Academic Papers and Thesis

For the prolific academic writers, I am yet to add one more to the list. For now I will populate the internet.

• Lefebvre, Marie; Lofthouse, Vicky; Wilson, Garrath (2018): Towards a circular economy: exploring factors to repair broken electrical and electronics products by users with pro-environmental inclination. Loughborough University. Conference contribution. https://hdl.handle.net/2134/34474 
• Lefebvre, Marie (2019): To repair or not to repair: an investigation of the factors influencing prosumer repair propensity. Loughborough University. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.26174/thesis.lboro.11365325.v1

Beyond: The Microwave

A microwave is such a handy tool, so convenient,

It warms the food in a blink of 1min30s.

Every worker wants a microwave.

It is 7.30pm, you arrive finally at home. 

The bus commute from your work office to the confine of your living room took an hour. 

You are exhausted. 

Sitting down in front of the computer all day wore you out. 

You are starved.

Your belly is rumbling.

You need food it is a matter of survival.

Hopefully, your level of organisation has paid off. 

You have food in the fridge. 

Thanks to your to-do-list called ''Get Ready For Work''.

On Sunday, you prepared a week worth of dishes to keep you going. 

They are all in beautifully compact Tupperware you bought in your favourite or closest super shop.

You open the fridge door, you take one Tupperware, close the fridge door, take your favourite bowl on the drying rack, open the Tupperware, pour the content in. 

A warm feeling wraps up your heart and your belly.

You open the door of your microwave.  

Pop the content inside.

You love the sound of the door closing.

You press the start button to get it in motion. 

Once, twice, three times.

It is not working.

Guess your feeling

...

You unplug it, replug it.

Still nothing.

Millions of thoughts are travelling in your mind and two questions:

WHO IS THIS MICROWAVE IN MY KITCHEN COS I NEVER MET IT BEFORE?

AND WHY IS NOT RESPONDING TO ME?

The microwave when working is always ready-to-hand. Heidegger was the one who coined the term ''ready-to-hand'' to describe how infrastructures and objects that surround human beings are at any time ready to be used to produce a certain outcome. It is only when the item breaks that the real item reveals itself and become ''objectively present'' as Heidegger put it. 

When the microwave broke, you realise how central this machine is to you as everything associated with it became destroyed: the start button, the microwave door, the waves of energy, the bowl of pasta, the pursued warm meal in front of a favourite show.

What to do? 

Repair it?

No, first, you want to find a solution to your cold meal:

eat it as it is, 

warm it up in a pan, 

take up the courage to pop at your neighbour to ask if you can get a microwave fix, 

Go to a friend living 10 min drive from your house

check gumtree on your phone to get a new one, 

pop to your favourite 24hours shop, 

go get some takeaway. 

It is a matter of survival.

Forearm yourself with the Politics of Time and Repair the broken work-centred economy - after reading ''the Refusal of Work'' by David Frayne.

This weekend, I read the Refusal of Work by David Frayne.

In the book, he defines work and exposes critical accounts of different authors on how work is valued and regarded as a morally good behaviour to engage in so that the individual can be financially independent to buy more stuff at the detriments of its own health and wellbeing and the integrity of the natural environment.

He, then, shares the experiences of a number of individuals who refused to work the typical 40 hours a week in favour of working either fewer hours or not at all. The Whys, the Hows and the ongoing tension the participants of the research experience between what is currently seen as an ideal behaviour and their own provide the reader with a mirror to reflect upon their own working or non-working situation.

The work of André Gorz on The Politics of Time punctuates the writing in a beautiful manner and I am thankful to have been introduced to his thoughts.

Finally, He invites us to get ready to open the debate and fix the work-centred economy. He invites everyone to:

• Consider the impact of work centred society on the natural sphere. Look, you may be so consumed with work, you may not be able to self-produce your own needs (cook, repair, clean, educate your children, engage in contemplative activities) and you are spending all your earned income on products and services to fulfil them (take away, new gadgets, household services, nursery, Netflix). What happen to the broken, what happened to the packaged, what happened to the children that do not spend time with their parents?
• Consider the impact of work-centred society on your own health and wellbeing. Look, You may be tired and exhausted, you may be stressed, your back may hurt and your eyes may twitch. People around you and self-help books may ask of you to find a better work-life balance, Maybe you should ask everyone why we do not collectively ask for reduced hours of work.
• Get in touch with those who are already living a life more in tune with their body and their breathing, their surrounding environment and their community.
• Ask yourself why you should be grateful for having a 40hour a week job, with 1-hour commute each way, two days for resting and 5 weeks holidays of work. Question the culture of gratitude and begin a process of entitlement by asking for what you need.
• Give yourself and others the opportunity to dream for different worlds and utopias where you have the freedom and autonomy to design your own life with no structural and social pre-settings.

For more here

Graham & Thrift Out of Order

In the article put forward by Graham & Thrift, he strive to put  forward that repair and maintenance is the central component of the development of economies. and a basis of our survival

there is different way the article canbe quite useful within the thesis.

First, in indicating that repair provide an opportunity for the being to actually learn and develop oneself through a process of innovation, indicating there and then that repair is the premist of innovation, it is when soemthing break that theindividual tend to develop himself by trying to find way to repair the item
Second, that repair processes that happen in citieiss and in everyday life tend to be hidden from mot people who cannot see it happenign by reading report or hearing report when they are actually happening. people can only foresee the item as well when the alter is broken, when it works they cannot actualyy xsee the item but only focus on its function.
there is all the chapter about e-waste at the end that shows the extent to which the lack of engagement of repair create a number of negative externalities.
thereis also the way repairer are perceived by society as low class people.
then we have the all chapter about E-waste

Ackerman design for product care

In the paper by ackerman,  the main intention is to delineate the research project. She decided to look at product care and define the motivation to take care of a range of products. She set her research within the content of the xircular ecinomic since it is put forward that we shall actually they to repair the items first and she put forward that by understand g the user we will be able to actually develop design interventions between the user and the product.

There is a few thing that i can take from it first the way she presented the liner ecinomic in my introduction.
Then the way she actually put forward the definition of product care. It will Help me to define appropriately how i differentiate my research from her.
I will definitely have to put her research within repair as a strategy as well as design interventions to repair.
There is also an elements within my discussion that i need to put forward in relation to design for sustainable behaviour that we shall not only look at the interaction between the user and the product bit also consider within the development of our solution, the interaction within a set community.

A Cathartic Run through of the year - pre-bereavement and academic entanglement

This is the first Christmas that my father is not completely with us and the first month really that I am embracing the fact that he is on his own path and that I have my own. Next Christmas, my Ph.D will be submitted and who knows if he will still be with us. This piece functions as a cathartic relief as I go through what happens this year whilst being in my 3rd year of Ph.D. I hope it will Help anyone going through pre-bereavement. It gets better eventually.

Last Christmas, my father is at home, he is not well, yet still vivacious and talkative. His full diagnostic is unknown. He has a depression, some hallucinations at times and can be aggressive if too tired. I spend most of the time with him. We walk in green fields, talk about the wonder of the world, laughs about silly things and discuss life and death. I even take notes of what his funeral could be like. 

January comes, I am back in the UK. Two days after I left, he is at the hospital, I crash. My mum asks me to focus on my Ph.D. I do as best as I can with a bleeding heart. I tell my supervisors, my closed friends and family. I shut down.

February comes, I go to France to see him. His hair have grown and are grey. He cannot talk, he cannot walk no more, he is asleep, tied to a chair because they do not want him to fall. The tablets knocks him out. I cry relentlessly. The doctor has little hope. They try to get him accepted into a retirement home. They still do not know what he has. I go back to the UK. I am broken. 

April comes, I go back home. My father is in a retirement home. He can talk. He cannot walk yet. He recognises me. He is talkative. He talks mainly to himself. They give us the final diagnostic: he has Lewy Body dementia. I am in shock yet so pleased to see him and knowing that he is being take care of. I am announced that his work family want to organise an event to honour his achievements in his place of work in June. We have to go to represent him as he cannot come along. I am scared.

May comes, I am in the UK and sick to the stomach thinking about going back where he worked for the last 30 years. I cannot focus. I am scared that I will crack in front of all the people he loves and that I love too. I try to focus on work,  yet keep falling, I am falling into despair. I numb the feelings in a meaningless void of activities. I get help. I am drowning

June comes, I am going to France. I cry when I get to his workplace. I grew up there this is why. Yet, I am honoured to know how many people he has touched through his career. I am inspired.

July-August comes, I am back in the UK. I have a report to turn over. I have more energy and try to do my best. My mum calls me telling me that my dad is asking after me. I buy a ticket to go end of September. I submit my report. The anxiety kicks in as I realise that I have a review coming up with my internal assessor. How can I explain my lack of progress? I could have done better. I could have channel the pain into the work. I cannot even talk about it without crying still. I crash, my heart is still bleeding. June has not fixed it all. I am annoyed with myself.

September comes, I have my review. I do not say what happened in the last 9 months. My internal assessor is happy with my work but feels that I will need another year to complete it. I do not bring up any of this year experience because I can't. Few days after the meeting, I take the courage to drop an email. She is ok with it and believe that I can complete the Ph.D in a year. I am relieved.

Last weekend of September, back in France. He walks, he talks, he looks good, he is happy to see me and I am happy too. I meet many of his friends who shows me pictures of him when he was younger. I am inspired. What a full life he had, I want this for me too. I am hopeful.

October comes, I am feeling better and searching for my own path without him.

November comes, I am clarifying goals and priorities as I am being called upon on my productivity in my academic work. I want to stop numbing the way I feel and live again properly.

December, Lightbulb moment, I know where to go and I will.

My Mum is calling: Your dad is at the hospital, he wants you and I to start sorting out the funeral.

I cry, crash for a day. I take my notes from last Christmas on what he wanted. He wants me to be his voice and damn me, it will be a terrific expression on how grateful i am for how much I have grown because of the love and attachment i have for him.

I hope my experience resonated with you.
IF you had to experience loss, what was your experience and what helped you to make it better? Leave a comment. And if you know anyone who are going through a similar difficult path, share this story with them.

I am so frustrated. it is unbelievable to have to do it all over again in presenting my findings.
I find it extreemely tiring. I am just upset to have to do it all over again and I have no way around. if you have no choice and have to do it. stop being upset and go through it. there is no way around it. - just do it. the longer you get upset about it, the longer it will take for you to actually get your findings sorted so just get a grip and doing all as quickly as possible.

Where all this time gone?

There is this major project you have been working on for the last three years. You are 6 month away to close it for good. You know you are capable of doing so but you find yourself looking back each day and thinking what did you do. This is the question - where is all this time gone?
You put yourself through the task of timing yourself on each projects you are juggling on.
Here is is your productivity is low - you spend approximately 4 hours a day on your major project 3 on the mundane - 4 hours on others project. Before you know it, you shattered.
Time for review

Learning to repair - the pointless and wonderful

Receiving the appropriate support from friends, family, mentors is an important requirement to learn a new skill.
Yet some skills can be simultaneously respected and looked down by our social circle.
Knowing how to repair is the aggregation of many skills for which two conflicting messages are sent by those around us

• Why would you learn to repair when you can buy new?
• Isn't it wonderful to be able to repair any object coming your way?

It is to ask what traits and characteristics someone has to pursue a passion/interests when the rest of the world appear at first to not be interested.
It is to ask the type of environment that will nurture the inquisitive mind we all have to pursue against the odds something that appear pointless.

Acquiring the skills to repair - both pointless and wonderful

Why help makes the best glue

Published on Thoughful

I am five years old. I’m in my bedroom with my coloured pencils and colouring book. Opening the book, I grab a pencil and start colouring. And then, it happens—the thing that always happens to kids my age. I simply cannot stay inside the lines. I am frustrated. It is SO FRUSTRATING!

Crying out for my mum to save me from this colouring disaster, she opens the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Help!”

Ph.D journey - each year has been pretty special

I have one year left to finish my ph.d. My topic is on the factors influencing consumers to repair small electrical products. It is linked to this concept called the circular economy. It take a pro-conservation lense as opposed to a pro-growth  focus. but you will soon understand after reading how the three years went that it is all a mirage.

My first year was special. I organised a festival. It was called the Green Festival of Making and Mending, here in Leicester. It was the birth of me. a painful birth but nevertheless worth it. I was trying to manage as best as I could my voluntary activities with university. I was trying to find my voice in this mess called the literature review. It was a struggle but I manage to get there eventually.  I believed that all humans can acquire new skills and flourish by working together. It is through this mean that we can make our time here better and help generations to come to live longer and safer on this planet. I wanted to organise more events to bring people together, more courses, more knowledge transfer, more more more.

My second year was special too. I got married. It was in Paris with the sweetest thing I have ever met. I crawled at first, took few steps, fail few times to walk during this year. Oh man, wedding can be stressful. Yet, how beautiful I was when I walked down that aisle. A beautiful woman and my groom the most beautiful thing I ever seen. I had a voice, I could walk and I felt wonderful. Nothing could possibly stop me on my way. I felt so much love and care from the people around me. It was magical. I never wanted it to stop, we should be together all the time. I wanted to organise more parties and events to feel the love I received once more, more, more, more.

I am now in my third year. It is, it will be special too. I got a news. My father has been diagnosed with lewy body dementia. My world crumbles. I am asking myself: what is my ph.d about again?
I have been told to be strong and the best way I could help is by keeping the machine going, stop feeling sad, be strong, finish your ph.d, get a job, keep going, live more more more and forget about old age, loneliness, illness and death. forget about who you are, a mere mortal that care for those he/she loves, focus on what you can have, a life full of illusions 'money, fame, good reputation, more more more'.
Oh man, what is the purpose of the machine? can we just pause it for second and have a re-think. I just want less of all to be with those I love a little bit more.

How can you get a Ph.D.Scholarship?

Every two weeks or so I am meeting up with my Ph.D supervisors to talk about my research topic. At out last meeting, we finalise my research question...

---
2 Years ago, 1 month after starting my new job, 3 month after finishing my studies, it was clear for me that I wanted to go back to academia. I set up myself to gain a bit of experience and look for a new job.

18 month ago, I had two interviews, one for a knowledge transfer partnership leading to Ph.D with Birmingham City University and one for a Ph.D with Cranfield University on Sustainability and Communications. Deep inside it was not really what I was looking for.

12 month ago, I almost gave up finding the Ph.D. Then, I changed my mind. I systematically send emails to to find the gap where I could jump in

9 month ago I applied for Design Star with the intention to investigate how design for sustainable behaviour and eco-design will contribute to the concept of the Circular Economy.

2 month ago, I started my Ph.D

1 month ago, after a lot of reading on my research area, I figure than my initial questions did not fit with my interest in social innovation, activism, marketing, community building etc. I was lost.

Now, It is clearer.
---
The research question is

How to foster social innovation through sustainable behaviour and/or the re-use and remanufacture of household waste?

What do you reckon?

Drop your comments

Restart Party Host profile: Meet Marie

Published on Restart Project

My name is Marie Lefebvre. I co-founded with Divya Pujara, Leicester Fixers in 2014 with the support of Footpaths, a carbon footprint project, Leicester Hackspace and Transition Leicester. Other little things about myself, I am not a repairer yet I am absolutely delighted every time an electrical item gets opened and I can see inside it. I am also a Ph.D student at Loughborough University investigating the propensity of users of stuff to repair. I love each and every Restart Party because I always learn something new and meet lovely people.

Storytelling: A method to change yourself and the world

I have been contemplating using storytelling as a method to investigate the narrative of people trying to repair devices.

Instead of looking for journals that indicate the limitations and quality of this particular research method. I spent most my day looking out for pieces of information on how to become a storyteller.

I have learnt a few things.

First of all, a story is a strategic tool that can be used to change the world. It is a device that most of us as some way some how have and this through the magic of language. Language, sound is what allow us to connect with others. It is through this connection that we make that we can find ways to create a more compelling world. It is a leadership device that we have to make the best use of. It is our opportunity to get closer to others through the story we tell.

There is ways of telling a compelling stories. The story has to be visual in order to transport the audience in your realm. You have to show and not tell, body gestures and props are then welcome. Your story has to have a point. Without a point, it is just talking for talking and no one learn something from it.

For me, what revealed itself the most powerful is this video by Donald Davis on TedX Charlotteville. He share the story of his father who was called Joe Davis. Most in town called him Joe the Banker. Some called him Joe the Cripple. Why? Joe Davis tell the story to his son on how the experience of being crippled made him the banker that he is. Joe Davis tell the story on how his mother forced him to tell the story so many time to learn something from it and transform his outlook on his situation. From Donald Davis, I have learnt how the story can change the teller and why it is so valuable to tell and share your story, to change the world, to change yourself, to love more.

I have learnt something powerful about stories.

I also reflected on my own behaviour. I am always transported by other's stories and sometimes disgust by some current ones (climate injustice, child hunger etc.). I do not always take the time though to tell my own story. It is a big mistake. Big is probably not the right word. Mistake probably not too. It is just a shame to think that your own story is not as important as other people story. It is just a SHAME to think that your failure should be kept secret and weigh you down when actually by sharing the story you can learn more about yourself and teach something to other too. So after that experience, I note down all the stories I have experienced in simple bullet point. I took my voice recorder and started to tell them. One by One. There is the story on how I became a minimalist from having for most part of my life a messy room? How I became an environmentalist by first caring for child hunger? How I chose the love of my life from having positive and negative experiences with other men? How I embrace storytelling and how it change my life? There are more little stories there and then but I haven't found the point of them just yet. It will come as long as I keep telling them.

Video Links on storytelling: 
How To Tell Stories: Storytelling Tips : How to Practice Storytelling Techniques Mastering The Art of Storytelling - Gordon Hester Doug Stevenson: "The Power to Persuade – The Magic of Story" | Talks at Google 
Storytelling Skills / Training / Choose Your Stories  
The power of storytelling | Andrea Gibbs | TEDxPerth  
The power of storytelling to change the world: Dave Lieber at TEDxSMU 2013  
The mystery of storytelling: Julian Friedmann at TEDxEalin

Other links 

Top 5 Storytelling Games 

The International School of Storytelling

 

 

 

The New Mobile Phone Dilemma PART 2

This Saturday at the Restart Party, we haven't managed to repair my poor mobile phone (PART 1).
Luckily, one of the members of the Hackspace have a spare one that is happy to lend me until I am able to repair my own. I accept gratefully.

I get home and get myself two spares part to replace the screen on my mobile phone.
They arrived at home.
I put them in a drawer.
They stay there.

The current mobile phone that was lent to me is perfectly convenient for the time being.

I forget to bring the replacement screen at the next restart party and I come to learn that the person who lent me the mobile phone has gone and will never come back to Leicester and I will not find a way to give it back to him.

I accept fate.

Months pass by and I never manage to repair my old mobile phone. it is somewhere in a drawer with its spare parts.
I forget about it. I have a working phone in my hands.

Until this Sunday morning after having repaired the bottom drawer of a cupboard, the screw driving machine fell on my borrowed mobile phone...

Repair - Diary Entry (1) Green Festival of Making & Mending Leicester

Since September 2014, My main project focus has been on repair.

I have been working with Zina, founder of Footpaths, a carbon reduction project in Leicester to organise the Green Festival of Making & Mending on the 31st October 2015 and a serie of events throughout 2015. Our main aim was to introduce people to ingenious ideas to repair and upcycle items in an environmentally friendly way. The event idea stemmed the recognition of our own vulnerabilities. Zina and I were not really the creative/diy type. For me, personally, my hands were only used as so far for typing and some random drawing but never to make something tangible. Maybe they were but I never appreciated their magnificence.

Is gold in our hands?

A year working on festival and following up to that, I mended all my clothes, darned socks and gloves, repaired a mobile phone, made a rag rug and a banner, painted signs, made sculptures out of papers and christmas decorations, repaired pieces of furnitures, shortened curtains.

My hands saved pennies and more...

They connected me to so many people with the skills in Leicester that are willing to share their knowledge and crafts.

I wish they would save the many people across the planet sewing and making clothes and homeware , making furnitures and electrical items everyday for pennies. But the day will come,- I am sure.

To learn more about Footpaths - www.leicesterfootpaths.org.uk

Poverty and Sustainable development - a quote

Quote 

''the experience of the last decades shows that the current neo-liberal policies lead to income polarisation, an increasing number of poor plus a growing number of very rich individuals, at the detriment of the middle class (OECD, 2011c).
Whereas there is no correlation between economic growth and poverty reduction, there is a strong one between reducing poverty and the existence of a welfare state (Alber, 2002).
Thus redistribution of wealth and income can be understood as an immediate necessity for sustainable development.
However, such considerations play no role in the OECD green growth concept''

(Lorek & Spangenberg, 2014)

References

Alber, J. (2002). Besser als sein Ruf - Der Sozialstaat als erfolgreiches Modell. Witteilungen 98.
Lorek, S., & Spangenberg, J. H. (2014). Sustainable consumption within a sustainable economy – beyond green growth and green economies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 63, 33–44. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.08.045
OECD, 2011c. Divided We Stand. Why Inequality Keeps Rising. OECD, Paris.

Ph.D Research - Can you make yourself irreplaceable?

A while ago, I had dinner with this lovely young eastern European woman. It was our first encounter. She has been living in the UK for only two weeks. she had already a job and an accommodation. We started talking about our academic achievement. She mentioned that she had a master in digital literature. I suggested that she could possibly do her Ph.D at the University of Reading. She shrugged and said

 'I have been working as a research administrator in a university for two years. I was the one who convinced students not to do their Ph.D. 

Ph.D students slave themselves away for three years of their life. They carry out valuable research, write papers and go to conference, yet they are underpaid and they will probably not get a job at the end of it. Academia is an industry where Ph.D are a herd being truthfully exploited.'

It was partially true.

I started my Ph.D to escape the dogma of some other mainstream form of exploitation

I wanted to be my own project.

Academia appeared to be a door to freedom.

Yet, my value and future truly depend on research area, trends and interests. The week following to that I found myself thinking more than once that I could possibly leave my Ph.D.

Be self-employed and do whatever I want.

I did not.

Employed or self-employed, it remains the same. Your future actions are dictated by who needs you and how easy you can be replaced.

I am wondering how one can make themselves irreplaceable?