106. Repair Imaginaries: envisioning and enacting better relations in imperfect worlds
Michelle Kaczmarek, The University of British Columbia; Alissa Centivany, University of Western Ontario
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês
The ??STS field has long recognized the ubiquitous, essential, and undervalued role of repair in sociotechnical systems. STS scholars have encouraged a move beyond traditional and limited notions of innovation, novelty, and significance through research that emphasizes repair, maintenance, and care. A repair orientation becomes increasingly salient as crises spanning climate change, public health, social injustice, political division, material consumption, and humanitarian relief force us to confront and re-envision our relationships with each other, our things, and our planet.
This panel invites contributions on repair imaginaries. What are the possibilities and limitations of repair in human and more-than-human worlds? What could storytelling teach us about how we might understand, value, and secure opportunities for repair? What reparative frameworks can we share and build upon to bring forward issues of responsibility, care, and relationality in STS and beyond? How might 4S scholars broaden and diversify understandings of the sites and subjects of repair?
In this panel, we call attention to the imaginative possibilities of repair. In order to live with the ongoing environmental and social crises, we need compelling examples of living and relating differently to each other, our things, and our planet. Repair practices help us to reimagine and reconfigure relations for better living in an imperfect, damaged, and more-than-human world.
Submissions may draw upon, but are not limited to, the following themes:
Diverse examples, stories, and understandings of repair
