Thought Piece

Evolving Mobile Repair Business in Ahmedabad City, India

Guest Blog Post by Himadri Das, former 2021 Summer Fellow   Is increasing consumerism a death knell for repair? The classic conundrum of consumerism with respect to sustainability plays out in complex ways. One would imagine that mobile phones, which … More →

Meet Maintainers Fellow Jennah Jones: The Circular Economy is a Collaborative Economy

– by Jennah Jones In the summer after I graduated high school, two seemingly unrelated events occurred within the same week. Gabriel Garcia Marquez — Colombian literary giant and my favorite author at the time — had passed away. That same … More →

Embodying Degrowth Podcast

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 fellowship to advance the movement for maintenance thinking and action. Learn more about The Movement … More →

A Polemical Letter on Maintenance and Profit and Mr. David Pye

A Polemical Letter on Maintenance and Profit and Mr. David Pye Written by Guest Author Lee David Engdahl   ‘The art of design, which chooses that the things we use shall look as they do, has a very much wider … More →

An Astronomical Collapse: Implications of Engineering Design Decisions on the In-Service Performance of an Unprecedented Structure

This post is written by Maintainers community member Julie Mark Cohen. See her bio below. During the Cold War by the mid-late 1950s, the U.S. military conceived the Arecibo Observatory “to aid in the research and development of ballistic missile … More →

Why Do People Neglect Maintenance?

This post is by The Maintainers Co-Directors Andy, Jess, and Lee. A big part of our job involves talking to other people about maintenance and how both maintenance and the lives of Maintainers can be improved in our culture today. … More →

Maintaining Disabled Bodies and Identities: The Body as Evidence (2)

This is the second of two interrelated posts by the disability studies scholar Hanna Herdegen who is pursuing a PhD in Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. “What have you got in there, rocks?” I’ve gotten comments on the … More →

The Soup’s On Us: Introducing the Information Maintainers

This post is by Information Maintenance Community Member Monique Lassere Many of us are familiar with the term “maintenance,” and we may even have ready-made ideas of what maintenance looks like, whether as an occupation or what we just realized … More →

Maintaining Disabled Bodies and Identities: Disability as Dirty Work

This is the first of two interrelated posts by the disability studies scholar Hanna Herdegen who is pursuing a PhD in Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech. When I was first diagnosed with POTS, my cardiologist suggested that I … More →

Researching “What Do Engineers Do All Day?: Innovation, Maintenance, and Everyday Engineering.”

This post is by The Maintainers Co-Director Lee Vinsel. A couple of weeks ago I heard that joyful news that my Virginia Tech colleagues Jenni Case, Marie Paretti, and I were awarded a grant from the Institute for Society, Culture, … More →