The Right to Repair

Kaveen Chamikara (UGC0725013)

The article "right to repair movement: Sustainability and consumer rights is an article by Selcen Ozturkcan which is published on the Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases. This article mainly focuses on people's freedom to repair and customize their devices such as smartphones. This critical review examines the strengths, weaknesses, the positive impact this makes on the society in sectors such as electronic waste management and also the negative impacts which the industry claims. 

At the beginning Ozturkcan explains how "right to repair movement" grew from the frustrations with products that are deliberately made difficult to repair. the reasons mentioned were, using proprietary screws , withholding repair instructions or gluing pieces together. The solution for this as Ozturkcan sees is making information available, make supplies and equipment available, enable unlocking and designing devices that are easy to repair. as described in the article "The right to repair movement" pushes towards legalization that require companies to provide manuals tools and parts. Reducing electronic waste and protecting environment is a key concept that the author has described successfully in the article. despite of these pros Ozturkcan brings out how the resistance of the industry due to valid reasons such as intellectual property rights and criminal activities.Author describes these problems and how the movement act towards it in a descriptive and analytical methodology. 

The article mentions the manufacturers response to the right to repair movement in a clear and concise way. 

eg. 

- Nokia's G22 smartphone engineered to be repaired in minutes.

- Apple's self repair program.

-Samsung's repair program in collaboration with Fixit. 

- Google's Repair Kits.

The France's reparability index is an impressive concept highlights in the article which have inspired me to implement a same kind of score system to my own project "Enhancing household reparability through simple electronic solutions"

along with this he shows the limitations and restrictions in each of this in open mindset.

Despite of the clearness, conciseness and descriptiveness there are several limitations which can be identified reading this article.

- The article deliberately focuses on smartphones rather than broad range of household electronic appliances.

-It doesn't include real world statistical data and analysis.

-There is a limited discussion on how consumers can do self DIY repairs.

-The article is conceptual than experimental.

The right to repair movement is the key concept that the author tries to emerge in the article. despite of the limitations Ozturkcan has done a meticulous work bringing out the idea to the society in a clear and descriptive way. The urgency to implement right to repair movement and the restrictions were explained successfully in a way that anyone can understand. For a future research using real data and implementing digital concept will be advantageous.  

 The right-to-repair movement: Sustainability and consumer rights.

 Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases

 Teaching Cases. Citation for the original published paper (version of record): Ozturkcan, S. (2024) The right-to-repair movement: Sustainability and consumer rights Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 14(2): 217-222 https://doi.org/10.1177/20438869231178037

http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-120808