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8/10/2019 Sarah Pink - Dirty Laundry.pdf
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S A R A H P I N K
Dirty laundry. Everyday practice,
sensory engagement and the
~~
constitution
of
identity
I always use. some sort of softener, and even when theyve been in the tumble dryer
I
d o l ike
that smell, but I d o like it wh en theyve been on the line .. although] I dont like ironing them
so
much wh en theyve been o n the line. . . Ive fetched some [laundry] in today when I got in from
wo rk, and theyve obviously been o ut there all day an d they were all stiff and g ot mo re creases in,
whereas when theyre in the tum ble dry er its a dod dle really. If yo u just catch them i n time and
theyre just so easy to iron. Y es, I do like my clothes to smell nice. I definitely thin k ab out the feel
of them tho ug h. . once Ive ironed them they feel be t t e r . . . Helen, part-time c omp any director
and housewife, age 32
W h e n
I
th ink
of
advertising fo r soap powders m emories of the win dow test and claims
that som e products wash whiter and produ ce w hiter whites come
to
mind. These
not ions
of
clean laun dry emphasise visual experience and assessment. Such construc ts
bind dom estic mora lity wit h images of families dressed in stainless clothing an d sleeping
in beds made up with gleaming white sheets. Visual appearance certainly figures in
how people assess the cleanliness
of
their laundry. How ever, as any m ode rn western
consumer should realise, ou r selections of soap pow ders and related lau ndry pro ducts
and the pleasure and satisfaction we derive from finished laundry are contingent
on multi-sensory experiences. In fact, the expectation that laundry processes will
produce brilliant white stain-free items is unrealistic for many people because our
visual understandin gs
of
clean laund ry are also embedded in ou r knowledge about th e
biographies of specific garments and our plans for their use. Contemporary Britons
w ho d o their ow n laundry in their hom es using standard dom estic technologies expect
that b y v ir tue
of
having been wa shed in the mach ine w ith a detergent their laundry will
emerge clean.
In this article I examine con tem por ary English lau ndr y as a case stud y to examine
how people constru ct and sense cleanliness, and h o w this con tributes to the c onstitution
of
private and public indiv idual identities a nd moralities. Alth oug h m ost people expect
the machine will get it clean, sensory understandings and processes
of
evaluation
of
clean and d irty laun dry are mo re complex and individually varied. T he example
of
sensory laundry shows how different individuals in the same culture use different
sensory me taphors and m odalities t o narrate their every day experiences and practices
verbally and show them visually. They do
so
in w ays t hat illustrate th eir agency, are
constitutive of selves and m oralities and ultimately con tribu te to processes b y wh ich
conve ntions change.
1 The window test is a memory from British television advertising for soap powders. In my
recollection the housew ife tests her clean laundry visually using the daylight f rom her window .
Social
Anthropology
2005),
13
275-290.
005
European Association
of
Social Anthropologists
doi:10.1017/S0964028205001540 Printed in the United Kingdom
275
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R e s e a r c h i n g p r i v a t e e v e r y d a y p r a c t i c e
Th is article is based o n a visual ethn ogr aph y of lau ndr y practices in England
I
developed
with Unilever Research in 2000.2 The project addressed research questions with a
product focus and provided general contextualising data about domestic laundry.
Altho ugh I d o not report o n that applied dimension here i t was impo rtant in alerting
me to the senso ry aspects of laun dry. Van der Laan an d M atthew s 2003) suggest
contem porary consum ers relate to the idea
of
using all their senses in ma ny diffe rent
areas of their lives wh ich benefits the la und ry pro duc ts mark et by allowing prod ucts
to become more diverse, innovative and hedonistic. They report that addressing
consu me r needs throug h a multi-sensory experience is proven to be generally mo re
memorable: the color, texture and lingering scent work together to reassure that the
job has been do ne well. Since at least the 1930s, com panies that ma nufactu re domestic
goods have realised that attending
to
the sensory properties and experience
of
their
produ cts can bring market success Ho we s 2003:
21
1-12), which reminds
us
tha t social
scientists also benefit fro m acc ounting n ot only f or th e visual and material aspects of
everyd ay life but also for olfaction, tactile experience and s oun d. Th is sensory foc us
is not new; the anthropology
of
the senses is well established. However, I believe
my emphasis on the relationship between sensory experience, self-identity, domestic
practice and changing conv entions is original.
W ith each informant in a sample
of
twenty
I
first conducted a tape-recorded in-
de pth interview, focusing o n the inform ants life and self-identity, lau ndr y routines and
priorities. Th is was follow ed by a video tour Pin k 2004) a collaborative research
me thod that involves the inform ant spending up to an hou r showing me around their
hom e while I video them. Pro mp ted by m y checklist , ou r shared task was t o represent
ho w the lau ndry process was constructed in the hom e the multiple sites for leaving,
collection, transfer, washing and d ryi ng
of
laun dry and th e actual practices that occurre d
in them ), the criteria used to decide wha t qualified as laundry and w hen som ething was
satisfactorily washed, and w hich items in the hom e not laundered that day wo uld at
som e po int become laundry. Th is included clothing, sh eets and towels, curtains, c ush ion
covers, footwear and childrens toys. We discussed the sensory aspects of decision-
making about laundry, the sensory experience
of
doing the laundry and the sensory
qualities
of
dom estic i tems that cou ld potentially become laundry. Th e data this video
ethno graphy produ ced includes inform ants verbal and em bodied representations
of
their sensory, emotio nal and o th er experiences and practices
of
laundry in their homes. I t
by no means constitutes the m ore direct access
to
ho w p eople actually l ive their everyday
lives, gained through participant observation, and diverges from the long-term field-
w or k me thod som e anthropologists insist is the defining characteristic
of
anthropology.
M y m ethods w ere influenced b y th e applied brief
of
the project, but w ere also shaped by
my anthropological concerns and developed to sui t a par t icular research e n ~ i r o n m e n t . ~
As
Miller 2001) stresses, doing fieldwork in contem porary m odern w estern homes
requires multi-sited m etho ds that can focus o n individuals and their relationships wi thin
a private intimate sphere in contras t with a comm unity s tudy set in one locality).
To
2
3
Designed with Jean Rimmer
of
Unilever.
Com bining applied and academic anthropological research also forms p art of my w ider project
to
bridge the gap between applied and academic anthropology. I develop this in other publications
e.g. Pink 2004) and through the Berghahn
Studies in Applied Anthropology
series, of which
I
am
series editor.
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access these worlds, rather than the anthropologist living informants private lives
with them, the video tour asks informants to reconstruct their everyday practices by
reflecting on, and enacting on video, what they think they really do. Advocating an
interview-based methodology, Desjarlais 2003:6 suggests spoken narration supports
a phenomenological approach to sensory anthropology because the phenomenal and
the discursive, live as lived and life as talked about, are like interwoven strands of a
braided rope, each complexly involved in the other, in time, and rightly insists we
can achieve a necessarily limited) understanding of other peoples experiences through
their descriptions. The weakness of Desjarlais emphasis on talk is that it elevates words
over other ways of representing experience. By adding video to the process of telling-
talking, to include showing-touring and embodied enacting, my collaborations with my
informants produced not simply spoken narrations of their sensory experiences but also
visual display, exposure to sounds, smells and textures, thus inviting them to narrate
their everyday lives with reference to multiple forms of sensory engagement, including
a spatial narrative as we moved through their homes. Videotape did not capture these
sensory experiences, but rather allowed me
to
record their visible manifestations audio-
visually
as
my informants articulated them through, for example, verbal descriptions,
embodied performances of laundry practices, facial expressions, gestures and other
embodied metaphors. Knowing that they were being video-recorded, they performed
for the camera, just as people perform oral narratives for the tape recorder.
The research encounter thus became a context in which researcher and informant
intersubjectively produce an audiovisual account of the informants sensory domestic
practices and experiences. Here embodiment is the common ground for the recognition
of the others humanity and the immediacy of intersubjectivity Katz and Csordas
2003: 278). Like other anthropologists who discuss the sensory nature of fieldwork
e.g. Okely 1994; Seremetakis 1994; Stoller 1989; 1997; Geurts 2002), my task was
to understand my informants experiences by sharing the smells, textures and visual
appearances they demonstrated, and imagining those that they narrated. Since such
collaborations are central to the production of ethnographic knowledge they themselves
deserve to be scrutinised. Video facilitates this by representing both ethnographic data
and the immediacy of the research encounter, permitting a deeper reflexivity than
that created in retrospective written descriptions MacDougalll998). In the absence of
long-term participant observation, video therefore provides alternative routes into other
peoples lives that can produce both a record of the research encounter as it happened,
actions as they were performed and experienced, and spoken and embodied narratives.
After the study I contacted eight4 of the informants I interviewed personally to
gain their permission to use their interviews in my published work.5 To preserve their
anonymity
I
have changed the names of those who requested I did
so,
and do not
include images.
4 This small sample is not in tende d to be representative of the whole pop ulation as a larger
sociological stu dy migh t be, and sho uld no t be judged as such. Instea d it pertains t o the traditio n of
anthropologicalwriting o n the ho me e.g. Miller 2001). H ere I discuss just three of these informants,
selected because they represen t three quite typical approaches to domestic tasks that s tood ou t from
my wider research on the hom e Pink 2004).
D r Marie Corb in also collaborated with me in this w ork, by carrying ou t and interpreting half of
the interview. I am indebted t o her f or ou r many discussions and the insights that emerged which
have informe d the ideas I express in this chapter.
5
D I R T Y
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I n d i v i d u a l e x p e r i e n c e a n d t h e a n t h r o p o l o g y
o f t h e s e n s e s
Much existing research in the anthropology of the senses has focused on comparing
sensory hierarchies cross-culturally Ho we s 1991; Classen 1993; Bu ban dt 1998), and
unders tanding culturally specific form s
of
sensory embod ied experience Stoller 1989)
and construction s of sensoria Gu erts 2002). In contrast, some recent wo rk examines
sensory differences within cultures w ith reference t o ge nder difference. Fo r instance,
Classen 1998) analyses how the symbo lic gendering
of
sensory experience fro m the
pre-m odern era to the end
of
the twentieth century associated wo m en w ith the lower
senses of touch , taste an d smell, and men with the higher senses of vision an d hearing,
thus help ing to maintain a gender-role segregation m odel that coupled wo m en w ith
housewifery and men w ith scholarship 1998: 93-4). Desjarlais, also dep arting from th e
emphasis
on
culturally pervasive them es and dynamics, focuses
on
individual variation
to examine how members of a single society live out different sensory biographies
2003: 4). H is tw o ageing Yolmo Bhuddist inform ants share the cu ltural know ledge that
info rm s the sensory categories they em ploy. Yet in practice, whe n narrating and m aking
sense
of
their lives, they use th ese categories in d ifferent ways, wh ich are inextricably
related to their personal gend ered biographical experiences and the way s in wh ich the y
have been situated in relation to cultural k now ledge an d social relations. Desjarlais male
informants recounting
of
his life was dominated by motifs
of
vision and bodiliness
wh erea s his female informants narrative often linked in vivid, mo rally con nati ve terms,
the voicings
of
key actors Desjarlais 2003: 3).
In m y ow n comparat ive analysis
of
the sensory spaces in British and Spanish
homes I also focused
on
the interface betw een cultural discourses that invest sensory
experiences and qualities with moral values and individual sensory narrations and
actions. I have suggested Pin k 2004) tha t w ha t is
of
interest is not simply ho w cu lturally
specific values are manifested in and thu s maintained thr ou gh particular sensory
practices, b ut h o w these values are challenged o r resisted b y individuals who se eve ryday
practices go against th e grain M oo re 1994: 82). M oore points out tha t even m inor
instances
of
resistance suc h as re-orde ring activities o r objects can p rod uce shifts in
meaning 1994: 83). In the m odern western hom e ho w on e senses ones environment,
the sensory categories o ne uses to evaluate and narrate if it is clean, tidy o r dirty, and the
strategies on e uses to create a sensory env ironm ent in the ho m e can all be interpre ted
as acts
of
resistance or conformity that imply human agency. Below
I
discuss how
three different people l iving in con temp orary British homes represent their sensory
experiences and perceptions
of
laundry. By analysing each representation in terms
of
how acts
of
sensing are inherently tied to ethical ideas and moral sensibilities
Desjarlais 2003: 242-3) I suggest ho w these acts and related practices co ns titu te iden tity
statem ents that serve to stretch, resist, challenge o r confirm the cultura l discourses that
su pp ort th e relationship betwe en conventional practice a nd m oral correctness.
L a u n d r y a s s e n s o r y e x p e r i e n c e . V i s i o n t o u c h
a n d s m e l l
An
important twentieth century transit ion in att i tudes to defining clean laundry
was from the belief that boiling was necessary to disinfect and clean laundry
to
the
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understanding that because modern detergents did not require such heat machine
was hing w oul d guaran tee cleanliness Shove 2003:
146-7 .
In Shoves analysis
to
convert those w ho boiled th eir laundry to machine w ashing re quired a shift in beliefs,
which was driven by manufacturers redefinit ions of cleanliness as whiteness rather
than the removal
of
germs 2003: 145 , hence the emphasis on the visual evaluation
of cleanliness in detergent advertising I noted above. Shoves argument is based partly
o n her analysis of m y laundry interviews an d video tours, and coincides w ith m y ow n
conclu sion that machine w ashing is believed to pro duc e clean laundry.6 She also notes
the co ntem porary concern that lau ndry shou ld be freshened, rather than disinfected,
suggesting tha t Smell and textu re are also relev ant. bu t in essence freshness is state
of mind relating t o the wa y on e feels wh en on e is we aring fresh clothes 2003: 150).
Th e idea
of
lau ndr y as a process of freshening up clothin g was central to m y analysis.
Nev ertheless in m y inter pre tatio n the interviews suggest that freshness and freshen ing
up are essentially about restoring the sensory qualities
of
laundry. Even if freshening
has an em otional nd mo ral element, it is based o n the senso ry evaluation
of
tangible
laundry items. I t does not just ap ply
to
clothing, bu t for example) to towels, sheets,
items th at have not been used for a while, items th at have been dro pp ed o n the floor,
and generally i tems tha t are no t really d irty. M oreov er the need for freshening was
usually defined in olfactory and tactile terms, having little
to
do w ith visual staining
or dirt . Shove notes that new ways of] washing also generate new sensations and
in this regard it is im por tant to appreciate th e feelings involved, citing as an exam ple
the olfactory and visual experience
of
pegging ou t laundry. This was indeed o ne
of
the
sensory dimensions of laundry that my informants discussed. However, I suggest this
is not simply a question
of
how feelings are evoked by the smell
of
drying laundry
inside o r outside the house), but
of
how this matter is embed ded in wid er processes
of
sensory tran sform ation th at invoke sen sory values, mem ories and moralities.
In respect of th e convictio n that the m achine gets it clean, there is ano ther po int
to be m ade ab out the visual appearance
of
laundry. M y informants did not expect the
everyd ay practice
of
putting their laundry thro ugh th e machine t o necessarily remove
all stains and visible marks. Such items c ould be freshen ed -th at is, restored
to
a certain
tactile and olfactory cond ition but they accepted that some stains wo uld simply not
go,
or wo uld only fade wit h t ime and co ntinuou s washing. In this sense manufacturers
emphasis o n th e visual o r visible abilities
of
laundry technologies
to
produce whiter
wh ites as par t of the shift fro m boiling t o machine wa shing is misleading. Al thou gh th e
visual is ke y to unders tanding clean laundry, it is not necessarily always in th e privileged
sense used in evaluating th e cleanliness
of
laundry. T he further theoretical implication
of
this is
to
suggest suspen ding cont em por ary cu ltural theories that claim vision is always
The materials are owned b y Unilever who operate a policy of data sharing that
I
agree wi th and see
as a positive me thod of en surin g materials are available to oth er researchers interes ted in similar
themes. Howev er,
I
would suggest that so me of the points S hove uses the materials to make directly
correlate with my ow n findings, and in that sense are also contingent on my research design. This
complicates claims to own ership of the analysis since Shoves
2003)
publication is prior to my
writin g of this article althou gh not to m y initial analysis of the materials in 2000). Here I proceed
to rep ort on my o w n findings, as developed independently
of
Shoves, on the assumption that it
will be taken in goo d faith.
I
assume that the absence of of in Shoves sentence is a typographical error and have added it to
give sense to th e sentence.
7
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the privileged sense in mo dern wes tern culture to explore empiricaliy th e significance
of
oth er sensory categories fo r the cons truc tion of identities see Ingold 2 fo r a critique
of this position). Here I analyse how the modern western sensorium, composed
of
categories of hearing, to uc h, taste, smell and sight a pa tte rn of differential elaboration
of the various senses, thro ug h whic h children learn t o perceive and to experience the
world) Geurts
2002: 5 8
is engaged by differently position ed individuals t o repre sent
thei r laun dry experiences. M ario aged 27 , the president
of
a students union and a
freelance writer, M arga ret aged
50),
a housewife, mother, grandm other and comp any
director, and her daug hter Helen aged
32 ,
have qui te different biographies, k now ledge
resources, aspirations, practices and prio rities. In the next section
I
examine how they
represen ted these in term s of lau ndr y and th e senses.
Case
s t u d i e s
W h e n
I
interviewed M ario he w ork ed full-tim e as the presiden t of
a
University students
un ion and as a freelance writer. H e described himself, w ith reference to laundry, as
follows:
Mario: Im fairly, fairly fussy about clothes.
. .
I get it from my father. He was very, very picky
about his appearance, and Im not that bad but he was really meticulous.. .And Ive got sort of
things in my laundry at the mom ent, got som e trousers, Ive got o ne little dot of fo od just like a
tiny splash on food, washing the w hole thing again..
So
Im quite meticulous about that and I
just like to accrue knowledge
as
well. Im in to reading and Im really into writing , and Im very
keen to get myself there
so
I like to have a very so rt of creative environ me nt, its w hat Ive got.
Im n ot entirely happ y with this ro om bu t itll have to do . Ive got lots of books. Ive got writin g
assignments and bits and pieces hanging up above my computer. Ive got all my favourite
CDs
stacked up.
I
dont know why Im pointing because its on tape. Ive got a lot of my favourite
music to hand, Ive got bo oks by my bedside, Ive g ot papers b y m y bedside, floor, see Ive got
paper on my walls I normally write on.
Marios representations and my experience
of
his hall-of-residence room revealed a
material and sensory environment he identified with and felt comfortable in. His
priorit ies were set ou t in the material culture of his ro om wh ere a new silver laptop
com put er co-existed wi th the plastic sho pping bag used fo r dirty laundry. T he creative
environment he sough t involved multiple sensing isually decorated with objects and
images that mean something to him , filled wi th his favourite m usic and also a tactile,
em bodie d experience since
I
couldnt write in a cold da rk room.
Touch was also important to him when evaluating the quality, condition and
cleanliness of clothing. H e told me: Im ver y big on tactile clothes. Yes, feel of the
cloth. Ive come across several
of
my shirts and jumpers that were just rough and I
just thought
I
couldnt wear that,
I
couldnt have that on my skin, preferring silk,
l inen and cotton. Describing the process by wh ich he evaluated w orn clothing, thoug h,
he referred to the visual, olfactory and tactile character
of
the item. If Mario was
considering wearing a shirt he had already w orn once after washing it he wou ld inspect
it visually and thro ugh smell. H e distinguished betw een different types
of
smell. First th e
This, like all culturally constructed sensoriums, is a folk ideology first determined by Aristotle
Geurts
2002: 7 .
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initial impa ct of the ga rme nt: If its not immediately obvio us then Im okay follow ed
b y a deepe r analysis b y w hich also I smell it just to
ma ke su re that it still smells fresh
and th at I havent sort of swe ated into it. Th is involved a distinction betw een th e smell
of
sweat from his bod y and odo urs that penetrate clothing from outside. If th e former
was a bsent he classified the item as clean. Th is had actually caused him t o re-think his
laundry strategies. Realising he had been washing clothes unnecessarily he bought a
spra y-o n fabric freshener, because I fou nd myself, physically Id be tota lly clean, item s
of
clothing would be totally clean b ut I wou ld just be in the pu b and the smo ke would
have just soaked it up because its a disgusting smell. In particular Marios sensory
evaluation
of
his p otentially d irty laundry reveals interesting contrasts with the sensory
strategies and voca bulary used b y housewives. As part
of
the video tour M ario showed
me tow els that he w ould consider washing.
Mario: So Im going to test the towel, Im going
to
look at the towel.
. .
Its a case of looking
a t
the towel,
a
bit of
a
feel, its a bit dam p, then
I
look at
it.
Right
so
Ill
have a look and
I
can
see
by
looking
a t
it
I
can see that Ive used it quite a lot and now
Ill
do the smell. O h , its not to o bad
actually. N o t as bad as I tho ug ht it might be. O n e thing Im going to do, yes its a bit mu sty th ere
in the middle but roun d the sides its no t so bad. W hat
I
was going to do, what
Im
tempted to do,
Im tempted to hang it up which wou ld be over the radiator Ive got there and Id be tempted to
basically dr y it o ut and see how
I
get on with it.
So
I was tem pted to d o that bu t Ive just whiffed
a couple of very slightly damp musty sort of parts to it, very slightly, which might be the damp,
but Im going to err on the side of caution like
I
usually d o and Ill bung it in the wash.
Interview narratives always reference other existing cultural narratives and no doubt
Marios discourse was influence d by his o w n video app earance and th e testing practices
of
television laundry commercials. Nevertheless his narrative reveals the sensory
me taphors and kno wled ge available to him f or discussing laundry. As he inspe cted his
towe l he viewed it, handled it and plun ged his nose deep into its folds. Using differen t
points of reference from th e norma l laundry terminology
of
housewife informants, he
explained:
Mario: Something thats clean looks a certain way, the fibres
will
flow a certain way and the look
will take on a certain quality, in fact a goo d quality, and w hen its no t q uite there the f ibres matt
toge ther a little bit or they d ont flow the same way and the y just dont, they
look
a little bit tired,
dont look
so
good. Just like
a
hum an being. On e whos had four nights sleep and one whos had
no sleep at all. Just b y look ing
at
them you can tell the difference.
How ever, as with othe r informants, when I asked Mario wha t has to happen to laundry
fo r i t to be clean, he told me Whether i ts presentable or n ot is ano ther matter because
i t comes dow n to i roning, but fo r i t to be jus t c lean i t has
to
go through a decent wash
cycle in th e wash ing machine. Marios definition
of
clean laundry w as in terms
of
visual
appearance a nd an olfac tory qu ality of freshness, as he p ut it: It hasnt got a ny m arks
o n it; it hasnt go t an y excess di rt o n it; it smells fresh. s regards smell, he said, Eith er
it smells vaguely of laun dry o r it doesnt sm ell of anything. T he freshness
of
his newly
washed clothing was also tacti le . As he pu t his laundry away he
told
me, also its tou ch
because they feel warm . The y feel wa rm f rom the tum ble drier and that gives them that
fres h sense.
Apart from visual, olfactory and tactile testing Marios laundry was governed
by tw o other key fac tors the accumulation
of
dirty items, and the availability
of
laundry facilities in the shared student laundrette. The facilities also influenced his
practices. W ith n o space to peg c lo thes ou t or hang them over the radia tor in h is ro om
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tumble-drying seemed obligatory, meaning Marios experience of laundry involved
different senso ry and social doma ins from th ose
of
housewives. Moreover, his university
hall-of-residence ro om was a space w ith different resource s and m eanings to the ho me s
of
m y housewife inform ants. Significantly, his ap proach
to
clean and dirt y laundry did
not extend
to
laundering the curtains o r show er curtain, wh ich were u niversity property
and n ot his responsibility. H is relationship to laundry was also very unhousewifely in
anoth er way, since he was not prepared
to
engage with ho usewifely knowledge to inform
his ow n laundry practices. H e depended
on
his mother
to
do laundry he regarded
as complicated or beyond his scope, claiming that he was unable
to
understand the
myster ious knowledge that lay behind do ing the laundry . H e sought m ethod without
epistemology. For example, when he asked a woman colleague to solve his problem
of n ot know ing how much soap powd er to use , he d id not want to know why but
how, only wishing to engage with the superficial knowledge required to achieve
his desired sensory results. Thu s the senso ry strategies and actual termino logy M ario
used for assessing dirty and clean laundry, and dealing with laundry techniques and
technologies demonstrate not only a personal way of speaking about laundry b ut a
strategy that rejects the language and know ledge of h ousew ifely laun dry con vention s.
This involved performing an identity throug h both everyday practice and the verbal
and em bodied performance of the interview) that links specifically with the identity
and aspirations he charted for himself w hen he described ho w the sensory layou t and
composition
of
his room was congruent with his ambition to become a writer. For
instance, once Marios laundry cycle was completed he returned the clean laundry to
plastic bags t o transfer it to his room . This was perform ed as fast as possible, he poi nted
ou t I dont co unt, som e peop le fold, I dont bo ther w ith that. Its a good idea but again
its time y o u see. If
I
was employing somebod y I would get them to
fold
them.
Finally,
to
end his laundry process, Mario stressed the therapeutic element of
laundry, itself a sensory practice, and in contrast t o the on-goin g laun dry of mo ther s
and housewives, t he closure
of
finishing the laundry. O n ce
in
his room he was concerned
to create an appropriate sensory atmosphere in which he cou ld enjoy putting his clothes
away wh at he referred
to
as the psychological and physical end
of
m y chore. Playing
the soundtrack of the film Gladiator w hic h was quiet, classical and quite stirrin g in
places and very so rt
of
ethnic Ara bian c hants in others an d chose n because Im very
mu ch in to reflective calm -mood music and Ill o ften pu t that kind
of
music on wh e n
Im doi ng m y laundry, rather th an so me thing faster.
Mario: I find it almost a therapeutic process,
of
being sat there and going through this laundry.
lso moving around.
I
always get quite warm
so
I often d o th is .. maybe a little bit of light on,
and
so
its q uite a calm serene atmosphere. Its often, very often is ho w I d o the laundry. I o ften
d o it late at n ight as well,
so
normally very dark and calm, and a bit
of
atmosphere on the old
s te reo .
Marios social uses of laundry were par t
of
his self-representation to o thers . He
distinguished between public and private clothing, changing on arriving home from
w or k and categorised his clothes in terms of the contexts they w ere clean enou gh for:
a shirt w or n once with a speck of d irt
on
i t or a washed item th at displayed a stain
could no t be wo rn socially, but could be wo rn around the house before being washed
again. H e cares about wha t people think about his clothes, noting that he had fou nd a
friend going ou t wearing a stained T-shirt unacceptable. How ever, he claimed his ow n
practices conform ed not to an existing public morality
of
cleanliness b ut to his person al
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standard s. Th is he applied not on ly t o the cleanliness
of
his laundry, but t o my w riting,
fo r m y laundry, everything.
As
he p ut it, Whatever I
do,
I
honestly use myself as the
measuring stick. I just think, d o I l ike the look of th at ?. f I do , then its g ood enough.
However, how identities are constituted, and the practices that are behind them, are
contingent o n context.
In
som e contexts Mario l ike many o ther people) clearly shaped
his public uses of laundry to confo rm to w hat he saw as the expectations of others.
Within his hom e, laundry con tributed to his construction of himself accord ing to social
context. Whereas when an untidy friend visited he might tidy up, for his girlfriend
he stressed he w oul d unq uestion ably change his bed linen an d towels. Marios private
practices resisted conv entiona l ways of doing the laundry, and he created continuity
betw een his private a nd public identity b y describing himself as confo rmin g publicly
to his own standards,
not
those of others. However, as the case study sho ws, he was
aware of the dem ands of o thers and was also prepared
to
negotiate with these to use in
laun dry in social contex ts to produ ce an identity that accounted for what oth er people
think.
Marios constructs
of
self and approaches
to
laundry clearly prioritise career
development over dom estic organisation, and results-orientated laun dry processes that
prioritise pu blic self-presentation over conform ing to proper conventional laundry
practices; he informs these with the sensory epistemology that he attr ibutes to
housewifeliness. H is practices also advocate a particular m orality an d subseq uent m oral
judgements of others, which are specific to his ow n bio grap hy and self-positioning. H is
views abo ut self-presentation, being fussy and m eticulou s abou t the w ay he dresses,
insisting
on
his clothing being iron ed an d spotless provide one clue
to
his sense
of
the
right way to presen t oneself in public, that involves pro duc ing la und ry with th e right
texture, visual appearance and smell . In contrast , his approa ch to p utting laund ry aw ay
is abo ut self-id entity-con struction fo r himself in a private d om ain. He re tex ture is less
imp ortant than time-saving, allowing him t o return to his writing; putting lau ndry aw ay
is constructed to enhance his sense
of
well-being and self, a therapeutic experience,
ra ther than par t
of
domestic o rganisation.
W h e n I interviewed Margaret she was 50, marr ied w ith tw o grown-up chi ldren w ho
have left home, and worked full-time for her small family business. Normally she
worked every day but tended to
job
share with Helen, her daughter, som etimes wo rking
fr om hom e. She described her life as very hectic, a co nt ex t in wh ich it is nice
to
have
an autom atic washing machine y o u can just po p [washing] in and forget abo ut it. She
saw herself as a happy family person w ho enjoyed gardening and holidays, and look ing
after her grandch ildren.
Margarets home was stylish, filled with the accoutrements
of
a middle-class
lifestyle. She was responsible for domestic matters and like[s] things right, which
was manifested in ensuring she plumped u p th e cushions
on
the sofas at night b efore
going
to
bed and opened th e curtains in the morn ing before going
to
work. She also
had a c leaner w ho did the ho usework once a week and most
of
her ironing, althoug h
as we see below this did not mean M argaret was an y less involved in sensory con trol
of h er laundry. H e r daily routin e included making the beds, cleaning the bathroo m and
taking d i r ty laundry do wn to her laundry basket in the uti li ty room , while her husband
made breakfast before leaving fo r work. H e r weekly routines included changing bed
linen and towels on Thursdays. Other routines ranged from every three months
to
longer, determining whe n cush ion covers were washed a nd w hen curtains were sent fo r
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professional cleaning. Margaret enjoyed laundry and was teased by her family when
she continue d this role while they h olidaye d in a foreign apartm ent. She styled her hair
a n d p u t on make-up every day, and dressed in good quality, smart clothes, from up-
ma rket c hain stores and designer sh ops, wearing jeans and o lder clothes fo r gardening.
She preferred to spend m ore m on ey o n quality items that will wash right, liking fine
fabrics and soft wools as well as linen which she com plained creases to o muc h) and
insisting th at it was imp orta nt cloth es we re soft and com fortable. Smell was also central
in her personal preparation and the env ironment she created around herself, wearing
quality perfumes every day, l iking flowers and bu bble baths. In ou r interview M argaret
linked our discussion of perfumes directly
to
laundry, noting how I must say that
it is important what my washing smells like. Ive started using [a particular scented
fabric conditioner], which she commented had the advantage that it does seem to
make ironing easier, as they say. And it smells lovely. Mmm, it does. Often you can
get awa y wit h just folding things, wh ich is nice. She explained this as som ethin g the
condi t ioner d id to the texture
of
the fabric suggesting it m ust plum p up the fibres he
same term she used for th e process by which she daily restored the sofa cushions
to
an
app rop riate visual and tactile state. Smell was an im por tant element of Margarets h om e
and garden. She regarded creating an olfactory dimension to the h om e as an extension
of
her gardening, w here she enjoyed arom atic plants l ike honeysuckle. In the house
she had fresh flowers, po t pou rri , a plug-in air freshener in the toilet and also burn ed
scented candles in the evening to create an atm osphere fo r a dinn er party. She sought a
fresh smell: Id like t o th in k th at i t smelt fresh, th at i t didnt smell of chips.
Margaret used com bined techniques and complex sets
of
knowledge
to
ensure that
her laundry was nice and clean. H er daughter Helen married with t w o young children)
also depended o n her mothers knowledge
to
supp ort her ow n laundry pract ices . O u r
conve rsation demo nstrates this.
Margaret:
I
dont do an awful lot of hand washing now because I dont think ..
.
most fabrics you
can put in the w asher, but I d o have some things, and i my d aughters got anythin g she sends it to
me.
Sarah: Does she?
Margaret: M mm . Youre ever so good at hand washing, Mum, yo u d o it. I say, Youll never get
good at it Helen, if y ou dont d o it. No, but
I
dont need to because youll do it for me, wont
you. So
I
d o that as well.
Sarah: Do y o u mind doing that?
Margaret: Not really, no. Its not very often. Its odd things..
.
and
I
do try to sort of. . .well, dry
them flat.
I
often put things that
I
want to dry,
I
put them flat on the worktops in the kitchen at
night and by the morning theyre dry anyway, which is quite useful.
Helen was concerned with the sensory d imensions
of
her self , hom e and lau ndry in a
way similar to Margaret, yet limited the knowledge about laundry processes she was
willing to engage with. However, she did so to a different degree to Mario , which
is also typically gendered. He len d id not con stru ct the epistem ology of laund ry as
either m ysterious o r beyond her. Indeed she was involved in a contin uous daily
cycle
of
laundry, and applied a routine-based an d senso ry system
of
determining which
items sho uld be washed and w hich w ere clean. She also derived sensory pleasure from
laundry, w hich she explained n ot in terms of vision, bu t tou ch a nd smell, as is evident the
9 As
I
demonstrate in
Home
truths Pink
2004 ,
women and men who practise housework tend
to
frame their lack of understanding of processes in different w ays.
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quotatio n f rom her interview at the beginning
of
this article. Simultaneously though,
as Helen explained, there was know ledge she did n ot w ant o r need:
Helen: Id washed a pair of grey jogging botto ms and
a
pair of his pale denim jeans, and theyve
both got green grass stains
on
their knees that havent come out. o Im going to have to d o
som ethi ng serious wit h those, I dont kn ow if Ill get
it
o u t o r n o t . .
.
d probably ring my
Mu m , Id say Mum , Ive g ot so me jeans wit h grass stains on, what wou ld y ou do? because shes
brilliant. She can, like, get anything out m y m ot he r.. I have been know n to [leave it for her
mothers W ednesday visit]. I say Ive go t a little jo b .. 111 pr ob ab ly be a quest ion fo r my m other .
I mean, I dont kno w, I don t kn ow if you can get grass stains out.
Just as Helen did not engage with Margarets complete range of sensory laundry
knowledge and practices, Margarets practices differed for her mothers. Unlike her
mothers we ekly wash Margarets washing was con tinu ous , althoug h she no w washed
o n alternate days rather than daily as she did before her children left home. U nlike
the previous genera tion for w h om boiling w as a central practice, Margarets ap proach ,
based o n different kn owledge, depends o n the machine and hand washing. H ow ever
unlike younger inform ants l ike Helen, her practices were informed by kn owledge abo ut
the variable tem perature s she considered necessary t o clean different types
of
laundry.
Tem perature was also cont inge nt o n different visual, tactile aspects
of
dirty laundry,
knowledge abo ut what had happened to each item recently and biographically), and
contribu ted t o a process of transform ation tha t wou ld m aintain o r restore the fabrics
desired co lou r and texture.
Margaret:
Yes,
I
d o
40
[degree] washes, which is usually sor t
of. .
.
most things now are
40,
some
50, but I d o usually d o my towels on
60,
and every so often I perhaps d o them on
95,
but Ive
noticed. . . ve just bo ught som e white towels and it says
40
on them. But I think thats silly
it says Egyptian cotton. I cant see that they want doing at 40, so theyll get done at 60 each
time..
.
urn, and then coloureds.
I
usually do those at
40.
Jeans
I
do probably a t 60. And Ive
always sorted things into sor t
of
the whites and like perhap s. . sometimes I pu t whites and creams
together but often theres enough sort of creams with very pale blues that I kn ow wont run a nd
Ill pu t those together. And then Ill d o
a
dark w ash normally.
This strategy included using stain-remover sprays, different detergents for coloured and
wh ite laundry, and olfacto ry fabric conditioner. M argaret was also reflexive abo ut her
practices, w hich she sometimes scrutinised and m odified. At th e t ime of ou r in terview
she was debating her use of fabric softeners o n a p articular set
of
towels with a sof t
texture she was unhappy abo ut and though t needed to be stiffened up.
Once the machine cycle finished she would, depending on time and weather
conditions, either use her tum ble dry er o r peg the w ashing ou t in the garden. Pegging
ou t was an olfactory, visual an d em otional experience fo r M argaret that evoked n ot onl y
feelings
of
sensory pleasure, bu t mem ories
of
past experience and
of
her own m other
fo r wh om she had pegged o ut w ashing as a child. She noted particularly her visual and
tactile experience as she pegged out.
I
am s ort of looking, and Well that loo ks
O K .
I mean,
I
dont expect that
to
be as white because its quite an old one, but it looks
pr ett y w hite really, com bin ing visual assessment of cleanliness w ith her kno wled ge of
the b iography
of
each individu al item. She assumed that the washing w oul d be cleaned
by the machine, without expecting all stains to be removed. Smell was important as
she noted that it smells lovely an d fresh, wh ich ag ain ..
.
he lines just an ex tens ion
of
the h ouse, isnt it?. She again constru cted a relationsh ip betw een the smell
of
house
and garden, not this t ime through flowers but in a parallel way through the laundry
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process. Fresh air also transform ed lau ndr y that was not washed ev ery time it was
wo rn, such as trousers, skirts and dry-clean-only i tems. These Margaret wou ld hang up
indoors by an open window so they could be freshened-up. T he imp ortance of smell
was emphasised in a story M argaret told me abo ut her cleaner:
Margaret: She used
to
do
the ironing for me at her hou se and
a t
that tim e shed had family problems,
shes on her own now, but
I
know that money was
a
problem and they used to have chips
a
lot,
and shed perhaps do ne m y ironing and hung
i t
in the hall, and then sometimes Id pick it up and
it had this sort of smell, and I didnt like that,
so
now she does it here.
Finally, touch was important. Pegging out avoided the fluffiness of tumble-dried
laundry. To restore its texture Margaret felt clothing needed no t o nly ironin g but t o go
thro ugh the w hole laun dry process. Fo r example, she described how
i
her husband p ut
his shirt back in the w ardrob e after only wearing it for a couple
of
hours she wo uld have
to retrieve it. O ft en he w ou ld h ang it sort of a bit skewh iffed and later, she explained,
hell say Wheres s o- an d- so ? and hell get it ou t and Ill say You cant w ear th at,
love; yo u hu ng it u p like that, its all creased,
so.
then its just going in the wash,
because, she told me, I dont think things iron that well, do they, when theyve been
creased an d hu ng up.
Margarets social contexts are family, w or k, holid ays with her hus band and frien ds
in apartm ents and villas o r hotels, cinema and eating out w ith friends. She was alm ost
always prepared for a social encounter. As she pu t it, I dont w ant pe ople seeing me
wi thou t m y make-up on .
I
thi nk its just pa rt of getting up and getting yourself ready
in the morning, and stressed that she even put her m ake-up on t o
do
the housework o r
gardening. The question of public scrutiny of her lau ndry was an issue fo r Margaret,
wh ose husband teased her for worrying abou t what ot her people think. She saw laundry
as par t
of
public p resentation.
M argaret w ore similar sm art skirts, tops dresses and jackets for w ork and socialising,
changing in to a com fortable shir t and trousers at hom e and w earing jeans fo r gardening.
She wo uld n ot contem plate wearing a clean but s ta ined i tem at hom e o r ou t , and would
persevere in rem oving the stain. She also policed her husbands ward rob e ensu ring he
didnt w ear dirty jumpers and shirts . This morality also applied to oth er lau ndry items.
Fo r instance, w hen she washed th e tea towels from the kitchen at wor k she ensured tha t
they w ere always white wh en she returned them, how ever stained the y had become.
Likewise, when friends stayed overnight at her home, laundry was important in the
presenta tion of the guest ro om . Marg aret always m ade sure th e bed linen all look s nice
and crisp and liked to put tow els o n each bed and a face cloth as well, w hich often
meant freshly laundering items in preparation f or the visit .
He len shared som e practices w ith her m other: dressing smartly for work, with skirt ,
blou seh op and jacket, and changing into joggers o r jeans at hom e an d wearing different
perfumes according to the occasion. H e r social life centred o n work , fam ily and their
youn g chi ldren . However under ly ing her smart
look
was a slightly different appro ach
to her mothers, guided b y the idea that one m ight conceal m arks o r textures that a public
house wifely mo rality wo uld classify as dirty, since like stains o n wash ed clothin g
they w ere no t really dirty. Fo r example, she explained h ow she had rationalised we aring
a T-shirt mo re than once:
10 See Chevalier
1998)
wh o discusses the relationship between the English hom e and garden.
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Helen: Id w orn o ne
of
these T-shirts in the evening. Id just popped
to
my Mums. Id just put
it on and when I came back, I just checked that it didnt smell under the arms or anywhere,
and then I just put it on the hanger, but then wh en .. I saw it on the hanger [the next day].
I
thought . . Oh, Ill pu t that T-shirt on, and I thoug ht Nn nn Ive wo rn it once. But then I
though t, Ive wo rn it once, then I tho ugh t But it isnt dir ty. . .And it wasnt dirty at all, and I
wore
it
and it was fine.
Contrary
to
her mothers view that one could no t wear an item m ore than once because
it would lose its texture, Helen noted that if
on
the hanger the T-shirt appeared
to
have lost its shape, w hen she put it on again it would mould back
on to
her body. She
therefore m aintained a conv entiona l standard of public presentation , while contesting
this in terms of her private practices.
S e n s o r y l a u n d r y a n d t h e s e l f . M o r a l i t y
i d e n t i t y a g e n c y
Mario, M argaret and H elen were at contrasting life and career stages, with d ifferent
aspiration s and priorities. The y had different relationsh ips to th eir homes, w hich varied
materially, socially and spatially. Their biographical relationships with laundry differ,
like the sen sory knowledge, practices an d strategies they em plo y in the private sp here
to
produ ce their desired laund ry results. In co mm on, however, they believed one should
pro perl y prese nt oneself publicly in go od quality, well textured, fresh smelling, pro per ly
ironed and un stained clothing.
To conclude I suggest this comparative analysis of sensory laundry practices
invites a series of anthropological reflections. First, it demonstrates modern western
individuals ability, th rou gh everyd ay do mes tic practice in specific sensory, material and
technological environments, to carve out gendered identities by living them . Second,
it reveals how moralities are constructed through everyday practice and the public
presentation
of
self. Th ird , it suggests how, b y resisting existing con ven tion s, individuals
participate in processes of change.
M ario, Ma rgaret and H elen all used categories
of
smell, tou ch and vision
to
describe
their laun dry experiences, practices and results. H ow eve r w ithin these categories they
emp loyed different tactile, visual an d olfactory m etapho rs. Th eir uses of language were
emblematic of their conform ity and resistance to co nventional discourse abo ut laundry
and cleanliness. For Mario, when an item needs
to
be washed its matted fibres look
tired, taking a metaphor from a counter narrative
to
the proper domestic routine
of conventional family life, they are like someo ne w ho has not slept. F or M argaret,
to
be restored texture fibres need
to
be plumped u p b y the w ashing process, using
the sam e term as for her daily re-shaping of the sofa cushions. These informants used
different patterns of embodied sensory evaluation and reasoning
to
know if an item
sho uld be washed. M ario evaluated his shirts by item, examining the ir smell and visual
appearance,
to
decide if th ey s ho uld be washed o r sprayed w ith fab ric freshener, while
Margaret knew a shirt her husband had wo rn for tw o hou rs must be washed as i t had
lost its texture. H elen in con trast reviewed Margarets proce dure, having decided th at
if she had worn a T-shirt for an evening it would have lost some of its shape and
texture, but that it wo uld fit the same body again if hu ng u p and could be wo rn w ithout
washing. F or each individual these sensory evaluations no t on ly inform ed the ir practices
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but constituted what they regarded as morally appropriate and justifiable actions.
In
making their judgements each informant drew on a specific set of biographical
experiences and senso ry know ledge. Such know ledge is culturally specific, thou gh the
case studies dem onstrate that such cultural knowledge is not simply distributed and
sha red thr ou gh an auto ma tic process of transmission, bu t that individuals are selective
in the k nowledge the y are willing to accomm odate. This is part of their wider project
of self-identity.
La un dr y practices, like identities, are form ed intersubjectively and are comparative,
bot h f or anthropologists and for the subject, w ho compares her o r his practices w ith
those
of
oth ers in m y experience usually their mothers). M y informan ts all had
a sense of a right way of doing laundry, and presenting the self to others. The
contradiction lies in the fact that some moralities and identities resist what they
regard as conventional laundry practices, while achieving what they perceive to be
conventional standards
of
public self-presentation.
In
doing
so
they challenge the
hegemony of the morality that performs laund ry according to the sensory know ledge
and practice of convention, while not necessarily challenging that knowledge itself.
Sensitivity to such issues is an im portant com pone nt of an anthropological approach that
endeavours
to
understand, and engage with, the ambiguities that ethnography reveals
because an thro polo gy succeeds ethically insofar as it recognises the contingencies he
slippages, ambivalences, aporias, and generally speaking, the ambiguities -w hi ch inh ere
in its ow n and others ideas an d practices, as being cons titutive
of,
and n ot m erely lapses
in, mor al orders Battaglia 1999: 115). T he alternative moralities being suggested assert
ho w lau ndr y should fit into a life and identity wi th different priorities and aspirations.
Both Mario and He len w ere very busy, M ario as a writer with anothe r full-time job
and Helen as a mother, wife and company director running
on
a domestic hamster
wheel, who regarded the satisfaction she derived from laundry as sad. They had
no temp oral o r intellectual space to accomm odate complex laundry practices o r their
mothers detailed sensory kno wledge,
so
depended
on
their mothers and o ther skilled
women
to
provide method-based solutions and actual practical help. According to a
theory of social contingency, selves are subject to the constraints and manipulations of
cultural forces, on the one hand, and
on
the o the r capable, upo n reflection, of breaking
wi th and transform ing the situations in which the y are forme d Battaglia 1999: 115).
Mario and Helen both conformed
to
cultural conventions regarding wh at they thoug ht
was th e proper w ay
to
represent themselves in public, but simultaneously departed
fro m the mora lity associated wi th it by resisting dom estic conven tions in private. T he y
thus became, in a subtle way, agents involved in transform ing co nventio n. By breakin g
the taken for granted connection between ho usewifely domestic practice and pub lic
appearance, they also brought into question the validity of conventional domestic
morality throug h their practice.
Earlier I note d Shoves poin t th at changing technology, an d the discourse attached
to
it , contributed
to
shifts in laundry practice.
In
her analysis, changes in laundry
11
Existing wo rk o n the intergenerational transmission of knowledge does no t suggest that know ledge
transmission is automatic. However to my knowledge both sides of the debate over whether
knowledge transmission follows Sperbers 2001) epidemiological model or Ingolds model of
embod ied practice within given environments Ingold
2001;
Whitehouse ZOOl , tend to focus on
examples of when know ledge and practice
are
repeated from one generation to the next. My
concern is, rather differently, with when they re not.
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technology have rescripted laundry practice and its moral meaning through an
interface with how the people w ho do the wash [are]. central to the reproduct ion
and revision of normal standards wh en they d o the laundry my way Shove 2003:
156).
Th is sociological analysis draw s similar conclusion s
to
mine, but is limited in its
definit ion
of
individual difference as do ing it m y way. Shove 2003:
157)
recognises
diversity since just about an ything could be incorporated into new systems
of
meaning
and n ew versions of m y way, suggesting that this is constrained by technological and
discursive possibilities and limitation s set by m anufac turers. Th is is not incom patible
w ith social contin gency theory. B ut the value
of
an anthropological approach is that
it demands an awareness of ho w o ur informants and ou r own) subject posi t ions
intersect in the field. This allow s
us
to see simultaneously how informants constru ct
difference on their ow n terms and th e ambiguities
of
their ow n destabilising practices
Battaglia
199: 115).
It invites
us
to deconstruct doing it my way as a complex and
intersubjective practice that has inheren t contrad ictions, is abou t diversity and agency
and reveals ho w individuals p articipate in unevenly patt erne d processes
of
change. In
this article
I
hope t o have demonstra ted ho w a sensory anthropology can contr ibute
to
ou r understandings of changing practices, identities and conventions in modern
western contexts. A n analysis
of
everyday sensory practice show s
us
ho w individuals
use categories, knowledge and acts to maintain, bounce
off,
imitate, invert or resist
moralities they hold as conventional.
As
such, it presents
us
with a route to s tudying
ho w o ur diverse everyd ay wa ys of living identities and selves intro duc e new cultural
conve ntions an d m oralities.
Sarah Pink
Department of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
Loughborough LE l l 3T U
U K
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