Excerpts of the message sent to participants of the Repair Journey research study, some days ahead of starting:

The study will start next Monday. For two weeks, I will be proposing different activities to create what I'm calling Repair Diaries. You are not required to dedicate much of your time to those activities. Some minutes every couple of days should be enough to generate relevant data to our research (but naturally you are welcome to spend more time on it if you wish).

The main goal of this study is to provide insight into decisions made about objects that are broken, malfunctioning, ill-fitted or wrong-sized, and how that relates to our local context. For that, I ask you to choose one such object. The diary will be about that object.

It can be something you have in your place, or that someone else in your household can offer. It can alternatively be something you have tried to repair or reuse in the past, even if you don't have it anymore. I am interested not only in success stories but also in failed attempts, frustrations and obstacles.

So, if you please before Monday choose one object you will be focusing on during the study. It must be something that at the start is not performing its intended purpose, but not to the point of being ready to be sent to recycling or waste. I'm sure you can think of something relevant. Just to illustrate, I'll give some examples: shoes with worn-out soles; a family inherited vase that has a crack; a broken remote-controlled car; a video gaming console whose tray won't open. My own diary will be about a bicycle discarded by a neighbour, and I'll be working on it with you.

On Monday I will send you an email asking you about the object you chose. From then on I will contact you approximately every two days with different questions. I will expect you to share texts, images, questions, audio, video or whatever else you want along the way.