repurposing

thumb|upright|Plastic bottles (with LED lights) repurposed as a chandelier during [[Ramadan in the Muslim Quarter, Jerusalem ]] thumb|St William's College ([[York) facade. The curved wood protrusions are probably repurposed ship frames.]] thumb|African music instrument made from a food can Repurposing is the process by which an object with one use value is transformed or redeployed as an object with an alternative use value.

==Description== Repurposing is as old as human civilization, with many contemporary scholars investigating how different societies re-appropriate the artifacts of older cultures in new and creative ways. More recently, repurposing has been celebrated by 21st century hobbyists and arts-and-crafts organizations such as Instructables and other Maker culture communities as a means of creatively responding to the ecological and economic crises of the 21st century. Recent scholarship has attempted to relate these activities to American left- and right-libertarianism.