Co-designing Resilience: Practical and Social Skilling through Place-based Repair

Abstract

The environmental and social injustices stemming from consumer culture have made evident the necessity to rediscover repair, as a means against growing precarity. This article presents such effort through a pilot program that took place in regional Queensland, aiming to re-engage at-risk youth by exposing them to practices of creative repair. The program provided opportunities for the youth participants to repair preloved items and reuse materials while collaborating with mentors, creatives, and peers. The stakeholders’ lived experience was documented via a co-design workshop, which was based on findings derived from interviews and visual data. According to its outcomes, practical and social skilling can enact self-confidence, communities of repair, and resource preservation. These, along with the program’s blueprint, were included in a toolkit to support other regional communities facing similar challenges. To conclude, the program’s learnings demonstrated repair as a place-based approach responding to a global condition, pragmatically addressing environmental and social emergencies.