In these and many other examples, users appropriate technology by personalizing mobile phones as allowed by providers, using their mobile “as intended.” Their actions do not conflict with the interests of technology providers but generate revenue for device manufacturers, service providers, and third parties. User actions do, however, go beyond mere adoption and constitute active modification of devices or services. Taken together, these actions add up to a rich layering of modifications using customizable spaces cre-ated by the supplier in a process reminiscent of “baroque infiltration.”

for analytic purposes we next order them from the less confrontational baroque to the more radical cannibalism, with creolization somewhere “in-between” (Santiago, 2001). While they are second nature for Latin Americans, we observe them throughout the world. Together, these modes offer a powerful taxonomy to understand innovation through mul-tiple appropriation strategies.

They tried to preserve some of their world within the interstices left by conquerors. Direct confrontation was seldom successful, but infiltra-tion could be practiced in everyday life, in many aspects of cultural production. Power was always at stake.The baroque practice originated in Europe, where it was encouraged by Rome within a Counter-Reform strategy in which movement, dance, and popular art were used to counteract protestant rigor. In the Americas, the baroque took on a new life as it infil-trated spaces intentionally left vacant by the Iberian conquerors (Zamora and Kaup, 2010) and created an opportunity for the oppressed to state their presence, insert their messages, and suggest their views of the universe.

Three strategies deserve particular attention for their symbolic value: cannibalism, baroque, and creolization. Cannibalism is appropriation trough dismembering, absorption, and chemical transformation. Baroque—an infiltration strategy—is the artistic appropria-tion of spaces through filling and layering. In-between, creolization is appropriatio

François Bar, Matthew Weber, and Francis Pisani advocate for a cul-tural model of technological appropriation drawn from Latin America. Appropriation draws attention to how users interpret, manipulate, and repurpose technology in creative and unexpected ways. Their cycle of evolution suggests cultural mechanisms of appro-priation: baroquization, creolization, and cannibalism. This new vocabulary to understand technological appropriation un-moors the notion of “hacking” from Western modernity. It encourages us to think about how users and cultures are central to a technology’s life-cycle. Beyond just signaling difference, Bar, Weber, and Pisani suggest that innovation on the periphery is a powerful process that merits consideration.