This book explains that the relevance of repair is not that it happens, but the values attached to it as well as its aesthetic, material and moral implications. In other words, we do not repair things because they break, but because we look after them.

The set of contributions illustrates the strong affective power hidden in situations of failure and repair; broken objects often bring strong emotions into play, but also creative reactions. They engage with theoretical and empirical questions such as: What does it mean to claim that something is broken? What is the connection between tinkering and innovation? And how much tolerance for failure do our societies have?

Repair is traditionally associated with the poor. Alas, these practices allow us to shift the emphasis from managing abundance to enhancing sustainability through the re-use of resources. Exploring some of the ways in which repair practices and perceptions of brokenness vary culturally, the compilation argues that repair is an attempt to extend the life of things as well as an answer to failures, gaps, wrongdoings and leftovers.

ToC

Introduction: Insiders' Manual to Breakdown
Francisco Martinez

Head, Hand, Heart: On Contradiction, Contingency and Repair
Caitlin DeSilvey

Chapter 1. Underwater, Still Life: Multi-species Engagements with the Art Abject of a Wasted American Warship
Joshua O. Reno

Beyond the Sparkle Zones
Kathleen Stewart

Chapter 2. "Till Death Do Us Part": The Making of Home Through Holding onto Objects
Tomas Errazuriz

"The Lady is Not There": Repairing Tita Meme as a Telecare User
 Tomas Sanchez Criado

Chapter 3. In the House of Un-Things: Decay and Deferral in a Vacated Bulgarian Home
Martin Demant Frederiksen

Undisciplined Surfaces
 Mateusz Laszczkowski

Chapter 4. A Ride on the Elevator. Infrastructures of Brokenness and Repair in Georgia
Tamta Khalvashi

Don't Fix the Puddle: A Puddle Archive as Ethnographic Account of Sidewalk Assemblages
Mirja Busch and Ignacio Farias

Chapter 5. What is in a Hole? Voids out of Place and Politics below the State in Georgia
Francisco Martinez

Maintaining Whose Road?
 Agnieszka Joniak-Luthi

Chapter 6. Dirtscapes: Contest over Value, Garbage and Belonging in Istanbul
Aylin Yildirim Tschoepe

Repairing Russia
Micha? Murawski

Chapter 7. Village Vintage in Southern Norway: Revitalisation and Vernacular Entrepreneurship in Culture Heritage Tourism
Sarah Holst Kjaer

A Story of Time Keepers
Jerôme Denis and David Pontille

Chapter 8. Keeping Them "Swiss". The Transfer and Appropriation of Techniques for Luxury Watch Repair in Hong-Kong
Herve Munz

Lost Battles of De-bobbling
Magdalena Cr?ciun

Chapter 9. Small Mutinies in the Comfortable Slot: The New Environmentalism as Repair
Eeva Berglund

Why Stories About the Broken Down Snowmobiles Can Teach You A Lot About the Life in the Arctic Tundra
Aimar Ventsel

Chapter 10. The Imperative of Repair: Fixing Bikes - For Free
Simon Batterbury and Tim Dant

Repair and Responsibility: The Art of Doris Salcedo
Siobhan Kattago

Chapter 11. Repair and (Re)creation: Broken Relationships and a Path Forward for Austrian Holocaust Survivors
Katja Seidel

Living Switches
Wladimir Sgibnev

Chapter 12. Brokenness and Normality in Design Culture
Adam Drazin

And Then You See Yourself Disappear (in Iceland)
Jason Pine

Epilogue: This Mess We're In, Or Part Of
Patrick Laviolette

Praise

What I like about this book is its richness in ideas, it opens up a wide range of issues and associations, it invites the reader to see surprising linkages and new aspects of the seemingly trivial everyday. There is a lot of inspiration here for a number of research fields.
Orvar Löfgren, University of Lund

This is a very original, interesting and critical piece of work. It manages to bring the political in touch with the existential in an enlightening and, at moments, moving way.
Paolo Favero, University of Antwerp

Francisco Martínez gehören zu der Generation ethnografisch forschender Kulturwissenschaftlerinnen, die sich von einem Kurzzeitvertrag zum nächsten hangeln und dabei den Wechsel von oft weit auseinanderliegenden Standorten in Kauf nehmen müssen. Das mindert nicht ihren Mut und ihre Energie, mit neuen Ideen für forschend zu erschliessende Felder und alternative, vermittelnde Textformate aufzuwarten.
Regina Bendix, Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde