The politics of collective repair: examining object-relations in a postwork society

In this article we look at repair as an emergent focus of recent activism in affluent societies, where a number of groups are reclaiming practices of repair as a form of political and ecological action. Ranging from those that fight for legislative change to those groups who are trying to support ecological and social change through everyday life practices, repair is beginning to surface tensions in everyday life and as such poses opportunities for its transformation. We survey a few of the practices that make up this movement in its various articulations, to take stock of their current political import. While we suggest that these practices can be seen as an emergent lifestyle movement, they should not be seen as presenting a unified statement. Rather, we aim to show that they articulate a spectrum of political positions, particularly in relation to the three specific issues of property, pedagogy and sociality. These three dimensions are all facets of current internal discrepancies of repair practices and moreover express potential bifurcations as this movement evolves. Drawing on a diverse methodology that includes discourse analysis and participant observation, we suggest some of the ways in which this growing area of activity could play a significant role in resisting the commodification of the everyday and inventing postwork alternatives

Repair matters

Special Issue Call for Paper: This special issue of ephemera aims to investigate contemporary practices of repair as an emergent focus of recent organizing at the intersection of politics, ecology and economy. We wish to explore notions of repair and maintenance as crucial components for redefining socio-political imaginaries, away from the neoliberal capitalist dogma of throw-away culture and planned obsolescence

The politics of commoning and designing

This theme aims to bring together practitioners, activists and researchers to explore the tensions and potentialities around commoning in design and the (re)production of ‘community economies’. As De Angelis (2007) and others point out, commons are today thought as the basis on which to build social justice, environmental sustainability and a good life for all. But they, just as ‘community economies’ (J.K. Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2011), operate within a world dominated by capital’s priorities and are thus also sites of struggle as well as targets of co-optation and enclosure

The politics of collective repair: examining object-relations in a postwork society

In this article we look at repair as an emergent focus of recent activism in affluent societies, where a number of groups are reclaiming practices of repair as a form of political and ecological action. Ranging from those that fight for legislative change to those groups who are trying to support ecological and social change through everyday life practices, repair is beginning to surface tensions in everyday life and as such poses opportunities for its transformation. We survey a few of the practices that make up this movement in its various articulations, to take stock of their current political import. While we suggest that these practices can be seen as an emergent lifestyle movement, they should not be seen as presenting a unified statement. Rather, we aim to show that they articulate a spectrum of political positions, particularly in relation to the three specific issues of property, pedagogy and sociality. These three dimensions are all facets of current internal discrepancies of repair practices and moreover express potential bifurcations as this movement evolves. Drawing on a diverse methodology that includes discourse analysis and participant observation, we suggest some of the ways in which this growing area of activity could play a significant role in resisting the commodification of the everyday and inventing postwork alternatives

‘This is a private-public park’: Encountering architectures of spectacle in post-Olympic London

Since the end of the 2012 Olympic Games, London’s residents and tourists have been awaiting the spectacular redevelopment of the former Olympic venue into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (QEOP), which comprises the city’s ‘newest park’. As the most visible legacy of the Games, it has become a key test case for demonstrating the public interest of London 2012 and its legacy. In this article we engage with the park in the first year after its opening, when it became the site of a range of public cultural projects commissioned by the London Legacy Development Corporation, which manages post-Olympic redevelopment. Through observant participation in one such commission, a six-month mobile residency on site, we gained insights into the tensions emerging from claims to publicness in the making of this new ‘private-public park’, further explored through interviews and visual methods. We propose the term architectures of spectacle to analyse the logic expressed in the design and management of the park and discuss its articulation across three dimensions: (in)visibility, micro-regulation and disorientation. We critically analyse each of these elements and their relationship to competing claims of publicness and the ‘security legacy’ of the Games, raising wider questions about the spectacular public performance of the post-Olympic legacy