Reality Holes. Undesigning the 20th Century in Eastern Estonia
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Abstract
Through the study of mining holes that have appeared in Kohtla-Järve, this article shows how repair work can take on a political charge by re-ordering the social and materializing different dimensions of care. In this regard, the investigation of situated forms of material failure leads us to reconsider who has, or should have, the responsibility to fix what is broken, and how repair is linked to questions of future-making and care. The conclusion points, first, to the fact that repairing entails facing the harmful consequences of past design decisions, long after; second, that, when projecting post-extractivist futures, we must confront the need to undo the pernicious elements of modernity; and third, that critiques about the social and ecological cost of infrastructural failure must include the perspectives of local population.
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