FABLABS: THE INSTITUTIONNALISATION OF THRID-PLACES OF "SOFT HACKING"

We put the movement of creation of many fablabs in a socio-historical perspective by returning to the genesis of the model invented at the MIT and to its replication in France. Accordingly, we present the frameworks and methods of a field study conducted during the expansion of French fablabs during 2013. By limiting our investigation to fablabs that have been opened to the public, we distinguish two categories and we analyse the intermediation activities at work as well as the institutionalisation processes conducted by their founders. In the light of a comparative analysis of these two types of Third-Places, we interpret fablabs as a form of collective experimentation and distributed open innovation that owes much to the trajectories of the founders and to their strategy of "soft hacking" within institutions.