'Fixing the World One Thing at a Time': Community repair and a sustainable circular economy

The notion of a circular economy is often presented in discourses on a more sustainable future. A circular economy proposes more efficient material flows in growth-based economy and in support of sustainable development. Repair is presented as one of the phases in a circular economy and supports product lifetime extension. The paper brings a particular form of repair, community repair, into discourses on a circular economy. Data from a world-wide initiative in community repair and from participant observation in a Repair Cafe provide new insights in the possible roles and challenges of repair in a circular economy. Notions of efficiency and economic growth are contested in community repair; repair contributes to product lifetime extension and product attachment through acts of tinkering, sharing, and care. The analysis points to an inseparability of the material and social in community repair, contributing to a non-reductionist understanding of a circular economy. Community repair is a sociomaterial entanglement of people and things. This enables a different perspective on the role of repair, from merely a phase in the material flows in a circular economy to a sustainable way of living with things in a circular economy. (c) 2021 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

The paper discusses the concept of a circular economy and emphasizes the importance of repair in extending product lifetimes and promoting sustainable development. Community repair, as a specific form of repair, offers a new perspective on the role of repair in a circular economy through actions such as mending, sharing, and caring for products.