (Arthur, 2010). The final part of the paper identifies the linkages between DM and social innovation (Mulgan et al., 2012), which make a larger-scale merger of these two domains plausible, i.e. they build a Microproduction Everywhere perspective. [Authors’ abstract].
Maffei, Stefano and Bianchini (2013) Microproduction everywhere. Social, local, open and connected manufacturing (Paper presented at the international conference Social Frontiers : The next edge of social innovation research, at GCU's London Campus on 14th and 15th November 2013).
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