[Themaintainers] CfP: “Histories of Maintenance and Repair” (Uni Luxembourg, C²DH, 3. - 4. September 2020)

[Stefan Krebs]

CfP – Workshop: “Histories of Maintenance and Repair”

We are calling for abstracts for our workshop on “Histories of 
Maintenance and Repair”, which will be held at the Luxembourg Centre for 
Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH) on 03-04 September 2020. The 
workshop is part of our FNR-funded REPAIR project that investigates the 
maintenance (practices) of the Luxembourg telephone network, continuity 
and change in local repair opportunities for everyday objects, as well 
as the role and influence of do-it-yourself cultures on repair 
practices. Based around the idea of “repairing technology – fixing 
society”, the project aims to highlight that maintenance and repair 
practices have not become obsolete in modern consumer societies and that 
both practices are still fundamental for keeping everyday technologies, 
the economy and society functioning and running.

The workshop seeks to explore the history of maintenance and repair in 
Western consumer societies in the short 20th century. We are interested 
in a variety of associated narratives ranging from personal repair 
practices to the maintenance of large infrastructures. The workshop is 
open to interdisciplinary approaches and aims to contribute to 
discourses in the history of technology and Science and Technology 
Studies (STS) that criticise the innovation focus of Western science and 
societies by emphasising the societal and economic importance of 
maintenance and repair.

While the existing literature on repair and maintenance practices in 
advanced consumer societies – which approximates the geographical 
interest of our project but does not necessarily reflect the scope of 
the workshop – is still sparse, the topic has received more academic 
attention in recent years. This has been reflected in a growing series 
of panels, workshops and conferences, including our own “Histories of 
Technology’s Persistence: Repair, Reuse and Disposal” workshop that took 
place in December 2018. Selected papers from that workshop will soon be 
published in an edited volume.

As sustainability is the implicit subtext of many repair narratives, we 
are interested in historical and contemporary discourses and critical 
reflections about the assumed relationship between maintenance, repair 
and (more) sustainable consumption. By looking at the epistemology, 
sociology, politics, economics and history of maintenance and repair we 
would like to contribute to the re-evaluation of maintenance and repair 
in society today. We invite you to be part of this scientific journey 
where failures, breakdowns and their patterns are an important element 
in both the basic relationship between users and technology and 
fundamental practices in everyday life. For this workshop, we are 
looking for interdisciplinary contributions that explore the following 
themes:

- the epistemology, sociology and politics of repair
- innovation through maintenance and repair practices
- social and economic sustainability
- the environmental impact of consumer societies
- experimental approaches in studying repair and maintenance
- maintenance and repair practices as forms of resistance
- the social construction of repairability and/or obsolescence
- philosophical, ethnographical and historical approaches
- the history of manuals and the transfer of repair knowledge in general
- repairability as an economic and strategic approach
- historical, economic and sociological perspectives on lifespans of 
objects

The C²DH will cover the travel and accommodation costs of invited 
workshop participants. Please send abstracts (400-500 words) and a short 
CV to rebecca.mossop at uni.lu and thomas.hoppenheit at uni.lu; the deadline 
is 1 March 2020. We will get back to you by the end of April. Invited 
workshop participants will be expected to submit extended abstracts 
(1,500 words) by 15 August 2020.

Organisers: Stefan Krebs, Rebecca Mossop and Thomas Hoppenheit 
(Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, C²DH)

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