Plastic sewing: chairs and scooters’ repair on Indigenous lands of the Argentine Chaco

Abstract

By this photo-essay, which is part of an ethnographic research on machines, their maintenance and repair on Indigenous lands of South America, I explore the techniques that the indigenous Wichí of the Argentine Chaco have developed to repair plastic. With chairs and motorbikes becoming fixtures in the local landscape, plastic things and their breakages have actually become part of their daily lives. More specifically, I show how the Wichí men creatively appropriate the female practice of weaving to sew up the fairings of their two-wheelers and keep their chairs upright.