Returning to the scene at Uhuru Street, there were three main actors in the interaction at Hussein’s repair desk: the woman with the broken phone, who had to endure a risky trip to the city centre to fix her mobile; Hussein, who left his job in marketing to become a mobile phone repairer in the vibrant repair industry; and the mobile phone. Why is it essential that the mobile phone is brought to someone assumed to have good skills? Why must the repairer interact with it in specific ways? And how does the mobile phone bring together the whole network of bodies that are part of the repair activity?
In the study of the ethics of care, it has been proposed that care emerges from relationships of caring or be cared for (Held, 2006). However, these relationships between people or with objects are entangled with complex networks of dependencies and interdependencies (Held, 2006). The relationships are shaped by many factors, including gender, sex, race, ethnicity, class, place, power, technology, and social and geographical context (Rosner & Ames, 2014). Let me break it down. There is an interdependent relationship between the woman and the mobile phone. The woman is obligated to take care of the mobile phone by, for example, charging it, making sure the screen does not crack, and protecting it from water and other dangers that may cause damage or ultimately break the phone.
In return, she can communicate with friends and family, run her business through mobile money transfers, and stay in touch with her vegetable suppliers. The device also offers other services: a calculator, a torch, and an internet connection for further communication and entertainment. One could even say that the interdependency between the woman and her phone is so strong that either one cannot continue smoothly ‘living a good life’ (if the phone could be
said to have such a thing) without the other. When the device breaks, there is a disruption in the relationship between the woman and the device.
Here is the critical point: the woman had to take a treacherous journey to the city centre to have her phone repaired, while people in other places, especially in the West, might just order a new phone online while sitting on their couch because of their economic ability to replace a malfunctioning device when disruptions arise. There is no strong interdependence between more-affluent people and their devices. As I mentioned in the introduction, people in the Global North are alienated from production processes. They are also alienated from the products themselves, as it is not easy to fix their devices. In contrast, in Dar es Salaam, the mobile phone is, to no small extent, inalienable to the woman. Due to financial and market constraints, the woman cannot just dump the phone and buy a new one. However, during my chat with her as she waited for Hussein to finish repairing her phone, she mentioned that if she had enough money to buy a new phone, she would have. Here (and unlike in the example of my father’s TV), the motivation to repair is not connected to anything other than making the device work to serve her needs.
On the other hand, care was evoked during the interaction between the repairer and the mobile phone. Hussein had to identify the problem and seek alternatives or other ways of fixing it before he could assure the owner that he could fix the phone. It was not a matter of trial and error. The repairer must be sure that they can fix the problem. If they know that the problem cannot be fixed, they usually stop and tell the customer that they cannot fix it. Another repairer with skills to repair the problem will be proposed. There would be repercussions if the repairer failed to fix an object. If the repairer makes a mistake, it will lead to further problems. This would mean that the repairer was responsible for the destruction of the object. Typically in this case, there would be a negotiation about whether the repairer should pay for another phone
because he was responsible for its destruction. Or he would have to find other repair methods or spare parts to make sure that the phone was fixed.
Hussein and others at Uhuru Street are bricoleurs. They are not trained in schools, nor do they have a manual to look at. They innovatively find each problem and fix it by any means they can (Levi-Strauss, 1966). Sometimes they cannot fix an item. In those cases, they propose to the customer that she find someone else. However, when they think that a job is difficult but that the device can be repaired, they kindly ask the customer to leave their device behind and to come back after several days. They will also make sure the customer knows what is at stake.
They will later grapple with the problem through trial and error. Many times, they will manage to fix it, but sometimes they fail. This is also how they learn about new devices and new problems. There are no other ways of learning than by doing. And once one of them learns how to fix a particular device or problem, others will bring that work to him. They will sit, observe, and learn so that the next time the same problem comes to them, they can fix it.
Theis work is tied to classical ways of doing repair. The aim and labour are tied to fixing the device, and are not time oriented (Harper, 1987; van Maanen, 1990). Repairers might seem slow or sluggish during fixing. They will keep chatting while the customer is sitting on the bench, waiting. If a new customer comes by, they will put the previous device aside and talk to the new customer to understand the problem. They might ask the customer to come back later if the problem is hard to fix, or ask them to sit on the bench and wait if not. However, they make a livelihood from repairing. There is also joy in their labour, especially after managing to fix a device.
As Hussein told me, the most important elements in repairing, at least at Uhuru Street, are the moral values of honesty and trust. ‘When a customer comes here, we tell them the truth;
if I can’t fix, I tell. If I can try or if I can fix it, I also tell.’ He continued, ‘Customers who travel
all the way to Uhuru Street, they trust us, they know we care about fixing their phones’.
Honesty, trust, and care are essential moral values of the repairing trade (van Maanen, 1990).
This kind of sociality cannot be found when one goes to an authorised dealer. Trust is directed towards the dealer’s shop, not the person who fixes an item within it. This trust is built on manuals and training. Repair is directed with steps on what to do and how the device should be fixed (Houston et al., 2016). Usually, sociality is restricted between the customer and the fixer. There is no ‘one day’ imagination of future relationships. This contrasts with Uhuru Street, where repair happens through trial and error, collaboration, improvisation, and is also about learning. Sociality and social trust are more central to the encounter than even the technical ability of the fixer.
Conclusion
Repair at Uhuru Street emerges not as a political movement or out of concern for overconsumption or waste, nor out of care for our planet. Repair emerges as a practical matter with respect to a specific object, working against disruptions that affect the functionability of the device. Claims about repair as care for the planet or as a political movement are not central to the practices I observed in Tanzania. While Hussein and other fundis are aware of the
Figure 15 Msomali checking the battery of a Samsung pad at Uhuru street.
difficulties of fixing new types of objects, I did not observe or hear anything connected to the idea of planned obsolescence. Instead, they told me that technology changes, and so do the ways that devices are made. To them, repair is a societal project. Things have to be fixed.
However, I do see repair at Uhuru Street as countering alienation and neocolonialism and affirming self-reliance in certain ways. Clapperton Mavhunga (2017) argues that African history is laden with examples of adjusted crafts and traditions that help people solve their daily problems. Instead of seeing electronics as an innovation coming from outside of Africa, tinkering and reoccupying these technologies to fit people’s needs is innovation from within Africa. This is the problem that I am wrestling with throughout this thesis. I found pleasure among the repairers in Dar es Salaam. Even though, as mentioned above, some brands are not preferred because of difficulties in repairing them, repairers in Dar es Salaam will still find ways to make devices function. Repairers will even travel to scrap yards searching for spare parts. Devices make several, if not uncountable, trips to repairers before they are no longer repairable. Then, they are stored somewhere in the house until scrap collectors come to pick them up in one way or another.
Figure 16 Dismantling of air-conditioner at Mahakama ya friji