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).