Repair, reuse and removal are closely interlinked phenomena related to the lives and persistence of technologies, and they go beyond the question of innovation. When technical artefacts become old and outworn, decisions have to be taken as to whether it is necessary, worthwhile or possible to maintain and repair them, to reuse or dismantle them for different purposes, or to get rid of them. And these decisions depend among other factors on the availability of second-hand markets, repair infrastructures and dismantling or disposal facilities. The contributions to this workshop stress the long lives of old technologies whose form and duration has been shaped by repair, reuse and disposal practices. The workshop aims at showing that maintenance and repair have not become obsolete in modern industries and consumer societies.
Organised by Stefan Krebs (University of Luxembourg) and Heike Weber (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology).
The workshop will be based on pre-circulated papers. Guests are welcome but registration is required. Please contact Stefan Krebs (stefan.krebs@uni.lu)
Programme
Friday, 7 December 2018
| 09.00 |
Welcome by the organisers |
Reflections on the Historiography of Repair
| 10.30 |
From the Ethnography to the History of Repair: Notes from the Field |
| 11.15 |
Coffee break |
Maintaining Infrastructures & Infrastructures of Repair
| 11.45 |
Cycles of Destruction and Creation: Maintaining and Dismantling China’s Wartime Power Grid, 1937-1945 Ying Jia Tan |
| 12.30 |
The Unintended Role of Maintenance: Keeping Colombian Roads Passable, 1950s-1960s Angelica Agredo Montealegre |
| 13.15 |
Lunch |
| 14.30 |
Fixing Holes in the Plan: Maintenance and Repair in Poland, 1945-1970 Philip Scranton |
| 15.15 |
Memories In The Grid: Reuse And Adaptation In Britain's National Electricity Grid Thomas Lean |
| 16.00 |
Coffee break |
| 16.30 |
Telephone Repair & Maintenance – Business as Usual at Bell Telephone Jan Hadlaw |
| 17.15 |
Making socialism fit. Cultures of rebuilding, renovating and repairing in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, 1960-1992 Jonas van der Straeten and Mariya Petrova |
| 18.30 |
Dinner in Esch-sur-Alzette |
Saturday, 8 December 2018
Maintenance and Repair as Technology Transfer
| 09.00 |
Repair, Reuse and Removal of Locomotives on Russian Private Railways 1890–1914 Egor Lykov |
| 09.45 |
Technology Transfer Through Obsolete Artefacts and Out-of-date Designs Slawomir Lotysz |
| 10.30 |
Coffee break |
Waste and Reuse
| 11.00 |
India’s Shipbreaking Business, Emerging Economies, and the “Right to Pollute”? Ayushi Dhawan |
| 11.45 |
Consumer Durables, Bulk Waste, and the ‘Planned Obsolescence’ Debate in West Germany (1960s-80s) Heike Weber |
| 12.15 |
Lunch |
Automobile Maintenance & Repair
| 13.30 |
German Automobilists as Repair Experts: Community, Identity and Appropriation of Technology Stefan Krebs |
| 14.15 |
Maintaining Innovators: How 1970s Engineers Struggled to Build a Reliable Electric Vehicle Karsten Marhold |
| 15.00 |
Coffee break |
| 15.30 |
“Proof of Life”: Restoration, Preservation, and Old-Car Patina, 1930–2010 David Lucsko |
| 16.15 |
Closing comment Patrick Fridenson |
Venue
University of Luxembourg / C²DH
Maison des Sciences humaines
DH-Lab, 1st floor
11, Porte des Sciences
L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette