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Smart Machining Processes
motivations, and values. It is of particular interest to the authors whether application
of “repair ethics” to CE practices might transform or “reconfigure” rather than sustain or “restore” the industrial society.
In the literature reviewed by McLaren et al. (2020), there is a huge predominance
of implicit instrumental understandings of repair, present in more than four-fifths
of all the analyzed papers mentioning remanufacturing or repair. This understanding is focused on extending product life, increasing resource efficiency, or reducing and preventing waste, rarely bringing cultural or emotional considerations to
the center. However, as many publications indicate, a circular economy tends to
introduce important social transformations, including changes in labor relations,
involving an end to consumerism or an end to material growth, which would be
needed to deliver sustainability. Thus, the emerging sociology of repair is focused
on social and political values and systems contesting the instrumental approach to
repair issues. McLaren et al. (2020) consider three key dimensions of this sort of
contestation:
• Is repair a sustaining or transforming process?
• Is the temporal focus of repair backward- or forward-looking?
• Is the activity of repair personal or political?
They underline that these are not simple dualisms, but posing the questions in
this way they intend to identify deeper implications of repair beyond the prevailing instrumental narrative in CE. After all, decisions about repair can be seen as
choices of how to engage with these or similar binary questions, since repair is not
some abstract objective process, but a way of acting on the world which cocreates
cultural values, social and economic relations, and material outcomes. Since repair
is necessarily a relational process, it affects social relations and identities directly
or indirectly as much as it has material consequences. The authors conclude their
analysis as follows:
Research into repair in circular economies therefore needs to become more inter- and
trans-disciplinary, linking political, cultural, economic and technological investigation. In particular, researchers could do much more to understand non-instrumental
motivations for repair, especially considering individual actors as more than consumers; to examine the relational, social, moral and cultural implications of business models such as product service systems; to assess who wins and who loses from different
configurations of repair; and to explore the political economy of business approaches
to repair and circularity, as well as the potential for policy mechanisms that could
reframe repair, for instance as part of degrowth, or within novel forms of capitalism or
even non-capitalist social relations.
(McLaren et al., 2020)
Thus, any engineer making his decisions on design, material, and processing technologies of future products should keep in mind their huge impact on the natural
environment and society both in local and global terms.
Smart Machining Processes
motivations, and values. It is of particular interest to the authors whether application
of “repair ethics” to CE practices might transform or “reconfigure” rather than sustain or “restore” the industrial society.
In the literature reviewed by McLaren et al. (2020), there is a huge predominance
of implicit instrumental understandings of repair, present in more than four-fifths
of all the analyzed papers mentioning remanufacturing or repair. This understanding is focused on extending product life, increasing resource efficiency, or reducing and preventing waste, rarely bringing cultural or emotional considerations to
the center. However, as many publications indicate, a circular economy tends to
introduce important social transformations, including changes in labor relations,
involving an end to consumerism or an end to material growth, which would be
needed to deliver sustainability. Thus, the emerging sociology of repair is focused
on social and political values and systems contesting the instrumental approach to
repair issues. McLaren et al. (2020) consider three key dimensions of this sort of
contestation:
• Is repair a sustaining or transforming process?
• Is the temporal focus of repair backward- or forward-looking?
• Is the activity of repair personal or political?
They underline that these are not simple dualisms, but posing the questions in
this way they intend to identify deeper implications of repair beyond the prevailing instrumental narrative in CE. After all, decisions about repair can be seen as
choices of how to engage with these or similar binary questions, since repair is not
some abstract objective process, but a way of acting on the world which cocreates
cultural values, social and economic relations, and material outcomes. Since repair
is necessarily a relational process, it affects social relations and identities directly
or indirectly as much as it has material consequences. The authors conclude their
analysis as follows:
Research into repair in circular economies therefore needs to become more inter- and
trans-disciplinary, linking political, cultural, economic and technological investigation. In particular, researchers could do much more to understand non-instrumental
motivations for repair, especially considering individual actors as more than consumers; to examine the relational, social, moral and cultural implications of business models such as product service systems; to assess who wins and who loses from different
configurations of repair; and to explore the political economy of business approaches
to repair and circularity, as well as the potential for policy mechanisms that could
reframe repair, for instance as part of degrowth, or within novel forms of capitalism or
even non-capitalist social relations.
(McLaren et al., 2020)
Thus, any engineer making his decisions on design, material, and processing technologies of future products should keep in mind their huge impact on the natural
environment and society both in local and global terms.