Who cares, and for what? Exploring the contents and extents of care as an analytical concept in ethnographies of electronics repair

Care in repairing is practiced, imagined, and experienced differently in various contexts. In this article we examine the role of care as a concept in the repair of consumer electronics. Our aim is to ethnographically explore the necessity of repair and the dynamics of repairing as they emerge in geopolitically polarized regions. To do so, we compare the repair of consumer electronics in Norway and Tanzania as two contrasting cases. Norway has the world’s highest per capita rate of consumption and disposal of consumer electronics. In contrast, due to Tanzania’s position within global techno-capitalism, Tanzanians are among those who consume the fewest consumer electronics per capita. We highlight the fluidity and ambiguity of the concept of care as it applies to repair practices in vastly disparate places. We further examine the benefits and limitations of employing the concept of care in such analyses, particularly in relation to the field of discard studies.