Making a makerspace: Reimagining makerspaces for women's participation

This thesis investigated how makerspaces can be designed in more inclusive ways to promote participation by women. It identified three core qualities – appropriate labelling, the configuration of learning, and turning ambitions into an artefact - that foster women’s participation and growth into confident and competent makers. This thesis also demonstrates how the configuration of new spaces, which facilitate engagement with new tools and materials, can lead to new areas of design, allowing new opportunities for self-expression, dialogue and reflection between participants, participants and researchers, and participants and the items they create.