International workshop at the Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History.
Repair, reuse and removal are closely interlinked phenomena related to the lives and persistence of technologies, and they go beyond the question of innovation. When technical artefacts become old and outworn, decisions have to be taken as to whether it is necessary, worthwhile or possible to maintain and repair them, to reuse or dismantle them for different purposes, or to get rid of them. And these decisions depend among other factors on the availability of second-hand markets, repair infrastructures and dismantling or disposal facilities. The contributions to this workshop stress the long lives of old technologies whose form and duration has been shaped by repair, reuse and disposal practices. The workshop aims at showing that maintenance and repair have not become obsolete in modern industries and consumer societies.
Organised by Stefan Krebs (University of Luxembourg) and Heike Weber (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology).
The workshop will be based on pre-circulated papers. Guests are welcome but registration is required. Please contact Stefan Krebs.