Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Repair Strategies
Maintenance Transformation
Repair
Practices
—reinforcing and protecting
established meanings and
boundaries
—framing “problems” as threats to
established structures of power
—downplaying critiques of
established structures
—challenging and calling for change
to established meanings and
boundaries
—framing “problems” as endemic to
established structures of power
—critiquing and proposing
substantial change to established
structures
Discursive
—responding to problems through
established structures
—modest change of established
structures in order to preserve
overall control over production
—creation of new structures that
ultimately preserve established
systems of production and
reproduce power
—responding to problems through
structural change
—large-scale structural change to
established systems of production
—creation of new structures that
disrupt established systems of
production and power
Ecological
Figure 1.3
Repair strategies and practices.
structure of an ecology. At fi rst, this may seem obvious: it will always be
more convenient for actors to maintain a system rather than create a new
one. But we only really understand why it seems convenient to maintain
a system when we uncover its structure and explore the interests at stake
in the balance between order and change. In many cases, maintaining the
structure of an ecology may take just as much effort or as many resources
as transforming it, but maintenance of the status quo is benefi cial for a
select group. Therefore, transformative repair is much more likely to be
proposed and supported by those who are critical of, disenfranchised from,
or subject to an established ecology of power. Those who benefi t from the
ecology are only likely to turn to transformative repair when the structure
no longer works in the same way for them or as a last resort.
A second distinction in fi gure 1.3 emphasizes the sociomaterial approach
I am taking here. The two repair practices—discursive and ecological—
describe the practical methods that actors may use to repair an ecology as
well as the diverse forms that this improvisational work may take. Discur-
sive repair is the form that has been studied most extensively through
ethnomethodological conversation analysis, but the focus I take here is
on a broader view of discourse, where repair is aimed at the cultural and
