Paper short abstract:

The paper reviews contemporary approaches to DIY and proposes three analytical perspectives to productively study DIY across different contexts while taking into account the multiplicity of approaches to DIY. To illustrate these, the paper draws on a research into DIY in the Czech Republic.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss conceptual frameworks for the study of DIY and to offer a multi-layered analytical perspective for empirical case studies. First, we review principal streams of research literature and relate them to expert discourses that have been established around DIY in recent decades. Second, we contextualize DIY in a wider European context with a focus on the East-West divide and its legacy in post-socialist Europe. Third, we present three analytical perspectives that can help us discuss DIY across different approaches and contexts: 1) placing DIY practices in socio-cultural, political and economic contexts, 2) exploring the dynamics behind DIY materialities, and 3) analysing effects of DIY in terms of aesthetics, identity and memory. We illustrate these approaches using examples from our ongoing research into DIY practices and how these practices have been impacted by the fall of socialism and altered by the ensuing post-socialist transformation in what is now the Czech Republic.

Paper short abstract:

Employing a comprehensive understanding of doing things yourself these practices represent a key characteristic of late modernity - much more and even the opposite of just being a counterculture.

Paper long abstract:

Facing actual movements of makers, hackers, urban gardeners and repair cafés (so called "DIY"), practices of doing things yourself recently acquired the notion of mainly being defined by their countercultural characteristics and their criticism of modern industrialized economy. Here, characteristic of doing things yourself is reduced to be a secondary feature. Other pertinent practices without this countercultural notion like the trend to private home improvement since past WWII does not fit easily to this definition.

Employing a different definition of doing things yourself by consequently highlighting the fact that these practices are not delegated (e.g. to professionals) cover a much wider array of practices: not just urban gardening, knitting or home improvement but also booking your tickets yourself and not having it done by a travel agency, monitoring your blood pressure yourself and not (or less frequently) having it done by a physician, or publishing your texts yourself and not having this done by a publishing company.

From this perspective the phenomenon of doing things yourself becomes a core characteristic of the postindustrial society mainly boosted by digitalization. Here, the trend to do things yourself can be interpreted very differently, as democratization of practices, as well as a neoliberal responsibilisation of the individual, as a general de-expertisation or - the other way around - an expertisation of the complete society.

In this light doing things yourself represents a key characteristic of late modernity - much more and even the opposite than just a counterculture.

Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the "creative relations" between craft consumers and the commodities they are searching for in order to craft and to create. How "prosumption" or "participatory consumerism" works within this group of consumers will be explored, using examples from the contemporary DIY-world.

Paper long abstract:

The paper explores the "creative relations" (Vachhani 2013:93) between craft consumers and the commodities they are searching for in order to craft and to create. A craft person has the ability to identify the promises that lies in raw materials and in forms and details that can be used, reused and decontextualized. Commodities can work as active materials, leading to ideas (and fantasies) about what they can become and be transformed into when bought. How "prosumption" or "participatory consumerism" works within this group of consumers will be explored, using examples from the contemporary DIY-world, and connected to social media such as the knit and crochet community Ravelry (Knott 2013). Questions asked are: How are crafters involved in "participatory consumerism"? How do they engage with materials (Ingolds 2013:22)? Which creative possibilities will be enabled within the concept of "prosumption"?

Paper short abstract:

The paper will focus on the intersection of do-it-yourself (DIY) and sustainable lifestyles and consumption in contemporary Czechia. It will study practices and meanings related to an ideal of self-sufficiency in a post-socialist society.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will focus on the intersection of do-it-yourself (DIY) practices and sustainable lifestyles and consumption in contemporary Czechia. It will study practices and meanings related to an ideal of self-sufficiency which has become quite popular recently. Contemporary sustainable DIY culture can be understood as a set of environmentally-friendly activities and lifestyles practiced on a do-it-yourself level. It has been influenced by lifestyle movements such as permaculture, back-to-the-land movement, zero waste movement, and so on. The do-it-yourself logic relates to various lifestyle aspects such as: producing home grown food, cooking healthy food from scratch, building natural homes, making homemade medicine and eco-cosmetics, but also home birthing and homeschooling. The activities are framed by strive for autonomy for individuals, families and communities and turn to nature in opposition to overconsumption, reliance on expert knowledge, and dependence on multinational corporations. The sustainable DIY practices are studied in the context of globalization, environmental issues and climate change, and post-socialism. The paper draws on qualitative sociological research that includes participant observation, analysis of media contents and in-depth interviews.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on empirical material from an ongoing project on urban activism, this presentation discusses how DIY (counter-)cultural spaces can form a response to perceived failures and shortcomings of mainstream cultural institutions.

Paper long abstract:

In this talk, I will focus on a grassroot initiative in Helsinki (Finland), which was formed by a handful of young adults with a distinct and elaborate mission: to create a safer space for those feeling neglected, left out and unwelcome at formal cultural institutions.

My presentation links to other research done on DIY urbanism by pointing out how individuals carry great potential for playing an active role in the shaping and making of urban space. As scholars like Gordon Douglas (2018) show, they are often the ones to detect issues in their surrounding society - issues that official institutions might not even be fully aware of and consequently do not take actions against.

Drawing on interview material, casual conversations and participant observation, I will present the activists' perspectives on society and their criticism on the cultural scene, before discussing their strategies to tackle the issues they perceive and the issues they encounter along their way.

Paper short abstract:

What moral, material and affective work is involved in making things and what kind of work are the resulting things intended to do? This paper seeks to explore values and attachments in DIY work and works of DIY, and how changes in these can be tracked by "following the work".

Paper long abstract:

This paper is part of an ongoing PhD project on making, and takes its point of departure in the freely written answers on a questionnaire sent out by the Swedish Literature Society in Finland in 2012. People were asked to tell what they make or have been making themselves, and what roles these practices and products have played in their lives. The answers that the questionnaire generated are predominantly written by women born in the 1930s and 1940s. This means that they have lived through times of post-war shortage, when "everything had to be made", which is often taken up as a contrast to present day affluence. This generation also tells in a very multi-faceted way about the moral, material and affective work involved in making things and how the things made were intended to work in different relations and circumstances - sometimes successfully and sometimes not.

How does making things relate to changes in what can and should be made? What moral, material and affective work is involved in these practices and products? I want explore the values and attachments in DIY work and works of DIY and how changes in these can be tracked by "following the work". What kind of worlds do DIY work sustain or challenge?

Paper short abstract:

With single-family suburban homes as case, this paper will discuss the role of DIY-work in the universe of homeowners. How can we understand DIY-work as a practice between chore and creativity? And how has it been connected to a global market of stuff for house and garden?

Paper long abstract:

For most homeowners the house equals freedom, but homeownership is also being given the responsibility of what anthropologist Daniel Miller has labelled "(...)the elephants of stuff. Huge lumbering beasts that are excessively hard to control" (Stuff, p. 81, 2010). By this he understands houses as a complex assemblage of materiality that is continuously formed by and is forming the homeowner in an ongoing process of relational materiality.

In this paper I look at DIY-work understood as home improvement where homeowners "(…) decorate, alter, build, maintain or repair any part of their house themselves, rather than paying a professional tradesperson to do the work for them. (Mackay & Perkins, 2017, p. 1). I zoom in on a specific plot in the suburb of Albertslund, where boilersmith Vagn Jensen in 1968 built his own house. The house was inhabited and looked after in 50 years before the last owner, Vagn's wife Annelise, died, and the house was cleaned out, sold and demolished. During several visits in this period, I found that the house was an exotic exhibition of vernacular creativity and what might be labelled anti-architecture.

With the Albertslund-house, and other visits to single-family homes in the same area, as cases, this paper discuss the role of DIY-work in the universe of homeowners. How can we understand and research DIY as practices and processes? How is the materiality of the home-universe connected to production and consumption? And finally, how can we understand DIY-work as culture heritage in a museum context?

Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on former researchers at R&D departments of chemical plants in the Czech Republic who worked there before and after 1989. We analyse their accounts of DIY practices as part of their lab work in a "shortage economy" and its effect on their views of the transformation.

Paper long abstract:

The paper presents preliminary results from a project exploring the fate of research and development institutes and departments affiliated with chemical plants in what is today the Czech Republic. In particular, it comprises archival research, interviews with former and current researchers and a media analysis. One of the foci of the research is the reflection of "shortage economy" and its repercussions in the area of applied research and development. The researchers we interviewed were specifically tasked with making process improvements, developing new methods but often based on foreign designs and patents including hard-to-get raw materials, devices and technology. This and the role played by the Stakhanovite movement and the official support for improvement and innovation initiatives of factory workers and employees (Komárek 1983) led to the use of DIY in research work, both out of necessity and for various kinds of personal profit. In the paper we wish to focus on how the need for and actual use of DIY strategies is remembered and reflected by former researchers. Specifically, we are interested in seeing what impact the change of the political regime had on this type of embodied practice, which otherwise seems to be an inevitable part of any innovative and indeed research activity. At the same time, we analyse how they relate the changes they experienced in relation to "doing without", which is at least for some a defining characteristics of state socialist regimes (Féhérváry 2009).

Paper short abstract:

This presentation addresses (bio)enhancement practices as specific forms of DIY self- and body- making, grounding the analysis of the material and symbolic dimensions of body transformations and self-construction with the inquiry into the multiple and shifting economies that they constitute.

Paper long abstract:

Present times are marked by the rapid development of low-tech bio-interventions that are starting to revolutionize the way people live, the kind of person they can be, and the future that they imagine. "Self-improvement" procedures - such as hormonal menstrual suppression, anti-ageing testosterone replacement, performance-enhancing drugs consumption, skin bleaching treatments and plastic surgery - are booming and are becoming common - cheaper, less invasive, more accessible and affordable than ever. The democratization of 'wish-fulfilling medicine' and 'enhancement biotechnologies' is exported globally as a will to improve and aspiration to become healthier, smarter, stronger, happier, longer-lived and altogether 'better' individuals. 

Drawing from the research project "EXCEL. In pursuit of excellence - Enhancement biotechnologies and body capital", in this presentation we address these "autopoietic" practices and their increase in Portugal during the last ten years, articulating the recourse to enhanced body capital and self-construction projects with the socio-economic fluctuations in times of global recession and financial disquiet.

We suggest that anthropological inquiry offer a privileged ground to better understand the baffling phenomenon that economists have called the "lipstick effect", referring to the increased desire for - and use of - lifestyle, performance-enhancing and appearance-enhancing items during times of economic recession. Approaching (bio)enhancement practices as specific forms of DIY self and body making, we aim to cross the analysis of the material and symbolic dimensions of body transformations and self-construction with the inquiry into the multiple and transforming economies that they constitute.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on our n/ethnographic fieldwork experience in the Lomography community the paper focuses on DIY practices of lomographers and addresses the branding strategies of cultural (photography) industry incorporating these DIY practices for commercial purposes.

Paper long abstract:

Photography is one of the very first modern medium technology that became a popular domestic craft, rather than just a professional practice. This is certainly one of the main reasons why photography has always been endowed with a strong DIY spirit. But photography has also been driven by commercial interests of cultural industry which has sought to commodify production relationships in the area of photography and its vernacular uses. The present paper aims to describe and analyse contemporary dynamics between DIY material practices and commercial interests using the example of the Lomographic Society International (LSI). The paper thus focuses on DIY practices of Lomography enthusiasts and branding strategies of LSI incorporating these DIY practices for commercial purposes. Empirically drawing on the results of nethnographic research of Lomography community we argue that: (1) DIY practices of lomographers are deeply ambivalent as they permanently oscillate between creative and conventionalised, subversive and commercialised, authentic and commodified meanings; (2) the DIY spirit itself is brilliantly commodified by LSI as it is promoted as a core brand value and as such is sold to lomographers symbolically attached to commodities marketed by LSI; (3) the digital marketing and branding tools employed by LSI further strengthen the commodification of DIY spirit by blurring the borders between user generated content and marketing appeals. As such, Lomography community is described as a living laboratory where it is possible to observe several important aspects surrounding the changing role of photography and its DIY spirit in contemporary digital consumer culture.