Brokenness and Repair: sharing practices and perspectives between Japan and the UK

Principal Investigator: Dr Jason Danely

Project start: October 2024

About us

In academic research, brokenness often appears as a problem to be solved: social breakdown, mental ill health, environmental damage, crumbling infrastructures. But anthropology - and the humanities more broadly - also invite us to sit with brokenness and to recognize how people live with and even thrive within the fragility and imperfection of everyday life.

In a time of uncertainty, acceleration and unrest, the idea of caring for something broken and finding beauty in its imperfection offers a shift in perception that grounds us in something fundamentally human. Whether we are living with the painful yet precious memories of loss, or trying to reassemble places of belonging from the remnants of abandoned buildings, brokenness and repair open routes of escape, not as distraction, but as a way of being in the world.

Drawing inspiration from Japanese cultural ideas around imperfection and repair, this project explores how cracks, fragments, interruptions and decay can hold value, not despite their fragility, but because of it. These ideas resonate far beyond Japan, speaking to universal human experiences of loss, care, vulnerability and resilience. It also attends to the ways brokenness works together with acts of repair to bring about new aesthetic, ritual and social worlds. We explore these themes through the arts, humanities and sciences, integrating practice, image, encounter, and cross-cultural dialogue.

Part of

Research impact

We believe that the themes explored in Brokenness and Repair - loneliness, care, attention, creativity, environmental change - have a broad relevance across academic fields, artistic practice, and to our everyday lives. We have developed new multi-disciplinary, academic-artist collaborations between

Through a public kintsugi demonstration, art exhibition and podcast series, we bring research to the public in ways that are multi-modal, engaging and accessible. By creating a public-facing space for these conversations, Brokenness and Repair demonstrates how arts, humanities and social science research helps us understand lived experience, why slow and reflective thinking matters in fast and uncertain times, and how different forms of expertise - academic, creative and therapeutic - can speak meaningfully to one another.

This project showcases the richness of research happening at Oxford Brookes University and beyond, highlighting how scholarly work engages with some of the most pressing emotional, social and ethical questions of our time.