Rethinking infrastructural repair and maintenance through ecologies of car disposal in Cyprus

Keywords: infrastructures, ANT, repair, maintenance, disposal
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

The island of Cyprus presents itself as an interesting amalgamation of post-colonial practices, EU regulatory frameworks, and multicultural influences that often contest the rigidness associated with the first two. In light of the European Union’s end-of-life vehicles directive, on-the-ground practices reveal a complexity that is rarely reflected in relevant case studies.

This paper explores infrastructures of car repair and maintenance as networked events associated with wider scales of production, consumption, and disposal. Through multi-sited (Marcus 1995; Yaneva and Mommersteeg 2019) ethnographic accounts of car accidents and subsequent practices of repair, and through an ANT-inspired approach, we see how the negotiations taking place between the mechanic, the driver, the owner, and the insurance company multiply the ecologies of car repair and disposal in Cyprus. This can be seen through a) a reliance on migrant-worker networks and their associated legalities, b) questions of value vs repair costs and the possibility of disposal without direct consequence, and c) “invisible” ecologies of car dumping grounds forming suburban micro-environments. This approach urges a rethinking of infrastructural repair and maintenance beyond the localised practice centred around questions of material negotiations and expertise (Henke 2000; Sanne 2010; Denis and Pontille 2014; Denis and Pontille 2018) towards a networked set of events, and how the refusal to repair can extend said infrastructures beyond their “visible” arrangements.