I am excited to share that my new Turkish-language article has been published in ODİTORYUM: Journal of Critical Social Sciences. This publication is part of my research within the project “Additive Manufacturing: Enabling Technologies in the Childhood“, which explores the social, material, and participatory dimensions of 3D-printed prostheses for children.
The article “Bakımın Maddileşmesi: Çocuklar, 3D Baskılı Protezler ve Katılımcı Tasarım [The Materialization of Care: Children, 3D Printed Prostheses, and Participatory Design]” investigates how care values are not only designed into these prostheses but also actively shaped and redefined by children through their everyday experiences.
Below you can read the English abstract:
Abstract
This article examines how values of care are materialized in 3D-printed prostheses developed for children and how these processes influence the social positioning of children. Drawing on the theoretical framework of the socio-(bio-)technical care complex, the study analyzes how care is not merely a relational value but is embedded into technical objects and everyday practices through design and usage experiences. The research investigates how values such as care, safety, and autonomy are interpreted by designers, user families, and children and how they are transformed into material characteristics (color, material, form). Methodologically, a participatory techno-ethnographic approach was adopted, recognizing children as subjects, supported by interviews and creative methods. The findings demonstrate that care is not only a technical design criterion but also a dynamic value actively renegotiated and shaped within children´s subjective experiences. The study also intersects with a citizen science approach, as it positions children not only as research subjects but also as active participants in the co-production of knowledge. The article discusses how children act as epistemic agents in socio-technical innovations and how their participation redefines the technical and social dimensions of care. This approach contributes to the literature on critical childhood studies, which considers childhood as a socially and historically constructed phenomenon, and to the sociology of technology by offering insights into the materialization of social values in technical artifacts.
Keywords: Care Practices, Childhood, Sociology of Technology, 3D Printed Prosthetics, Crip Technoscience, Qualitative Methods.
Article: Şahinol, M. (2025). Bakımın Maddileşmesi: Çocuklar, 3D Baskılı Protezler ve Katılımcı Tasarım [The Materialization of Care: Children, 3D Printed Prostheses, and Participatory Design]. ODİTORYUM Eleştirel Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 4(6), 71-93.