On postcapitalist repair

Smith, Thomas S.J.

doi:10.1177/20438206221129206

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…This forum makes clear that both areespecially if we are to approach the kind of transformative change Smith (2023) and others argue is necessary to meet the challenges of climate change.…”

Section: Declaration Of Conflicting Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This certainly echoes the sentiments of coal workers I have interviewed over the last 12 months. Much is being made of the benefits new offshore wind development will bring for Illawarra's skilled industrial workforce from 2023 (evoking the ‘rebranding’ of long-marginalised regions as new sites of innovation that Smith (2023) describes in his commentary). Yet workers are already asking practical questions about how training for this sector will unfold, in a region where the cost of living is already relatively high.…”

Section: Playing Political ‘Catch-up’ On Climate Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Building on empirical work in postcapitalist and community economies, Smith (2023) provocatively raises the question of pushing from ‘what exists, to what could come into existence’, pointing (quite rightfully) to a slipperiness in the original article around transformative possibility. Here, I fear I am shaped by place – guilty of being so enmeshed within the heavy industrial landscapes and cultures of coal and steel that it is still difficult to see how to ‘turn the boat around’ at the pace and scale that is so urgently required.…”

Section: Life Beyond the Coalface: Recuperating Social Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I am mindful that in much of my own research with industrial workers I have tended towards a closer examination of labour process and skill to date, rather than the political context in which such work is situated. This forum makes clear that both are necessary – especially if we are to approach the kind of transformative change Smith (2023) and others argue is necessary to meet the challenges of climate change.…”

Section: Life Beyond the Coalface: Recuperating Social Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…My contribution was shaped by a long-term empirical focus on workers in energy-intensive sectors and regions – perhaps not the obvious place to start when thinking about care and repair. However, there is a pressing need to connect the experiences of all workers with the challenges of climate change (Denham and Rickards, 2022), not least because such challenges will require an unprecedented range of skills to repair and maintain social connections (Barca, 2023; Smith, 2023), while simultaneously building new energy futures and dismantling outdated carbon infrastructures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Repairing social connections: Dismantling carbon infrastructures with care

Carr

2023

Dialogues in Human Geography

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In this final commentary to close the forum, I engage with the responses to Repair and care: Locating the work of climate crisis. These rich analyses provide a basis from which to reflect on three developments since writing the first article: cascading disasters caused by intense weather events; a change of government that has shifted Australia's political relationship with climate change; and a year of fieldwork with metallurgical coal miners in a rapidly transforming energy landscape. Together, the responses offer a nuanced approach to the work of climate change that is more attentive to power and politics, diverse skills and knowledges, and the structures and systems that continue to marginalise those who are tasked with repair and care.

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“…This forum makes clear that both areespecially if we are to approach the kind of transformative change Smith (2023) and others argue is necessary to meet the challenges of climate change.…”

Section: Declaration Of Conflicting Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Playing Political ‘Catch-up’ On Climate Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Life Beyond the Coalface: Recuperating Social Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Life Beyond the Coalface: Recuperating Social Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Repairing social connections: Dismantling carbon infrastructures with care

Carr

2023

Dialogues in Human Geography

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On ‘the Politics of Repair Beyond Repair’: Radical Democracy and the Right to Repair Movement

Lloveras,

Pansera,

Smith

2024

J Bus Ethics

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This paper analyses the right to repair (R2R) movement through the lens of radical democracy, elucidating the opportunities and limitations for advancing a democratic repair ethics against a backdrop of power imbalances and vested interests. We commence our analysis by exploring broader political-economic trends, demonstrating that Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are increasingly shifting towards asset-based repair strategies. In this landscape, hegemony is preserved not solely through deterrence tactics like planned obsolescence but also by conceding repairability while monopolizing repair and maintenance services. We further argue that the R2R serves as an ‘empty signifier’, whose content is shaped by four counter-hegemonic frames used by the R2R movement: consumer advocacy, environmental sustainability, communitarian values, and creative tinkering. These frames, when viewed through Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of radical democracy, reveal different potentials for sustaining dissent and confronting OEMs' hegemony in the field of repair. Analysed in this way, an emerging business ethics of repair can be understood as driven by the politics of repair beyond repair. This notion foregrounds the centrality of non-violent conflict and antagonism for bringing radical democratic principles to repair debates, looking beyond narrow instrumentalist conversations, where repairability is treated as an apolitical arena solely defined by concerns for eco-efficiency and resource productivity.

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Mapping complexity in deglobalisation: A typology of economic localisms from ‘hyper-localism’ to ‘strategic autonomy’

Smith

2023

Local Economy: The Journal of the Local Economy Policy Unit

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In recent years, scholarly attention has turned to the fracturing of global supply chains and the costs and benefits of reorienting economies to the local scale. While its real extent is debated, the term ‘deglobalisation’ has been broadly used to refer to this break from the expansionist neoliberal common-sense of previous decades. This paper conducts narrative reviews of six approaches which have emerged in this context: Hyper-localism, Open Localism, Cosmo-localism, Foundational Economy, Developmental Nationalism and Strategic Autonomy. It examines these emerging proposals for more local production, consumption and trade, and hints at relevant research directions for the uncertain era ahead. Its conceptual contribution shows that we are now faced with complex and differing processes of (de)globalisation – sometimes overlapping and sometimes competing. Grounded in a post-growth perspective, the paper concludes with an invitation for dialogue and future research around local production where capitalist political economy and organisation are not taken for granted.

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On postcapitalist repair

Cited by 3 publications

References 23 publications

Repairing social connections: Dismantling carbon infrastructures with care

Repairing social connections: Dismantling carbon infrastructures with care

On ‘the Politics of Repair Beyond Repair’: Radical Democracy and the Right to Repair Movement

Mapping complexity in deglobalisation: A typology of economic localisms from ‘hyper-localism’ to ‘strategic autonomy’

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