2021 Summer Fellowship

The Maintainers Summer Fellowship ran during the summer of 2021. It brought together researchers and maintainers from a variety of places and backgrounds — community work, advocacy, city planning, art, and more — to enrich our knowledge of maintenance across disciplines and professions and shed light on specific maintenance practices across the world.

The Fellows’ research contributes to to deepening and broadening our understanding of maintenance and repair across a variety of fields and topics including 1) how race, ethnicity, and gender relates to maintenance 2) the connections between maintenance and environment, and 3) how business practices can contribute to humanistic and political goals of achieving a more caring and well-maintained world.

Publications

“RELATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE: Adobe building, ritual, and healing” by Sarah Sao Mai Habib

  You can download Sarah’s report here.   “I believe the revival and contextual adaptation of adobe, earthen and woven architectural practices to be a move towards answering some of these questions. I believe this to be one way oppressed … More →

“FRUGAL CULTURE MEETS INFORMAL REPAIR ECONOMY IN AN INDIAN CITY: ‘A PERFECT MATCH!” by Himadri Das & Purna Sarkar

  You can download Purna and Himadri’s report here   “Jugaad is such an essential part of the informal repair network and it is ubiquitous in the Indian context. Jugaad, or fixing, addresses local problems and solves them with locally … More →

“AN OBTUSENESS TO NATURE – What Our Management of Dynamic Coastlines Reveals About Maintenance and Ecology” by Linda McIntyre.

  You can download Linda’s report here. “It would be easy to look at the current state of environmental maintenance and despair. But seizing, and trying to build on, these opportunities offer a way to advance toward a different ethos, … More →

Blog posts

“RELATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE: Adobe building, ritual, and healing” by Sarah Sao Mai Habib

  You can download Sarah’s report here.   “I believe the revival and contextual adaptation of adobe, earthen and woven architectural practices to be a move towards answering some of these questions. I believe this to be one way oppressed … More →

“FRUGAL CULTURE MEETS INFORMAL REPAIR ECONOMY IN AN INDIAN CITY: ‘A PERFECT MATCH!” by Himadri Das & Purna Sarkar

  You can download Purna and Himadri’s report here   “Jugaad is such an essential part of the informal repair network and it is ubiquitous in the Indian context. Jugaad, or fixing, addresses local problems and solves them with locally … More →

“AN OBTUSENESS TO NATURE – What Our Management of Dynamic Coastlines Reveals About Maintenance and Ecology” by Linda McIntyre.

  You can download Linda’s report here. “It would be easy to look at the current state of environmental maintenance and despair. But seizing, and trying to build on, these opportunities offer a way to advance toward a different ethos, … More →

The Altars Which Found Us

– by Sarah Sao Mai Habib     December 2020. We are living in a medical aid camp, mostly made of tent structures and a few trailers. We are a collective staffing this small space near the so called US/Mexico … More →

Maintenance As Self-Care

– by Linda McIntyre Hello again! It’s hard to believe that my fellowship with The Maintainers is winding down already. What an unanticipated pleasure it has been to collaborate with this community and learn so much from them, and from … More →

Repair (Café) workshops in a Repair Country : Part 2

– by Himadri Das and Purna Sarkar Please refer to Part 1 for the first part of this blog post. Salvaging parts for the sake of frugality or urban mining but not necessarily for the sake of circular economy. Salvaging … More →

Repair (Café) workshops in a Repair Country : Part 1

– by Himadri Das and Purna Sarkar India is a repair country. This phrase encapsulates many different layers of meanings. It suggests that repair is ubiquitous in Indian cities and wrapped up deeply in frugal culture. It seems very important … More →

Design, Care & Reparations

– by Sarah Sao Mai Habib Early in 2021, designers, architects, planners, educators, policymakers, and artists came together to reflect on the massive transitional time we live in: a year into the covid pandemic and a year after the most … More →

Maintaining Communities Built on Sand

– by Linda McIntyre Hello and thanks for reading! I’m really excited to be one of The Maintainers’ 2021 Summer Research Fellows. I’m looking at the tradeoffs between maintenance and ecological stewardship. I’m still refining my approach but I know … More →

Events

Announcing Embodying Degrowth: An Event with The Maintainers Movement Fellows

Thursday, December 15 2022 | 2–3 PM EST | Register for the event here!   Join The Maintainers Movement Fellows for an end-of-year celebration as they showcase their collaborative project, Embodying Degrowth. The 2022 Maintainers Movement Fellowship is a year-long … More →

Announcing Engineering for Long Term Solutions – A Maintainers Movement Fellow Event with Long Now Boston, led by Tona Rodriguez-Nikl

Engineering for Long Term Solutions – The Challenge of our Times A Joint Conversation Event by The Maintainers and Long Now Boston led by Maintainers Movement Fellow Tona Rodriguez-Nikl Monday, June 6 2022 | 7:30PM EDT | Zoom doors open … More →

Tropical Fungi Summit – A Maintainers Movement Fellow Event, led by Rheanna Chen

03/30/2022 1-2:30 PM PDT | 3-4:30 PM CDT | 4-5:30 PM EDT In this event, led by Maintainers Movement Fellow Rheanna Chen, we looked at mushrooms as regenerative teachers for care, repair, and maintenance through the lens of a forest … More →