Paper short abstract:

This presentation focuses on the repair movement and its relation to environmental concerns and handicraft skills in Estonia. While activists establish public repair workshops to popularise repair and cultivate skills, repair and handicraft skills are not forgotten among the older generation.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation focuses on the repair movement and reoccurring trend of repair in Estonia. This study is based on ethnographic fieldwork at the first Estonian public repair workshop Paranduskelder, and a collection of repair stories collected by the Estonian National Museum.

Repair as an anti-capitalist form of consumption and a do-it-yourself practice of circular economy has gained attention and popularity in recent years in Estonia, and globally. This, at least partly, is cultivated by local activists, whose activity is inspired by the global Right to Repair movement and the trend of Repair Cafes. Paranduskelder as a public repair workshop was established in 2019 as a private non-profit organization. The activists are motivated by the worry and anxiety about the uncertain future caused by climate change and mass consumption. The solution, as they propose, lies in reconfiguring the relation with the material world of goods. Their mission at the repair workshop is to popularise repair as an option in consumption culture and to encourage people to repair their commodities by themselves. This, as they propose, can only be achieved through learning handicraft skills.

The activists and visitors of the repair workshop are strictly driven by environmental concerns and the will to learn skills for a more sustainable future. However, repair is still not a forgotten practice among the older generation in Estonia because of the Soviet past. Many people still value handicraft skills and are used to repair things, but not everybody is doing it in reaction to the climate change.