Matthew Crawford
Matthew Crawford is a writer, philosopher, and motorcycle mechanic. He is a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, a research center focused on cultural change. He also still does work as a mechanic fabricating motorcycle parts.
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On Being Master of One’s Own Stuff
Technology • Human-centeredness • Participatory Design • Making
The experience of manual engagement with our world, of making and fixing things, is vital to the idea of human agency and dignity, but is often denied by designed objects that seek to smooth the rough edges for us.
Shop Class as Soulcraft • 2009
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On the Ethics of Maintenance and Repair
Human-centeredness • Participatory Design • Making
When work is rooted in a reality external to yourself, you are taught a kind of humility in order to reach a level of understanding that then empowers you to act. This can be an unselfish way to see the process of design.
Shop Class as Soulcraft • 2009
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On Communities of Use
Participatory Design • Making • Situatedness
Work is made meaningful through shared standards of good that emerge from the context of a community of use and of practice. Environments that abstract this intrinsic good end up demoralizing the worker.
Shop Class as Soulcraft • 2009