Francisco Martinez is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki, and member of the editorial team of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures. He has edited several books and is the author of Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia. An Anthropology of Repair, Forgetting and Urban Traces (UCL Press, 2018), which was awarded the Early Career Prize of the European Association of Social Anthropologists.Patrick Laviolette holds a PHD from, University College London, UCL, where he developed an interdisciplinary understanding of material and visual-culture studies as well as medical and environmental anthropology. He is currently finishing a monograph on the significance of hitchhiking in the 21st century.

"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 Loefgren, 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

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Insiders' Manual to BreakdownFrancisco MartinezHead, Hand, Heart: On Contradiction, Contingency and RepairCaitlin DeSilveyChapter 1. Underwater, Still Life: Multi-species Engagements with the Art Abject of a Wasted American WarshipJoshua O. RenoBeyond the Sparkle ZonesKathleen StewartChapter 2. "Till Death Do Us Part": The Making of Home Through Holding onto ObjectsTomas Errazuriz"The Lady is Not There": Repairing Tita Meme as a Telecare UserTomas Sanchez CriadoChapter 3. In the House of Un-Things: Decay and Deferral in a Vacated Bulgarian HomeMartin Demant FrederiksenUndisciplined SurfacesMateusz LaszczkowskiChapter 4. A Ride on the Elevator. Infrastructures of Brokenness and Repair in GeorgiaTamta KhalvashiDon't Fix the Puddle: A Puddle Archive as Ethnographic Account of Sidewalk AssemblagesMirja Busch and Ignacio FariasChapter 5. What is in a Hole? Failure's Work in GeorgiaFrancisco MartinezMaintaining Whose Road?Agnieszka Joniak-LuthiChapter 6. Dirtscapes: Contest over Value, Garbage and Belonging in IstanbulAylin Yildirim TschoepeRepairing RussiaMichal MurawskiChapter 7. Village Vintage in Southern Norway: Revitalisation and Vernacular Entrepreneurship in Culture Heritage TourismSarah Holst KjaerA Story of Time KeepersJerome Denis and David PontilleChapter 8. Keeping Them "Swiss". The Transfer and Appropriation of Techniques for Luxury Watch Repair in Hong-KongHerve MunzLost Battles of De-bobblingMagdalena CraciunChapter 9. Small Mutinies in the Comfortable Slot: The New Environmentalism as RepairEeva BerglundWhy Stories About the Broken Down Snowmobiles Can Teach You A Lot About the Life in the Arctic TundraAimar VentselChapter 10. The Imperative of Repair: Fixing Bikes - For FreeSimon Batterbury and Tim DantRepair and Responsibility: The Art of Doris SalcedoSiobhan KattagoChapter 11. Repair and (Re)creation: Broken Relationships and a Path Forward for Austrian Holocaust SurvivorsKatja SeidelLiving SwitchesWladimir SgibnevChapter 12. Questions of Brokenness in a World of MovementAdam DrazinAnd Then You See Yourself Disappear (in Iceland)Jason PineEpilogue: This Mess We're In, Or Part OfPatrick LavioletteIndex