Join the Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation and the IEEE Society for Social Implications in Technology (Australia Chapter) (IEEE SSIT) for the third session in the Challenges for a Cyber-Physical World online seminar series: “Right to Repair”.

In recent years debate concerning the rights of consumers to repair products, devices and machinery emerged as a critical issue at the interface between law, technology and society. Current debate concerning the prospects of enacting rights to repair have largely focused on improving the repairability and interoperability of consumer electronic devices, agricultural machinery and renewable energy systems in the context of existing intellectual property, consumer and data protection regulation.

Over the last decade the advent of the repair café or the public ‘fixit clinic’, where makerspaces are increasingly tuned toward practices of restoration, reuse and rebuilding – alongside the dissemination of online knowhow and tutorials in repair practices – has relocated ad hoc repair practices to public spaces, contributing to a broad social movement engaged in collaborative and cooperative repair practices.

As a response to public activism, the right to repair has also become the focus of significant policy discussion, in advance of anticipated legal reform (particularly in the US and EU). In Australia, recent studies by the ACCC and Productivity Commission demonstrate the salience of the right to repair domestically and the scope of possible future reforms.

In this presentation we discuss two current research projects exploring the constitution of rights to and practices of repair. The first project focuses on a critical analysis of public submissions to the current Productivity Commission inquiry 2020-2021 on the right to repair. The second project explores recent work in informal repair practices engaged in the off-grid solar industry in the Global South.

The Challenges for a Cyber-Physical World Seminar Series brings together interdisciplinary expertise to raise awareness on the issues unique to a society where the physical and the digital are increasingly intertwined. This series is intended for scholars and practitioners from law and other areas who are keen to learn about challenges in a cyber-physical world from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Speakers

Professor Matthew Kearnes is the current convenor of the Environment and Society group, based in the School of Humanities and Languages in the Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture, UNSW. His research is situated between the fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS), social and cultural geography and contemporary social theory. He focuses on the social constitution of processes of technological and environmental change, and explores novel means for promoting diverse forms of public participation, such as in current Right to Repair movements. Professor Kearns has explored areas such as the societal dimensions of, and public engagement with, climatic change, bio-nanotechnology, geoengineering and contemporary water treatment and supply.

Roberta Pala is a Scientia PhD candidate in the Social Policy Research Centre, at the University of New South Wales. Her PhD project investigates vaccines as political material encounters. She has a BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Siena and a MA in Gender and Cultural Studies from the University of Sydney, with a thesis on recent public debates about vaccines and immunisation policies in Australia. Her research interests include Social Studies of Science; Science, Technology & Society Studies (STS); and Philosophy of the Body. Originally from Sardinia, she has been calling Australia her second home for eight years now.

Dr Paul Munro is a DECRA research fellow and Scientia Associate Professor in Human Geography at the University of New South Wales specialising in the politics and policies of energy transitions in the Global South. His current main research focus is on the small-scale photovoltaic boom that is occurring across Sub-Saharan Africa which has been driven, among other things, a precipitous rise in speculative international investment. This work includes projects on the energy in(justices) associate with this transition (with Kenya, Uganda and Ghana as case studies), and the cultures of repair emerging as a response to a burgeoning solar waste problem in the region (with Malawi and Zambia as case studies).

The session will be hosted by Dr Kayleen Manwaring, Stream Leader of Challenges for a Cyber-Physical World at the Allens Hub for Technology, Law & Innovation and NSW Co-ordinator of the IEEE SSIT.