The Emergence and Spread of Collaborative Makerspaces in Italy

Makerspaces are collaborative public spaces where new forms of work are developed within the collaborative economy. Within makerspaces, Fab Labs are workshops, open to the public, that offer tools and services for digitalmanufacturing, thus promoting social and economic innovation from grassroots. Existing research has shown as freedom of access allows communities that share interests in product development to come together and trigger a mechanism of contamination between skills and ongoing informal training. In this sense, makerspaces are capable of activating virtuous relationships with the surrounding environment, producing “local collective goods”. The chapter shows where these workshops have emerged in the first place and then looks at how they have been spreading in recent years. These dynamics of diffusion are shown with a particular reference to Italian case, specifying hownational and local factors favored their development. The makerspace are particularly Interesting case that is positioned on the international scientific discussion about how the loci of digital fabrication are changing.