Jerome Denis – författare

What does a coffee machine, a car, road signs, a smartphone, a cathedral, a work of art, a satellite, a bicycle, a washing machine, a bridge, a watch, a computer, the body of a prominent politician and a tractor have in common? Pretty much nothing – except for the fact that, no matter how small, large, important or insignificant something is, it rarely survives without being cared for. Every object eventually experiences wear and tear, it deteriorates, stops working or breaks down. But are we giving the care of things the recognition it deserves? A counterpoint to our modern obsession with innovation but less striking than the one-off act of restoration, the delicate act of making things last rarely attracts our attention.This book disrupts our dominant narratives by putting those individuals skilled in the art of maintenance front and centre. Jérôme Denis and David Pontille shine a spotlight on the subtle aspects of caring for things, tracing the stories of those involved and, with them, the ethical challenges raised and political lessons learned. These people demonstrate a sensitivity and attentiveness to fragility; they encourage us to cultivate a material diplomacy in which wear is accepted and our relation to things becomes a matter of negotiation and compromise – a far cry from the frenetic rhythm of planned obsolescence inherent in hyper-consumerism.  Maintenance demarcates the contours of a world in which we have relinquished the human longing for unlimited power and technological autonomy, a world where our attachment to things is more profound than we ever imagined.

An original essay collection that explores the generative dimensions of fragility, which can help reveal new life-affirming politics and ethics.At a time when it may be easy to fall into a defeatist melancholia, if not outright pessimism, fragility offers an opportunity for a different kind of world-making. In Fragilities, Fernando Domínguez Rubio, Jérôme Denis, and David Pontille argue that we need to pay attention to the moments when the bodies, things, and worlds we inhabit begin to crack and reveal their fragility; it is in these instabilities that we can gain precious access to alternative ways of being. The essays in this collection explore how the work of care, maintenance, and repair compose with, rather than struggle against, fragilities.Fragility forces us to reckon with the precariousness and contingency of life and to use this reckoning as a starting point to build and nurture life-affirming politics and ethics. The book explores fragility in four categories—bodies, environments, labor, and politics—and proposes to consider in each situation what/who is rendered visible, what/who is made absent, what is considered normal, and what is deemed strong and stable versus what is deemed fragile. The volume includes a strong line-up of leading and emerging scholars from a wide array of disciplines, including anthropology, social studies of science, disabilities studies, and sociology.