ACCESS Seminar - Product aftermarkets and extended accumulation: The business of auto maintenance and repair

Abstract:

Maintenance and repair (M&R) underpin the working order and durability of consumer products as they degrade and depreciate over time-space. Focused on automobiles, a quintessential commodity of global capitalism, this talk uses the relational conceptual tools of economic geography to explain how M&R activities extend the useful life of consumer products and comprise opportunities for accumulation anew. Drawing from ethnographic research in Illawarra auto shops, a region with high car dependency, I highlight the place-based, multiscalar interactions between five key dimensions of product-based M&R: 1) markets and ongoing commodification, 2) evolving technologies, 3) informational politics, 4) consumer-product relationships, and 5) workforce struggles. As cars and their M&R transforms amid technological change, inter-firm competition, and consumer practices, the ineffective regulation of product aftermarkets exacerbates structural power imbalances between global automakers, integrated, brand-aligned dealers, and local independent mechanical shops. Through the auto case, I discuss the potential for combining M&R studies with other strands of geography to generate extended perspectives on commodity relations, including the growing importance of aftermarkets for capital accumulation.

Biography:

I am an economic and labour geographer interested in the lived experiences of work and employment across industries and communities undergoing structural, technological, and spatial transformations. My empirical research is informed by geographical political economy (GPE) approaches, which provide a theoretical framework to interpret local experiences of economic transition amid wider relational forces such as capital mobility, state intervention, and structural change. Much of my published research, spanning worker-centred studies of steel, auto, creative, and maritime industries draws from in-depth case studies to understand broader issues, processes, and developments. Empirically, I often use ethnographic methods, including participant observation, deployed within spaces of work.