Hacking / Upcycling: Tomorrow is sewn today
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29183/2447-3073.MIX2026.v12.n3.%25pKeywords:
Hacking, women’s history, upcyclingAbstract
McKenzie Wark’s A Hacker Manifesto and post-consumer textile upcycling practices share a common political essence: both constitute forms of creative resistance against exploitative systems. While the hacker movement, in the digital realm, challenges information control structures, upcycling activists transform discarded clothing into material vehicles of re-signification, treating used garments as free software. In this context, upcycling emerges as an emancipatory political practice, predominantly led by women who, through design, manual arts, and the arts, confront capitalist, patriarchal, and colonial systems. This work aims to weave a manifesto by demonstrating how upcyclers subvert the logic of waste, transforming discarded materials into narratives of struggle. Grounded in intersectional feminist theory, the study uses concepts from A Hacker Manifesto as its central conceptual framework.
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