Making Sense of Everyday Life

Susie Scott

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780745642680, 9780745642673
• eBook ISBN: 9780745658452
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This accessible, introductory text explains the importance of studying 'everyday life' in the social sciences. Susie Scott examines such varied topics as leisure, eating and drinking, the idea of home, and time and schedules in order to show how societies are created and reproduced by the apparently mundane 'micro' level practices of everyday life.

Each chapter is organized around three main themes: 'rituals and routines', 'social order', and 'challenging the taken-for-granted', with intriguing examples and illustrations. Theoretical approaches from ethnomethodology, Symbolic Interactionism and social psychology are introduced and applied to real-life situations, and there is clear emphasis on empirical research findings throughout. Social order depends on individuals following norms and rules which are so familiar as to appear natural; yet, as Scott encourages the reader to discover, these are always open to question and investigation.

This user-friendly book will appeal to undergraduate students across the social sciences, including the sociology of everyday life, the sociology of emotions, social psychology and cultural studies, and will reveal the fascinating significance our everyday habits hold.

1	What is Everyday Life?

The sociology of everyday life is a bundle of paradoxes. As social scientists, we often assume that our role is to explain matters of great importance: cultural trends, historical events, social divisions and changes that affect large numbers of people over a significant amount of time. Against this research agenda, the idea of studying everyday life seems at best counter-intuitive and at worst deeply immoral: why should we waste our time examining ‘trivial’ matters like this when there are wars being fought, discrimination suffered and inequalities endured? Aren’t we simply missing the wider picture?

The answer to this, put simply, is that everyday life is the wider picture. None of these larger scale events could occur without there being individual people doing little things in local places. One of the aims of this book is to show how these ‘micro’-level, small-scale practices relate to, and are shaped by, ‘macro’-level patterns. Social order, disorder and change are at once reflections of the relationship between individual and society, agency and structure, process and regularity.

Defining the everyday

The subject matter of everyday life is wide and varied; this book looks at seven substantive topics – emotions, home, time, eating, health, shopping and leisure – but there are many more we could consider. What they have in common is that they represent sites in which people do (perform, reproduce, and occasionally challenge) social life, day to day. Moran (2005) refers to four types of ‘quotidian space’ in this respect: workspaces, urban/mobile spaces, living spaces and non-places, wherein one is suspended between two different contexts (such as buses or service stations). Silva and Bennett (2004), meanwhile, suggest that we observe the everyday cultures surrounding home, family and community; sexuality, ‘race’ and age; and uses of technology. Thus one way of understanding everyday life is as a cluster of topic areas or fields of activity.

Nevertheless, there are some key themes that pervade each of these sites, and which characterize the practices we find in them. Firstly, everyday life is that which we presume to be mundane, familiar and unremarkable: ‘the daily lives of ordinary people’ (Bennett and Watson 2002: x). Questions such as ‘How do we compose a shopping list?’ or ‘Why do we queue?’ might seem ridiculously trivial but, once unpacked, reveal intriguing sets of rules. Secondly, it is that which is routine, repetitive and rhythmic: we do the same things in the same places at the same time, day after day, and this is what reproduces social life. Everyday life is habitual in nature (Felski 1999), and it is this very thing that makes it feel so familiar: think about the domestic routines of ‘cooking the dinner’ or ‘going to bed’. Thirdly, our everyday lives appear to us as private and personal, the product of our individual choices, and so we find ourselves studying phenomena that are not obviously social, such as eating, sleeping or falling in love. As C. Wright Mills (1959) famously argued, to think sociologically is to relate ‘private troubles’ to ‘public issues’ – to look for the social patterns reflected in the lives of individuals.

If we define everyday life in terms of such conceptual features, we discover that it can be applied to innumerable different settings: what is mundane and ordinary to one person might be quite extra-ordinary for another. Indeed, this is part of the problem in trying to pin down what we mean by ‘everyday’. These phenomena are nebulous, pervasive and ambiguous: obvious to the point of elusiveness (Martin 2003). They form the background against which we see more concrete life experiences, the ‘connective tissue’ (Bennett 2004) that holds everything together. However, this does not mean that they are trivial, benign or insignificant: Martin (2003) reminds us that the everyday world is infused with power, politics and historical significance. Thus, throughout the book, readers are encouraged to think critically about the origins of social practices and the interests that they serve.

How did the sociology of everyday life develop?

We tend to think of the sociology of everyday life as a relatively recent development, but its subject matter was implicitly addressed in many earlier texts. Classic studies of poverty (Rowntree 1901), the family and kinship (Willmott and Young 1960) and deviance (Becker 1963) may have sought to demonstrate general social trends, but they did so by examining their effects on people’s lived experiences. We might then say that everyday life enjoyed an ‘absent presence’ in the discipline but has recently become recognized as worthy of study in its own right, like the sociology of the body (Turner 1996). Bennett and Watson (2002) offer three perspectives on why this happened, focusing on significant changes in the twentieth century. The first is our understanding of what is worthy of public representation: whereas in pre-modern times only monarchy and figures of high status would be pictured or discussed, we have since become increasingly interested in more ‘ordinary’ people’s domestic lives, as evidenced by the rise of photojournalism, published diaries and reality TV. Secondly, there is the Foucauldian argument that we are living in a ‘disciplinary society’, where every move we make is subject to control, surveillance and regulation. The mass media are particularly culpable here, as paparazzi photographers follow celebrities into the most mundane locations, hoping to snatch a precious insight into their ‘real’ lives. Social research is also implicated, for the twentieth century saw the emergence of new methods for documenting everyday life, such as the methods of ethnographic fieldwork and social surveys. Thirdly, the rise of social movements in this period, such as feminism, black civil rights and Gay Pride, brought questions of identity and lifestyle differences to the forefront of political consciousness, and changed the way we thought about the social world. All of these changes meant that individual, private lives became increasingly visible to academics as objects worthy of study.

The most prominent theorists in this new mode of inquiry were Georg Lukács, Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau. Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist and existentialist who warned against the dangers of being too immersed in one’s daily routines (1977 [1923]). This attitude of ‘pre-reflective acceptance’ towards the world, he suggested, prevented people from realizing their potential and living ‘authentically’. Lefebvre was influenced by Lukács and of course Marx, when he applied the former’s ideas to the situation of the working class under Western industrial capitalism. Lefebvre (1971 [1968]) argued that capitalist workplaces, such as the factory, with its dreary, repetitive cycles, alienated people from the true conditions of their existence, and kept them in a state of false consciousness (cf. Marx 1959 [1844]). This had a pervasive effect upon everyday life: la vie quotidienne was characterized by routine, repetition and regularity, punctuated by the occasional break that made this bearable. Consequently, Lefebvre argued that everyday life was not just a benign, residual category that remained after the major institutions of society had been understood, but rather it was an important realm to study in its own right. This view was developed by Michel de Certeau (1984), who pointed to the significance of how people ‘do’, or ‘practise’, everyday life. These acts might involve following norms, but equally could be creative, adaptive and defiant. Writing in the aftermath of much political, historical and social change in the twentieth century, de Certeau argued that resistance need not entail grand gestures of political uprising, but rather that individuals could subvert authority by breaking minor rules in their everyday lives; he called this ‘making do’. We look in more detail at Lefebvre and de Certeau’s work in chapter 2, and return throughout the book to this question of the mutuality of rule-following and rule-breaking.

Contemporary social theorists have drawn upon these ideas to inform their studies, either implicitly or explicitly. Jack Douglas (1981 [1971]) believed that understanding everyday life was an essential part of any theory about the social world, and so the task of the researcher was to examine the common-sense meanings individuals gave to their actions. Berger and Luckmann (1967) famously argued that we construct our own social reality in the course of our daily lives, through our encounters with others. There is no underlying, objective reality to discover, but rather an infinite number of local, subjective realities, which must be studied from the perspective of those who inhabit them. This is a central tenet of interpretivist sociology, which has informed the work of Symbolic Interactionists, phenomenologists, ethnomethodologists, ethnographers and action theorists throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (see chapter 2). In a similar way, Cultural Studies theorists consider how different versions of reality are conveyed by the places, images and artefacts we encounter in everyday life: these can be read critically as ‘texts’ that transmit particular interests or ideologies (Moran 2005). It is interesting to consider, then, how people engage with these texts, more or less knowingly, to make sense of the social world.

How do we study everyday life?

Interpreting everyday life means viewing social behaviour through a particular kind of lens. Firstly, it is essential to make the familiar strange (Garfinkel 1967), or to look more objectively at phenomena that we would otherwise dismiss as unremarkable: mundane conversations, bedtime rituals, decisions about what to eat, and so on. This means bracketing out our prior assumptions about what is normal, natural and inevitable, as well as any value judgements we might make as to which is the most desirable option. For example, you might compare notes with a friend on how much television you watch and how it is integrated into your day, but this is not a moral question of whether TV is ‘bad’ or of how much you ‘should’ be watching. Rather, you would be thinking about how, when and why you decide to engage in this activity over others, and what purpose it serves in your everyday life. Do you watch TV with others and use it to bond with them? When in the day do you watch the most – does this coincide with mealtimes, leisure time or boredom? These are morally neutral questions that seek to find out ‘what is going on here?’ in social terms: how decisions are made, how routines are created, how rules are followed or broken. Like the conceptual ‘anthropologist on Mars’ (Sacks 1996), you should stand back and scrutinize familiar settings, as if you had never seen them before, from the perspective of a detached observer. This process is descriptive and analytical, as examples are documented and their features are mapped out, but it is not morally evaluative. Highmore (2002) makes an analogy with the detective story, suggesting that we investigate the ‘mysteries’ of seemingly innocuous social behaviour to see what lies beneath.

The second technique is to search for underlying rules, routines and regularities in the behaviour you observe, insofar as these tell us something about how the settings are socially organized. This means going beyond the surface of the immediately observable, digging deeper to identify the meanings behind it. Remembering that we are concerned with the routine, mundane and repetitive aspects of people’s day-to-day lives, we must then relate these micro-level processes to the macro-level of social order. How do the specific daily activities of individuals combine to create and sustain a sense of order, stability and predictability in their local worlds, and how do these worlds combine to form a larger scale culture? We can examine the hints of structure that we find in small-scale practices: the norms, conventions, habits and rituals that make social behaviour appear orderly. Why do we have rules for different situations, how were they established, and why do we (most of us, most of the time) follow them?

Thirdly, it is important to challenge our taken for granted assumptions (Garfinkel 1967) about the world by considering what happens when these rules are broken. Throughout the book we will look not only at why social norms are upheld, but also at instances of normbreaking. Deviant cases can be as interesting to study as normative cases, insofar as they reveal the underlying values and assumptions that have been challenged. Some social rules only become visible when they are broken, because they are so implicit: this is evident in subtle faux pas, such as misjudging a dress code or addressing someone too informally. Other rules are more explicitly acknowledged, but become more visible when broken, for example the noisy neighbour who plays music late at night. Rule-breaking acts are significant not only in terms of their implications for the individual (losing face, feeling ashamed, making amends), but also in terms of the social reactions they evoke. The classical theorist Durkheim (1893) argued that deviance was actually functional for society, in that it unites ‘us’ against ‘them’ and reinforces ‘our’ adherence to a common set of values (1984 [1893]). By identifying the rule-breaker as a deviant individual, the behaviour is safely contained and disassociated from the group, which becomes more cohesive. Throughout the book, we shall consider how people respond to rule-breaking acts, which values are brought to light, and how social order is restored.

Figure 1.1 Studying everyday life involves ‘making the familiar strange’ and identifying the norms that govern social behaviour. What are the rules of waiting in public places?

The chapters of the book are organized around these principles, and you will find each topic discussed in relation to three corresponding themes. Rituals and routines refer to descriptions of specific practices, codes of behaviour, habits and other examples that serve to illustrate the theoretical arguments. They are designed to ‘make the familiar strange’ and encourage analytical thinking about how the everyday world is performed, (re)produced and experienced. Social order refers to the underlying structures of rules and expectations that organize these practices. This helps us to understand why we engage in rule-following behaviour so much of the time, and how this creates a sense of social order and continuity. Finally, challenges refers to the instances of norm-breaking outlined above: the ‘exceptions that prove the rule’ and that elucidate the values of a group. These rule-breaking acts and the reactions they evoke will help us to understand who is seen as deviant or conformist, which values are important and how they are sustained.

Outline of the book

In the chapters that follow, we take a look at several different sites in which the everyday world is reproduced and unpack some of the features that enable this to happen. Firstly, however, chapter 2 reviews some of the key theoretical perspectives on everyday life, such as Symbolic Interactionism, ethnomethodology and phenomenology, Structural Functionalism and Cultural Studies. This constitutes a theoretical toolkit, to complement the methodological toolkit presented in chapter 10; you may wish to read both of these chapters initially, and refer back to them when you come to research specific topics. The remainder of the book applies these theories to a range of substantive topic areas. These can be read independently and in any order, although there is a logical progression from the micro-to the macro-level: beginning with the most private, subjective experiences, we move through questions of self-identity and embodiment, to social interaction, lifestyle practices and different fields of activity, and finally to opportunities for transcending social structure.

Thus, in chapter 3, we consider the extent to which the apparently private world of the emotions is shaped by the public realm of interaction, norms, values and discourses. To illustrate this, we look at three contrasting states of mind: love, shyness and embarrassment. In chapter 4, we explore the meaning of the home and the importance of domestic routines in our everyday lives. How do we make a home and present it to others? Why is gardening important and home decorating such a popular pastime? Chapter 5 considers time and scheduling as a pervasive feature of everyday life, from the temporal order imposed by clock time to the ways in which we try to subvert this, by making, spending and wasting time. How do our daily schedules impose structure on our lives and regulate our behaviour?

In chapter 6, we look at practices of eating and drinking, insofar as these are socially shaped: why do we often eat together, and what purpose does this serve? What constitutes a ‘proper meal’ as opposed to a ‘snack’, and where do such ideas come from? What are the rules of drinking alcohol, and how does the non-drinker challenge others’ expectations? Chapter 7 considers health, illness and disability as factors that affect our experience of everyday life. What has previously been normal and routine can easily be disrupted by periods of ill health, with dramatic effects on the way we manage social situations. But is this simply a matter of physical impairment, or is it also about the attitudes of others and the design of the social world? In this chapter, we question how people decide that they are ill, how they experience their conditions, and how appearing ‘different’ can evoke some interesting social reactions. Chapter 8 focuses on shopping and the ‘consuming’ nature of everyday life. What are the rituals and routines of shopping for the household, as compared to going to the mall with friends? Are these orderly, structured processes? How and why do we make shopping lists, or deviate from them? This chapter also considers the significance of the gift exchange, which helps to cement social relationships: what are the rules of buying gifts, and what do we expect in return? In chapte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Detailed Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1. What is Everyday Life?
• 2. Theorizing the Mundane
• 3. Emotions
• 4. Home
• 5. Time
• 6. Eating and Drinking
• 7. Health, Illness and Disability
• 8. Shopping
• 9. Leisure
• 10. Researching Everyday Life
• References
• Index