An exploration of the multifaceted practices of repair across the African continent. Moving beyond a simple understanding of repair as fixing broken objects, this volume explores the cultural, social, and economic dimensions of mending and material care. It considers repair as a relational act that bridges past and future, blending tradition with innovation.
The collection spans diverse African contexts, from urban centres to rural areas, showcasing how repair intersects with labour, urban life, natural and spiritual environments, and historical memory. Essays explore themes such as the role of repair in mitigating the wear and tear of time, addressing environmental disasters, examining colonial and postcolonial histories and their implications for urban transformation, and highlighting the artisanal skill and ingenuity behind these practices.
Contributors draw on anthropology, architecture, history, and critical urban studies to illuminate how repair can be a form of resistance, care, and adaptation in a rapidly changing world. Richly illustrated and methodologically innovative, Repair across Africa highlights Africa's global relevance by situating its practices within broader critiques of late capitalism and the Anthropocene.
Illuminates the connection between symbolic and material repair, particularly in light of the ongoing debates about colonial legacies and reparations owed to African societies for the harms done by colonialism. Essential reading for scholars and practitioners interested in material culture, urban studies, and the politics of sustainability.
Introduction:
Living Repair: Mending and Material Care in Contemporary Africa
Charline Kopf, Wenzel Geissler, Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye, Lotte Meinert
1. Kobeta Toles:
Re-pairing Mobility on Congos Inland Waterways
Peter Lambertz
2. Cobbling Together a Life of Repair:
Deciding How to Deal with Loss at a Burkina Faso Market
Sarah-Jane Phelan
3. A Car on the Street Named Desire:
The Significance of Material Breakdown and Repair for Brokering Change in
South Africa
Evelien Storme
4. Pulled Lines and Peoples Connections:
Infrastructural Extension as Layered Repair in Cape Town
Angela Storey
5. Below the Infrastructural Breakdown:
Electric Repair Work as Skilled Improvisation and Its Moral Entanglements in
Northern Uganda
Kirsten Nielsen
6. Repairs Under Tension:
Negotiating Risks and Connectivity in Mobile Phone Repair in Bamako
Issa Fofana and Issa Togola
7. Turn of the Screw:
Unhinging Power Relations Through Unauthorized Repair in Lomés Mobile
Phone Black Market Dékon
Janine Patricia Santos
8. Hacking to Repair?:
Smartphone Repair in the Kariakoo Market, Dar es Salaam
Christian Medaas
9. Timbila:
Tracing Mozambican history through a musical artefact, its repair and
reinvention
Sara Morais and Gianira Ferrara
10. La Casa Verde:
Heritage, Colonialism, and (Un)Repairing in Equatorial Guinea
Alba Valenciano Mañé and Laida Memba Ikuga
11. Under Repair:
Undoing Colonial Fascist Legacies in Addis Ababa Through Critical
Architectural Preservation
Emilio Distretti and Abel Assefa
12. In the Absence of Repair:
Architectural Métissage and Forced Labour in Colonial Congo
Simon De Nys-Ketels and Robby Fivez
13. Maxaquene Khovo Students House in Maputo:
On Social Repair and Material Decay
Silvia Balzan
14. Narratives of Mending, Repair and Transformation in West Africa:
Encountering Freedom Park Lagos
Ola Uduku
15. Repair and Relief:
'Building Back Better in Post-Cyclone Idai Malawi
Tanja Hendriks
16. The Time of Being in Between:
Mending, Repair, and Social Change in Turkana, Northern Kenya
Sam Derbyshire
17. Dogon Objects:
To Throw Away, to Repair ... or to Collect
Eric Jolly
18. Adobe Walls and Leaking Pasts:
Vital Ecologies of Mending and Repair in Niger
Adeline Masquelier
Afterword:
Breaking Down Repair
Brenda Chalfin
Notes on Contributors
Charline Kopf is a postdoctoral fellow in Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. Her research focuses on West Africa, with particular attention to infrastructures, mobilities, and labor dynamics in the region. Her current project examines the intersections of particles, pollution, protest, and industrial history in Senegal, with a focus on dust.
Wenzel Geissler teaches at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. He mainly works in Eastern Africa. He is interested in the physical remains of modernity, research and scientific knowledge, and health and livelihood in East Africa's rapidly changing social and natural landscapes.
Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye is an anthropologist at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France, with fieldwork sites in West Africa and France. Her current project examines how mobility is conceptualized in the region of Kayes, Mali, through a study of a radio station and its sound archives.
Lotte Meinert works at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University. Her research centers on Uganda and issues of health, land, post-conflict, gender, generations and time.
