What can a clothes swap do? A talk by Dr Jenna Condie for Centre for Western Sydney Lecture Series

What can a clothes swap do? Climate justice and community care through reuse and repair In this talk, Dr Jenna Condie explores swaps: community events where goods such as clothes, toys, homewares and other resources are exchanged outside monetary systems. Drawing on participatory action research with campus and community swaps in Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains, Jenna examines how swapping fosters belonging, repair and justice, while making visible the everyday infrastructures needed to support collective climate action beyond individual behaviour change. The talk asks: what can a clothes swap do? It can redistribute resources, reduce waste and consumption, ease cost-of-living pressures, build social connection, create spaces for learning and repair, and offer a way into more caring and community-led circular futures. Building on the research and action agenda Climate Justice and Community Care through Reuse and Repair, the talk positions swaps as civic infrastructures: practical, relational and political spaces where communities engage with new ways of sharing, valuing and caring for material life and each other. About the Speaker Dr Jenna Condie is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Society at Western Sydney University and a transdisciplinary scholar-practitioner of care, community and climate justice. Her research examines how communities organise care, redistribute resources and build collective capacity through everyday digital, material and place-based practices. Situated across human geography, feminist political economy, environmental communication and critical technology studies, Jenna leads participatory research on community-led childcare, reuse, repair and resource sharing. She co-leads the Caring Futures Strategic Research Collaboration in the School of Social Sciences and Festival of Action, a student-staff-community coalition organising campus-based events and practices grounded in climate justice.