Theaters of Alternative Industry: Hobbyist Repair Collectives and the Legacy of the 1960s American Counterculture

Abstract

This chapter describes initial results from an ethnographic study of design and engineering engagements in community-operated sites at which hobby- ists mend and repair mass-produced goods. We conducted participant observation at seven repair events and two collectives in the San Francisco Bay area where consumer electronics are reassembled, and spoke with approximately eighty repair practitioners. Here we describe surprising connections between repair and social movements that, in turn, reveal deep ties between contemporary hobbyist repair and countercultural design practices of the 1960s. These links, we argue, open new and important areas for design research.