Routledge International Handbook of Failure

Adriana Mica is an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw where she leads the Failure Lab. Her research interests include failure, possibility, ignorance, projectivity, and contingency in policymaking Mikołaj Pawlak is an associate professor at the Institute of Social Prevention and Resocialisation, University of Warsaw, where he leads the Chair of Sociology of Norms, Deviance and Social Control. His research interests cover new institutional theory, migration studies, and sociology of knowledge/ignorance.Anna Horolets is an associate professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw. Her research interests include critical discourse analysis, anthropology of tourism and migration, and leisure studies. She currently studies migrants’ imaginaries of the good life. Paweł Kubicki is an associate professor at the Warsaw School of Economics where he leads the Department of Social Policy. He specializes in public policy analysis, particularly in disability studies, migration studies, and social exclusion, being involved in projects aimed at developing equalizing opportunities for persons with disabilities.

"Unlike most Handbooks in the social sciences, this one is groundbreaking and meets two difficult goals: one is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the emergent field of failure studies, and the second, which is to use the idea of failure to cast new light on many central problems of the social sciences, such as contingency, accountability, and economization. This Handbook is a milestone which will be widely read by researchers in many fields."Arjun Appadurai, Professor Emeritus of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, USA"In a comprehensive way, the Routledge International Handbook of Failure provides new insights from different perspectives on the important topic of failure. This handbook is of critical importance because it can help scholars and practitioners overcome a pervasive anti-failure bias that restricts our thinking and actions. I highly recommend this book."Dean Shepherd, Ray and Milann Siegfried Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Notre Dame, USA"This new book on failure is a welcome addition to this fascinating and important topic. I hope it meets with great success."Gary Wickham, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Murdoch University, Australia"This handbook highlights what can only be described as a failure of imagination in the social sciences concerning the concept of failure itself. The Handbook’s essays reframe our understanding of what the discourse of failure reveals and obscures. Far from being a self- evident concept—neutrally applied—the application of the pejorative, "failure," can too often prevent us from recognizing and seizing meaningful opportunities for advance or experimentation."Ilene Grabel, Distinguished University Professor, University of Denver, USA

• Introduction1. FAIL! Are We Headed Towards Critical Failure Studies?PART 1: Critical Failure Studies in the Making2. Failure in Intercultural Communication 3. Entrepreneurial Failure Contextualized: Sociocultural Approaches4. Fear of Failure in Athletes: Fanning the Fire of Sport Desire or Burning Out?5. Career Failure: Forms and Levels of Analysis from a Sociological Perspective6. Sociology of Failures in Clinical Trials7. From Varieties of Failure to Failure Judgments: The Sociology of Valuation and Failure StudiesPART 2: Failure Regimes and Power8. Failed Identities: On the Processes and Meanings of Unformed Alternate Selves9. The Study of Failures and the Problem of Contingency10. Successful Failure11. The Theatre of Failure: Social Media’s Role in Demonstrating Mundane Disruption12. Economising Failure and Assembling a Failure Regime13. Foreign Policy Failure: A Narrative Analysis 14. Valuing Plurality: Objectivist and Interpretivist Approaches to the Study of Mistakes and Failures in International Relations PART 3: Restoring, Learning and Attributing Blame for Failure15. Before Breakdown, After Repair: The Art of Maintenance16. Cloud Backup and Restore: The Infrastructure of Digital Failure 17. Governance Failure, Metagovernance Failure, and the Pedagogy of Failure18. Beyond Policy Accidents: Learning the Lessons of Policy Failures19. Market Failures20. Preventing Major Disasters: Success and Failure as Two Sides of the Same Coin21. Blame Games: Stories of Crises, Causes, and CulpritsPART 4: Failure Trouble and Resistance in Neoliberalism22. Counter-interpretations of Failure from Literature, Sociology and Social Philosophy23. The Material Ecologies of Policy Failure: Ruptures of Bodies and of State24. Financialization and Failure: Lessons from the Anxious University25. Market Failures and Failed Marketization: Neoliberalism, Development and Poverty26. Failing the States: The Fragility of the State-Failure Paradigm27. Neoliberalism, Policy Failures, and the COVID-19 Crisis: Going Beyond Hirschman’s FracasomaníaPART 5: Post-Failure or Reimagined Failure?28. Experiments as Successful Failures29. How Science Fails Successfully30. Politics, Sociology, and the "Inevitability" of Failure 31. Cripistemologies of the Body: Knowing through Disability32. Beyond Failure: Queer Theory’s Fallibilities33. Gravity Matters: A Meditation on Falling and Failing34. Crashing to Earth: Redefining Failure in a Time of PrecarityAfterword35. Discovery and Inquiry Pathways to Navigating the Routledge International Handbook of Failure