School of Geography - Research Publications
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ItemThe imperative of repair: Fixing bikes - for free(Berghahn Books, 2019-09-01)This chapter discusses how we can interrupt the cycle of consumption and disposal to reuse a relatively simple and ubiquitous item – the bicycle. We compare two projects that are non-commercial, community-based and involve volunteers who recycle, redistribute and assist with the repair of bicycles. The first is a project that repairs donated bikes and gives them to asylum seekers and refugees who have moved into an urban area. The repair of lives broken by the disruption of seeking refuge in another country is being helped with the life-enhancing mobility of a bicycle. The second is a network of community bike workshops open to anybody, which help owners to keep their bikes on the road by teaching maintenance skills. Being able to repair their bike frees the user from having to pay and wait for a professional service to recover their velomobility. Both types of project operate at the margins of the system of capitalist production and consumption in which bicycles are originally manufactured. Both counter the tendency of advanced industrialised societies towards consuming new replacement goods rather than repairing the broken.