Maker Made: Creating a Silicon Place in Berlin, Germany A Dissertation SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Leonore Phillips IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Karen Ho December 2016 © Leonore Phillips 2016 Acknowledgements I am very thankful and grateful for the generous support and guidance I have had in developing my research and writing my dissertation. I am especially appreciative of Karen Ho, my advisor, whose feedback, critique and conversation were instrumental in helping me in all aspects of this dissertation. I am also indebted to my dissertation committee for their feedback, guidance and intellectual stimulation: David Valentine, Thomas Misa and Thomas Wolfe. Although from diverse sub-areas of anthropology and history, each member of my committee brought unique and fascinating insight into my topic of study. I also want to thank my colleagues in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota and a special thanks to my fellow writing group members Heather O’Leary and Kristy Golubiewski-Davis. The generous financial support of the William Stout Fellowship, the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) dissertation research grant, and the Hella Mears summer fellowship helped fund both my research in the field and my writing back at home. I am also thankful for the financial support from the Anthropology Department both in teaching positions and summer block grants. Without financial support, none of my research would have been possible. Finally, I must express my heartfelt gratitude to my family who has weathered my PhD with patience, curiosity and a great deal of help. Thank you to my husband, Branden Phillips, who helped keep me going when I was down and to my mother, Debra Heins, for the daunting task of proofing this dissertation. Both Branden and my mom have been more than generous; helping me in many ways, including much needed childcare. I also want to thank my father, Karl Heins, who introduced me to computers and provided sound feedback on my research findings while I was in the field. Unfortunately, he passed away before he could see the completion of my work. Without my family, this journey would have been longer and lonelier; I love you and thank you. i Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my father, Karl Henry Heins. Growing up in California in the 90s, my father introduced me to computers, the internet and to Silicon Valley. The seed from these early experiences has stayed with me and bloomed into my PhD work and this dissertation. My dad was especially supportive during my fieldwork and provided me sound advice and feedback about startups and business communities; his pride in me never wavered. Unfortunately, he died before I could finish my dissertation and earn my PhD. I wish he could see my work, and I miss him terribly. This dissertation is for you dad. ii Abstract Drawing on the inspiration that Silicon Valley provides, this dissertation is about the way Silicon Allee in Berlin Germany is made by workers, students, bureaucrats and even the larger population of Berlin. Silicon Allee is a community; it’s a matrix of interconnected people, machines, ideas, places and words that are changing, connecting, disconnecting, and reconnecting; maintained through webpages, text messages, classrooms, university spaces, meetups, camps, tweets, coworking sites, coffee shop talk and offices. In this age of ultra-information and continuous connections that can span the globe in seconds, Berlin’s Silicon Allee is also embedded in a larger culture of computing that both ignores and reinforces boundaries. I use this dissertation to explore the way that these boundaries are made, unmade and revised both locally, nationally and globally through discourses on and practices of work. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. i Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 II. Ideologies of the Silicon (Place) ............................................................................................. 6 III. Structuring This Dissertation ............................................................................................... 14 IV. Theoretical Inspirations and Foundations ............................................................................ 24 V. Research Site and Methodology............................................................................................ 37 VI. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 44 Chapter 2: Being Berlin; Becoming Silicon ...................................................................... 45 I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 45 II. Making a Creative City ......................................................................................................... 48 III. Branding the City ................................................................................................................. 61 IV. “Poor but Sexy:” A Failure of Success? .............................................................................. 72 V. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 79 Chapter 3: A Future with a Past ........................................................................................ 82 I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 82 II. A Site for Technology and Wissenschaft .............................................................................. 86 III. A Site for Computing ......................................................................................................... 105 IV. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 119 Chapter 4: Offline Web 2.0 Mobilities ........................................................................... 123 I. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 123 II. Translating Web 2.0 into the World .................................................................................... 132 III. (Re)Working Work ............................................................................................................ 136 IV. The Benefits and Costs of Web 2.0 ................................................................................... 151 V. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 159 Chapter 5: Being There (Virtually) ................................................................................. 161 I. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 161 iv II. Finding Space in the Virtual ................................................................................................ 164 III. Working at Home from Abroad ......................................................................................... 176 IV. Reinforcing the Local through the Virtual ......................................................................... 182 V. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 200 Chapter 6: The Silicon Gold Rush and Starting-up in Berlin ......................................... 203 I. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 203 II. Dropping Out and Starting-up ............................................................................................. 214 III. The Venture Capitalist Gold Rush ..................................................................................... 226 IV. The Pleasure of Making, Starting, and Bausteln ............................................................... 236 V. Fashioning Silicon Allee outside of Silicon Valley ............................................................ 245 VI. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 251 Chapter 7: The Nation-State and Digital Natives in an Age of Mobilities ..................... 254 I. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 254 II. Being Different: The Privilege of Highly Qualified Immigration ....................................... 260 III. Global Movements and Crossing Borders ........................................................................