Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses DIY as a particular form of material culture. Drawing on a research of DIY in the Czech Republic, we explore how DIY as a localised and context-dependent socio-material phenomenon can become a productive field of anthropological engagement with contemporary societal changes.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to discuss conceptual frameworks for the study of DIY as material culture and to contextualize both DIY as a socio-material phenomenon and topic of anthropological research in a wider European context. We begin by reviewing principal streams of research literature and relate them to expert discourses that have been established around DIY in recent decades. Then, we discuss the legacy of DIY in post-socialist Europe. Using examples from our ongoing research into DIY practices in the contemporary Czech Republic, we show how socio-material practices of DIY have been impacted by the fall of socialism and altered by the ensuing post-socialist transformation and further (post-transformation) developments in what is now the Czech Republic. By looking at diverse practices of DIY, emotions into which these and the things created as part of self-led DIY projects are embedded, and narratives explicating the motivations and inspirations for doing-it-yourself, we place the (Czech) DIY in a particular socio-cultural, political and economic context and link it to contemporary studies of DIY. This allows us to suggest the ways in which DIY as a localised and context-dependent socio-material phenomenon can help us as anthropologists to generate novel, productive understanding of contemporary societal changes.