In cooperation with the Zentrum Technik und Gesellschaft (ZTG), BUND Berlin, Verbund Offener Werkstätten, BUND-Repair-Café, Hei – Haus der Eigenarbeit, FabLab Fabulous St.Pauli, Stiftungsgemeinschaft anstiftung & ertomis; funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (2017-2019)

The joint project investigates how and whether the quality and consumption consciousness of consumers changes when a “culture of repair” is integrated and lived in everyday life. By integrating the possibility of repairing things into everyday life and doing this in cooperative teamwork with mutual exchange of knowledge, consumers gain, on the one hand, a greater awareness of production processes and thus a higher appreciation of the products. On the other hand, they also acquire the competence that makes them less dependent on consumption and gives them more autonomy.

Whether and how the practice of repairing is spreading and becoming a culture of repair, or how this goal can be achieved, is to be found out through an integrative research approach: Citizen Science. In this project, actors from the repair and do-it-yourself scene will be made experts in their own right and thus citizens science. Their experiences, self-evaluations and assessments are guided, organized, coordinated and evaluated by the partner institutions in the Citizen Science form of co-design. The “Cultural Probes” method is used to gain an insight into the everyday world of the actors under scientific criteria. This method is to be further developed into a (citizen) science method through the project findings. In this project, ISInova takes on the role of consulting and reflection on the Citizen Science Method, i.e. the integration of citizen scientists in the research process on Repara(kul)tur.

Contact: Birgit Peuker, Linda Spieckermann