This pioneering book homes in on repair as an everyday practice. Bringing together exemplary ethnographies of repair work around the world, it examines the politics of repair, its work settings and intricate networks, in and across a wide range of situations, lay and professional. The book evidences the topical relevance of situated inquiry into breakdown, repair, and maintenance for engaging with the contemporary world more broadly. Airplanes and artworks, bicycles and buildings, cars and computers, medical devices and mobile phones, as virtually any commodity, infrastructure or technical artifact, have in common their occasional breakdown, if not inbuilt obsolescence. Hence the point and purpose of closely examining how and when they are fixed.

We live in a world constantly in need of repair. Our cars break down. Marriages weaken, friendships sour, ties between nations are rent. Yet we fix things and relationships all the time, without giving these activities much thought. Repair is the first book to offer an in-depth exploration of this core aspect of human life.

An investigation of the causes and consequences of the strange, ambivalent, and increasingly central role of infrastructure repair in modern life. Infrastructures--communication, food, transportation, energy, and information--are all around us, and their enduring function and influence depend on the constant work of repair. In this book, Christopher Henke and Benjamin Sims explore the causes and consequences of the strange, ambivalent, and increasingly central role of infrastructure repair in modern life. Henke and Sims offer examples, from local to global, to investigate not only the role of repair in maintaining infrastructures themselves but also the social and political orders that are created and sustained through them.

The Right to Repair reveals how companies stop us from fixing our devices and explains how we can fight back.

This is NOT your father's home repair book! And it's not your husband's, your brother's, your boyfriend's, or the guy's next door. Dare to Repair is a do-it-herself book for every woman who would rather be self-reliant than rely on a super or contractor. No matter the depth of your pockets or the size of your home, a toilet will get clogged, a circuit breaker will trip, and a smoke detector will stop working. It's up to you how you'll deal with them -- live in denial, pay the piper, or get real and do it yourself. Dare to Repair demystifies these home repairs by providing information that other books leave out. In Dare to Repair, you'll learn how to: Take the plunge -- from fixing a leaky faucet to cleaning the gutters. Lighten up -- from removing a broken light bulb to installing a dimmer switch. Keep your cool -- from maintaining a refrigerator's gasket to changing the rotation of a ceiling fan. Get a handle on it -- from replacing a doorknob to repairing a broken window. Play it safe -- from planning a fire escape route to installing a smoke detector. Filled with detailed illustrations, Dare to Repair provides even the most repair-challenged woman with the ability to successfully fix things around the home. Once you start, you won't want to stop.

Teaches book repair and cleaning techniques, and discusses chemical treatments and archive preservation.