[hackerspaces] HackerSpace movement, history and development

[Jarkko Moilanen]

Hi,

****** WARNING: Academic and theoretical content ***********

I was trying to find out any answers/ definitions to the question that  
kept on popping in to my mind. The question was: "What is a  
hackerspace?" Well..after a while I found some 'definitions' and  
'features' that can/could be assosiated to HS.

But that's not the point of this post. While doing my humble research  
(for my blog post) I noticed two interesting issues. I did some simple  
statistical analysis about the history of still active hackerspaces  
and found out that before 2001, the amount of founded hackerspaces was  
1 or 2. But in the year 2001 it was 9 new hackerspaces. After that  
until 2007 it was again just a few new hackerspaces in a year.  
Question is what was so different about the year 2001? The second  
topic of wonder came to my mind while looking at the map of  
hackerspaces in Europe. There does not seem to be many hackerspaces in  
the Eastern-Europe or Russia. Why? Yes, I'm a social scientist  
(Political Science PhD student and hacker) and that's why I am so  
interest about these questions. And yes, I'm also a member of one  
hackerspace (the5thwave in Tampere, Finland). Perhaps the reason for  
my little study is to get some sort of 'deeper' understanding of what  
I'm participating in. While browsing the archives I found a debate  
about 'theory' related to hackerspaces. I was not sure about posting  
this message here. I hope that this post is not offending anyone or  
considered too 'theoretical' to be posted here.

Any ideas or suggestions to the above questions would be appreciated.  
The (still not finished) blog post which I'm referring to can be found  
here:  
http://extreme.ajatukseni.net/2009/11/14/viewpoints-to-the-development-of-hackerspaces/

Cheers,
Jarkko

***************************************************
* Jarkko Moilanen                                 *
*                                                 *
* Profound XML-technology & Linux Expert,         *
* Author / developer of DAIDALOS - Distributed    *
* Agile Open Source Development Method            *
*                                                 *
* Choosing the "right" Operating System:          *
*  If you need functionality and ease of use: MAC.*
*  If you want to poke around and develop: Linux. *
*  If you want problems: Windows.                 *
***************************************************
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