Alternative Narratives of Computer Hacking

• In Event: Counter-Hegemonic Epistemologies as Innovation and/or Contestation - I

Abstract

The hegemonic narratives about computer hacking, even though they have undergone transformations over time, are reinforced and reinforce the stereotype of the libertarian, solitary and apolitical hacker who exercises his freedom by making and transforming electronic and digital technologies for his satisfaction. This stereotype, although related to specific contexts, regions, and communities of practice, is pervasive in books and academic papers, lists of discussions, encounters, and practices not only in these contexts, regions, and communities in which they originated and developed.
This article aims to analyze different narratives and genealogies of computer hacking considering other perspectives, more specifically the Latin American ones.
Through review and analysis of hacker studies literature, as well as ethnographic data obtained in editions of CryptoRave in Brazil, I contrast different narratives by finding spaces of conflict and elements of dispute between them. Then, I analyze how the discourses and practices transform and are transformed by these conflicts and disputes.
Specifically in relation to Latin America, some of the narratives of computer hacking are strongly connected to social movements and feminist collectives, for which to hack becomes resistance, struggle, protection and care. These different perspectives come into constant shock and often need to reaffirm themselves, fight or reproduce stereotypes in front of hegemonic narratives that seek to define what may or may not be considered to be a hacker.
With this analysis, I try to contribute to field of hacker studies and with the discussion about multiplicity, coexistence and contestation between the manifestations of hacking.

Author

• Daniela Albini Pinheiro, State University of Campinas - UNICAMP