Dear maintainers,
We are starting 2022 with a bang- we have so many wonderful Maintainers announcements to share!
Firstly, we are excited to share our Summer fellows' final reports. It has been an honor to learn from their original insights, ideas, and support their work in bringing valuable maintenance-centered knowledge out to the world. This month we have also kicked-off the first ever Maintainers Movement Fellowship! Together, the fellows cohort will dedicate time to exploring the intersection of care, repair and infrastructure, in the larger context of environmental action.
Also, we have a new opportunity to work with The Maintainers central team! We are hiring a community and event coordinator to support the expansion of our public programs, and expand our capacity for cross-collaborations.
Feel free to share our fellows' work widely, and distribute the new opportunity! As always, we wish you good health and look forward to growing our maintenance movement together.
Andy, Jessica, and Lauren
The Maintainers Team
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Summer Fellow Reports
As part of their fellowship, each one of our fellows pursued research in their preferred maintenance-related field of interest. We are proud to share the final reports with you — click through on each report’s image to access the full report content and PDF.
“AN OBTUSENESS TO NATURE – What Our Management of Dynamic Coastlines Reveals About Maintenance and Ecology” by Linda McIntyre.
Using case studies of three coastal areas--one on the Texas Gulf coast, one on the Great Lakes, one on the Atlantic Ocean--as a lens into the relationship between maintenance and ecology, this research suggests that, at least in these communities, that relationship hasn't yet absorbed the lessons of history. The big-picture takeaways from these case studies are admittedly discouraging: the institutions that manage coasts seem locked in a futile and expensive doom loop. Yet there is a rational basis for hope, since experts in many different fields are developing tools and strategies to calculate the costs of environmental harms and to propose ways to better protect citizens, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
“RELATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE: Adobe building, ritual, and healing” by Sarah Sao Mai Habib.
This piece expands on the ideas of home sovereignty (in context of other sovereignty work, intersectional healing, and kinship beyond borders) through the framework of adobe – a building material made of earth and other natural elements. It is an offering consisting of eight parts that weave in and out of the specificities of adobe use in New Mexico/Pueblo Land, an ancestral technology among multiple indigenous communities that also build and maintain adobe infrastructures. Each part builds off one another, and can exist on their own.
“FRUGAL CULTURE MEETS INFORMAL REPAIR ECONOMY IN AN INDIAN CITY: ‘A PERFECT MATCH!” by Himadri Das and Purna Sarkar.”
Synthesizing their experiences conducting Repair Cafes, the authors describe India’s longstanding, informal repair economy and repairers' roles as economically powerful, impacting the natural environment on a global scale, and bearing significant social stigma. These co-authors ask and lead the reader to ask: Why isn’t the practice of Jugaad (“fix” in Hindi) recognized as part/acknowledged as part of the lineage of the lineage of the “Circular Economy'' movement? What forms of power are held by India’s informal repair networks? How are India’s informal repair networks exercising power on the formal manufacturing economy?
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Welcome to our Movement Fellows 2022!
The urgency of our climate crisis, combined with the rising interest in creating policies around infrastructure development (e.g. last year's political debate around the Build Back Better framework), inspired us to create The Maintainers Movement Fellowship. Movement Fellows will join forces this year to study the themes of maintenance, repair, and their relation to the environment. Click on the Movement Fellows' names to learn more about their interests and experiences.
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Rheanna Chen:
Ecologist, food justice advocate, community worker, and mindfulness teacher.
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Opportunities
We are seeking a Part-time Community Outreach & Events Coordinator!
The coordinator will be in charge of planning and coordinating events, developing relationships with collaborative partners, and developing new ways of engaging with the broader Maintainers network.
Compensation is up to $30,000 over 12 months, billed hourly, with an anticipated average of 20 hours per week and a $5,000 bonus for the completion of a year-long commitment.
For more details and guidelines on how to apply, please check out the job posting.
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00135 // MAINTENANCE AS CRAFT// Bernardo Robles Hidalgo / Koen Berghmans at MAMA
Maintainers in the News
Here’s a couple of stories that came to our attention, through Twitter and our email list:
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We would love to hear what you are working on, your feedback on the newsletter, or anything that you find particularly relevant for The Maintainers Community! Drop us a line at lauren@themaintainers.org.
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