30 October 2026, Hyderabad

Garima Bhardwaj presented her paper, “Repair as Technological Trajectory: Epistemic Demotion and Dignity in Delhi’s Repair Cultures,” co-authored with Prof. Saurabh Tewari, at IndiaHCI 2026 at IIT Hyderabad. Published in the conference proceedings, the paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken as part of her ongoing doctoral research. It examines the marginalisation of repairers’ knowledge and argues for recognising repair as a technological trajectory in its own right, engaging with the conference theme, “Designing for Dignity.”

15 October 2026, Turin

Garima Bhardwaj presented “Pluriversal Repair Ecologies,” co-authored with Prof. Saurabh Tewari, at RSD15 in Turin in October. Hosted by Politecnico di Torino, the symposium explored “Shades of Systemic Design: Designing within a Plural World.” Drawing on a year of ethnographic engagement with cobblers, darners and technology repairers in Nehru Place, Lajpat Nagar, Okhla and Munirka, the paper examines repair as situated design knowledge. It foregrounds repairers’ material understanding, spatial practices and decisions about repairing, replacing and renewing, questioning their reduction to informal or survival work.

Presented at Castello del Valentino, the work received an appreciative response and prompted exchanges on repair, plurality and systemic design. Garima acknowledged the organisers, session chair Helen Avery and fellow participants, dedicating the recognition to Delhi’s repair communities, whose practices and generosity sustain her research.

28-30 September 2026, Nettetal, Germany

Garima Bhardwaj attended the Sustainability and Design Autumn School from 28–30 September 2026 at Seminarhaus Leuther Mühle in Nettetal, Germany. Organised by the MOVEN research group at Hochschule Rhein-Waal, the programme brought together researchers from design, HCI, psychology and anthropology to explore sustainability through behaviour change, motivation, nature-relatedness and more-than-human design.

Sessions examined how feedback, social comparison and thoughtfully designed interactions can support sustainable practices while preserving individual autonomy. Interdisciplinary exchanges on circularity, decolonial design and AI ethics deepened Garima’s understanding of sustainability as a technical and cultural question, informing her ongoing research on Repair-as-Design.

7 July 2026, Delft

3 July 2026, Aveiro

3 July 2026, Aveiro

Garima Bhardwaj presented "The Seams of the City through Repair-as-Design and the Mapping of Tacit Belonging in Delhi" at the UD26 Belonging Conference hosted by the University of Aveiro, Portugal. This paper was co-authored with PhD supervisor Saurabh Tewari.

13 March 2026, Mumbai 

Garima Bhardwaj presented her paper, "The Craft of Care: Mapping Material, Emotional, and Ecological Values in Delhi’s Repair Ecologies", at Emerge 2026 at the IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay. She discusses repair in Delhi as a situated practice of care and resilience. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with eighteen repairers across formal and informal sectors, the study traces how repair generates material, emotional, and ecological value. Drawing on the work of Hart and Escobar, it highlights how these practices challenge cultures of disposability by extending the life of objects. The paper positions informal repair ecologies as a critical framework for pluriversal design, advocating for approaches that prioritize durability, inclusivity, and sustainability.