Open Call: Governable Space-Makers Fellowship

Where and how governance happens online is evolving:

Governable spaces—systems where users can exercise control and autonomy—present the potential to transform how we think about participation in online environments. How might this potential be activated to enable us to radically re-imagine where and how governance happens online?

The Governable Space-Makers Fellowship will support a team of three fellows to collaborate on the extension of a digital artifact—in this case a piece of digital art [2]—that re-imagines the possibilities of governance in online life—including artistic, technical, and ethnographic approaches.

Imagine this digital artifact not only being governed by communities, but also holding and reflecting community values—serving as active sites of collaboration, decision-making, and shared power. These artifacts could become more than static objects subject to control, expanding into dynamic interfaces where governance happens within and in partnership with the people they connect and the environments they inhabit.

Imagine a digital artwork made into a governable space.

An exploration of this expanded vision of governable spaces lies at the heart of the Governable Space-Makers Fellowship. Join us in a re-imagination of how creativity and collaboration can reshape where and how governance happens in the digital age and what it means to work toward a governance layer for the internet.

Over eight months, three fellows—an Artist, a Digital Governance Engineer, and a Speculative Digital Ethnographer—will collaborate on a novel experiment in making an already existing digital artwork or artifact into a governable space. Each fellow will receive an $8,000 stipend for their participation.

Fellows will place this artifact in new digital contexts, using governance as a means to shape how it interacts with digital environments and to explore its capacity to foster shared decision-making and autonomy.

This fellowship provides an opportunity to:

This work will be supported by engagements with Metagov's community, the fellowship coordinator, and contributions from interdisciplinary practitioners. Fellows will shape the project's direction as co-creators, bringing their unique perspectives to the work.

The fellowship will unfold in two phases:

The fellowship will involve reflecting on the insights gained and community engagements, leading to creation of a governable space that can be experienced by the public that will be hosted on Metagov’s website alongside a speculative digital ethnography, fellowship documentation, and a final report.

Fellows will bring unique perspectives to this fellowship, with The Artist’s vision shaping the artifact’s interactions, extended by the Engineer’s frameworks and informed by the Ethnographer’s insights.

We aim to work with one (1) team of three (3) fellows who are passionate about governance, creativity, and collaboration. 

Applications are open to already formed teams of three as well as to pairs or individuals. If your team does not have all three roles, you can apply as an individual or pair of two and be matched with another fellow.

The process is as follows:

Fellows will be selected to prioritize:

Fellows should expect to dedicate approximately 6-8 hours per week, including:

Additional requirements:

The fellowship will run from March 03 to October 31, 2025.

This is a paid fellowship with a stipend of $8,000 per fellow. Payments will be distributed in three parts:

We will hold two open and recorded Q&A sessions where prospective fellows can learn about the fellowship and ask questions with the Fellowship Coordinator, Cent Hosten.

Applications are open from December 19 to January 20.

We’re seeking curious and creative makers, thinkers, and explorers who are excited about exploring new ideas and working collaboratively. If you’re an artist, engineer, ethnographer, or someone with an unconventional perspective on governance and digital culture, we want to hear from you.

The Governable Space-Makers Fellowship is a project of Metagov, with grant support from the Center for Cultural Innovation - AmbitioUS and the Henry Luce Foundation.

Please direct any inquiries to the Fellowship Coordinator and Facilitator Cent Hosten at cent@metagov.org

Metagov is a laboratory for digital governance. We are a not-for-profit cultivating tools, practices, and communities that enable self-governance in the digital age. We are working toward a governance layer for the internet that is empowering, creative, interconnected, and accountable. 

Our work happens in and across various communities of research and practice, with top researchers working in internet governance today, including some of the key people behind Creative Commons, platform cooperativism, blockchain law, and deliberative tooling.

We have a history of playful experimentation with governance, and previously ran The Groundwork Fellowship, a year-long, three-month intensive, online fellowship that invited four community-based research fellows from Kenya, Myanmar, Spain, and Syria who conducted research in, with, and for communities under-represented in internet governance discourses.

Learn more about our people and our work at www.metagov.org.

[1] - Metagov. 2022. “Notes on Governance Experience Design: Toward a paradigm in the design of online spaces''. Crowdwrite.

[2] - For examples of digital artifacts that gesture towards becoming governable spaces, see our recent thread of examples. a supplementary list of references and resources to be published in January 2025.