Tinkering: Australians Reinvent DIY Culture(Monash Studies in Australian Society)

At a time when the labour market is failing as a source of security and identity for many, domestic tinkering is emerging as a legitimate vocation, in ways we haven’t seen since pre-industrial times. Practices of repair, crafting, invention, building and improvising that take place in Australia’s sheds, backyards, paddocks, kitchens and home-workshops are becoming a vital part of our informal economy and social cohesion, complicating distinctions between work and leisure, amateur and professional, production and consumption. Building on the work of historians, sociologists, psychologists and economists, but with a journalist’s impulse for the currency of her story, Katherine Wilson documents domestic tinkering as an undervalued form of material scholarship, social connection, psychological sanctuary and political activism. Equal parts field guide and love letter, Tinkering: Australians Reinvent DIY Culture mounts a surprising case for the profound value of domestic tinkering in contemporary Australia.

About the Author :
Katherine Wilson works as an editor, writer, researcher and tinkerer. She also teaches in the university sector, where she has a PhD in cultural studies. Her feature articles have appeared in the Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Conversation, Australian, Courier-Mail, Art Monthly, Crikey.com, New Matilda, the Law Institute Journal and Good Weekend. Her essays have appeared in journals including Griffith Review, Meanjin, Eyeline, Eureka Street and Overland. She edited Overland between 2002 and 2007 and has worked in advocacy roles for non-profit and environmental bodies.

Review :
Like the backyard inventers whose stories she chronicles, Katherine Wilson exudes intelligence, curiosity and skills acquired from a range of disciplines. Smart, relevant and witty, Tinkering introduces us to eccentrics, autodidacts and visionaries, and then reveals how their passions illuminate the contemporary world. Part page-turning narrative, part provocative argument, this is cultural criticism at its best. - Jeff Sparrow 'A rich world emerges in this well-crafted and well-researched book. The journalistic writing belies the deep theorisation of the topic, and Wilson moves fluidly among theoretical, ethnographic and narrative elements to make an original study of maker culture. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.' Kirsty Robertson, Western University, Canada Truly a pleasure to read. A thoughtful and erudite way to set the scene for the discussion to come. Susan Luckman, University of South Australia.