Paper short abstract:

This paper critically engages with a recent design concept that wants to tackle the issue of electronic waste: a modular smartphone that may be easily repaired and recycled. Based on ethnographic data an attempt to develop such a phone is assessed, which helps reflect on learning capacities.

Paper long abstract:

Electronic waste is a key part of today's global economy: it is the material flip side of the seemingly immaterial IT industries (Gabrys 2011). It keeps getting more serious every year; the pile of dirty waste is growing. In 2018, 50 million tonnes of e-waste will be discarded worldwide (Baldé et al. 2015: 20). This is why many actors want to embrace circular economy approaches to tackle the issue. In my paper I discuss one example and my ethnographic experiences with it. In 2013, the concept of a modular smartphone 'went viral'; a YouTube clip pitched the idea of a phone with interchangeable blocks ('Phonebloks'), which was considered a valuable idea because it rethought how electronic devices are to be designed so that they may be easily repaired and recycled. In the following years, Google attempted to build such a modular smartphone ('Project Ara') - it seemed to become the next big thing.

Roughly four years later, however, Google's project has failed, and the idea appears to be almost forgotten. In my paper I discuss the history of this modular smartphone to shine light on the diversions the project went through. I introduce my netnographic data (Hine 2015; Marres 2017) with the help of economic sociology to describe how a market was build (Çalışkan/Callon 2010) and passions were mobilized (Latour/Lépinay 2010; Tarde 1903). I will especially focus on the problem that it seems as if almost nobody has learned something from the failure of this particular modular project.