- Oct 2017
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academic.oup.com academic.oup.com
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He calls for more thoughtful engagement with the notion not so much of making things, but of fixing them, repurposing them in their diminishment and dismantlement—not of making new, but of making do, and of thereby engaging what he calls ‘an ethics of mutual care’—with each other, the world around us, and with the (quite literal) objects of our affection (Jackson, 2013, p. 231). This is a source, he says, of ‘resilience and hope’ and it’s a way of being in space and time that has deep feminist roots (Jackson, 2013, p. 237).
My initial thoughts were: sustainability, repurposing, upcycling. And yes, I agree that there is a resilience and hope in that. How Jackson made the leap to 'feminist roots' is not clear to me. Page 11 of this PDF goes into more detail: https://sjackson.infosci.cornell.edu/RethinkingRepairPROOFS(reduced)Aug2013.pdf.
After reading this PDF, I think he is saying that this idea of sustainability and repurposing or 'an ethics of mutual care' can be sourced back to feminist scholarship that came about in the '70s through the '90s'. Unfortunately, I can't see any deeper meaning than that or why this must be feminist in nature and not simply human nature. Why gender comes into this, I do not know. But then again, perhaps my understanding of what it is to be feminist is flawed?
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