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The Fight to Fix: �Lessons from the Front of the Right to Repair movement

Alissa Centivany, JD, PhD

FIMS, Western University

acentiva@uwo.ca

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“Obstruction of Justice (OJ) House” By David Yarnall, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34865991

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_talk overview

  • Big picture
  • Impediments to repair
  • Imperatives & lessons from the Right to Repair movement
  • Considerations & conclusions for libraries and library workers

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_the big picture

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The breakdown and repair of “things” invites us to (re)consider the roles we play in co-creating shared sociotechnical futures.

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Reparability improves affordability, sustainability, national resilience, individual and social wellbeing.

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The Right to Repair is an effort to resist, even reverse for a time, the ineluctable gravity of breakdown.

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“Mirabelle’s Phone” By Alissa Centivany

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  • Design
  • Business Models
  • Information Asymmetries
  • Material Asymmetries
  • Laws
  • Social Factors

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_repair impediments

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  • Design
  • Business Models
  • Information Asymmetries
  • Material Asymmetries
  • Laws
  • Social Factors

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_repair impediments

Design is the determinant … [it] creates the way you exercise choices.”

- Tim Wu

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  • Design
  • Business Models
  • Information Asymmetries
  • Material Asymmetries
  • Laws
  • Social Factors

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_repair impediments

“Instill in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary” - Brooke Stevens

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  • Design
  • Business Models
  • Information Asymmetries
  • Material Asymmetries
  • Laws
  • Social Factors

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_repair impediments

“The servers out there that let me do what I do are going to be turned off soon.” - Jibo

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  • Design
  • Business Models
  • Information Asymmetries
  • Material Asymmetries
  • Laws
  • Social Factors

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_repair impediments

“All this technology has somehow made you a stranger in your own land. Its very shape and appearance and mysteriousness say, ‘Get out’.” – Robert M. Pirsig

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  • Design
  • Business Models
  • Information Asymmetries
  • Material Asymmetries
  • Laws
  • Social Factors

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_repair impediments

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  • Design
  • Business Models
  • Information Asymmetries
  • Material Asymmetries
  • Laws
  • Social Factors

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_repair impediments

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  • Design
  • Business Models
  • Information Asymmetries
  • Material Asymmetries
  • Laws
  • Social Factors

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_repair impediments

“Every act of repair is embedded with important human values. These include productivist values like learning, skill development, self-efficacy, self-determination, and digital citizenship, and also non-productivist values like care, continuity, heritage, hope, mutual support, and meaning-making that together make up the fabric of a richer, more resilient, more liveable society and enable us, collectively, to project a more hospitable, habitable, and humane shared future.”

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_from impediments to imperatives

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Barriers to repair act as “reverse salients” & help us orient our melioristic interventions

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  • Design: reparability, durability, interoperability, convivial decay
  • Business Models: transparency, choice, competition
  • Information Asymmetries: open access, ongoing support
  • Material Asymmetries: available tools and parts
  • Laws: copyright, competition, consumer protection
  • Social Factors: support for libraries, grassroots orgs, training and education

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_Right to Repair imperatives

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_co-creating a Canadian Right to Repair

European Union

  • Circular economy & sustainability
  • Challenge of enacting regulations
  • Advocacy & Grassroots

United States

  • Technolibertarian “ Owners’ Rights”
  • State-level focus / jurisdictional issues
  • Advocacy & Grassroots

Canada

  • What is our story? What shared values animate R2R?
  • Action at federal & provincial levels
  • Advocacy & Grassroots

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CanRepair.ca

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_considerations & conclusions �for libraries and library workers�

  • Identify “reverse salients” & orient collective action around their removal:
    • Vendor and publisher agreements, procurement policies, hosting repair cafes, develop literacy and training, target specific use cases, e.g. e-book readers, assistive devices, gaming consoles, data interoperability and portability, open access and open-source initiatives, others?
  • Be engaged:
    • consume less, consume carefully, call your representatives, participate in grassroots efforts, join CanRepair or other advocacy groups
  • Remember that the Right to Repair is a sociotechnical issue and our ability to fix our “things” is tied to our ability to fix social, political, economic, and environmental challenges.

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The Fight to Fix: �Lessons from the Front of the Right to Repair movement

Alissa Centivany, JD, PhD

FIMS, Western University

acentiva@uwo.ca

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“Obstruction of Justice (OJ) House” By David Yarnall, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34865991