Repair, Brokenness, Breakthrough - (Politics of Repair) by Francisco Martínez & Patrick LaViolette (Paperback)

About the Book

We are all repairers. Exploring some of the ways in which repair practices and perceptions of brokenness vary culturally Repair, Brokenness, Breakthrough argues that repair is an attempt to extend the life of things as well as an answer to failures, gaps, wrongdoings and leftovers.

Book Synopsis

Exploring some of the ways in which repair practices and perceptions of brokenness vary culturally, Repair, Brokenness, Breakthrough argues that repair is both a process and also a consequence which is sought out-an attempt to extend the life of things as well as an answer to failures, gaps, wrongdoings, and leftovers. This volume develops an open-ended combination of empirical and theoretical questions including: What does it mean to claim that something is broken? At what point is something broken repairable? What are the social relationships that take place around repair? And how much tolerance for failure do our societies have?

Review Quotes

"There are many compelling, evocative, and insightful contributions here that will appeal to a very broad readership from undergraduates to specialist researchers." - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI)

"Anthropologists, sociologists, human geographers and STS scholars who research the affective expressions of brokenness and repair will find this book particularly helpful. In discussing social identities and relationships, ethical stances, as well as novel aesthetic and affective formations, this book offers a holistic take on the dialectics of breaking and fixing that is not only intellectually stimulating but also politically timely." - Social Anthropology

"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 SH Favero, University of Antwerp

About the Author

Patrick Laviolette is the co-editor of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures. With his work, he has developed an interdisciplinary understanding of material and visual-culture studies, as well as medical and environmental anthropology.