Configuring Repair: The Case of the MV Veteran

• In Event: Sensing the Liveliness of Things and the Fragility of Life: Bringing Care and Maintenance Together II

Abstract

Periods of infrastructural breakdown have been used as an entry into tracing how publics and users are configured during and after the implementation of new technologies. In such instances, infrastructure is taken as the material embodiment of a prescribed social order, an order whose stability requires constant work to preserve. This work corresponds to the repair and maintenance work performed by skilled technicians and labourers recognized in a growing body of literature exploring the intersections between sociomaterial vulnerability, care, and these practices.

Through an ethnographic analysis of the breakdowns of one of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s new ferries, the MV Veteran, I illustrate that the ship’s manufacturer functions as an obligatory passage point controlling the distributions of action behind the repairs of the MV Veteran. Moreover, the case of the MV Veteran in contrast to conventional user-designer studies emphases on innovation and stability foregrounds the new vessel’s breakdowns and vulnerabilities as they are readily anticipated by its manufacturer and crew.

I argue that the most relevant actors for repair in this case are not the vessel’s crew or its technicians given that practices of these fixers are configured by the geographic, temporal, and institutional controls on their actions as stipulated by the manufacturer’s warranty. These regulations serve to further discussions around the ethics of repair and maintenance given the tensions between the designated authenticity of these practices as manufacturers seek to control the modular character of their products and those responsible for the vessel’s immediate operations as they look to uphold their obligations to the communities served by the vessel.

Author

• Donny Persaud, Memorial University Of Newfoundland