Repair Work Ethnographies Revisiting Breakdown, Relocating Materiality

“The book’s excellent organization, form an ongoing conversation as they make the familiar strange by collectively approaching order from the standpoint of breakdown and repair. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates and above.” (A. Shiva, Choice, Vol. 56 (12), August, 2019)

Ignaz Strebel is an urban geographer and senior scientist at the University of Lausanne. His research is on the social and material practices that make up and transform urban systems. Using ethnography and audio-visual projects, he currently researches building care work, energy infrastructure services and the transformation capacities of prefabricated buildings. 

Alain Bovet is a professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HEG-Arc, HES-SO) and a senior scientist at the University of Lausanne. Interested in various communication processes, from everyday interaction to public controversies, he is currently engaged in a video analysis of the work of caretakers and technicians in urban housing.

Philippe Sormani is a sociologist working at the intersection of ethnography, ethnomethodology, and science and technology studies, focusing on material disruption and its heuristic implications. Currently, he is affiliated at the Institut Marcel Mauss, EHESS, in Paris and board member of the STS lab at the University of Lausanne.