Repairing Repair

Repair is a noble cause, but it is inseparably fraught with political anxieties and machinations. Because the idea of repair is often popularly perceived as an ethically grounded panacea, we frequently miss seeing how it dovetails with our understandings of another problematic concept: injustice. Insofar as we want to operationalize it as a tool for social good, it is important to understand “repair” in its turbulences, fluidities, and anomalies.

Imagine a city — full of rich heritage, economic potential, and informal settlements — struck by a powerful earthquake. The city is decimated. In the aftermath, administrators, policymakers, and civil society feel it is their moral duty to repair their city. Yet after much contentious debate, there is no consensus as to how to rebuild.

We need new networks that genuinely work better, not only for indie-web people or tech people or other outliers, but for all of us working toward collective survival. And I don't think we'll get them by just trying harder—or by swapping in new infrastructure toward the same old ends, or by building reflexively against the cartoon versions of old networks, and definitely not by trying to scold people into make more ethical social networking choices.