On Curiosity and Judgement: Crowdfunding in Diverse Contexts

ABSTRACT In this commentary response to Lukk et al. (2025), I argue that we should understand crowdfunding as an assemblage of platforms, donors and recipients that might offer different advantages and disadvantages dependent on the broader system context it takes place within. Drawing on my knowledge of health‐related crowdfunding, I discuss examples of collective or civic crowdfunding and highlight especially significant scholarship around crowdfunding for gender‐affirming healthcare for trans people. Exploring the ambiguities of these broader examples of crowdfunding complicates the task of reaching definitive judgements of the phenomenon as a whole but opens up valuable new lines of inquiry about what it does, for whom, and in what contexts.