Sovereign Dupes? Navigating Cleanliness Conventions in Everyday Life
2019 (English)In: Abstract Book: Europe and Beyond: Boundaries, Barriers and Belonging, European Sociological Association , 2019, p. 1148-148Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]
Conventions are part of everyday life; we are surrounded by representations of what we should aspire to from many different sources. If resource intensive practices are regularly represented as conventional, these potentially become naturalised and unsustainable consumption will increase. Understanding how conventions interact with everyday practices is thus fundamental in tackling unsustainable consumption. To gain new insights into how representations and conventions interact, this paper explores how people respond to cleanliness representations in Swedish media. Cleanliness is chosen as a case for its role in accelerating water and energy consumption (Shove, 2003), and Sweden as cleanliness activities are in line with this upward trend (Jack, 2017). In this paper focus groups read magazines, discuss content and how this relates to their lives. Participants perceive cleanliness as being intertwined with a host of co- conventions such as freshness, health, femininity, masculinity, self-presentation, sustainability, et cetera. Participants have strategies to receive and resist representations, and are especially averse to representations that they suspect are meant to increase consumerism. Dilemmas for participants do not arise from deciding when or how to receive or resist. The real dilemmas arise when trying to integrate conventions into everyday life given the multiplicity of meaning around cleanliness, as well as new challenges around social stratification and sustainability. Participants see conventions as influencing wider society, but see themselves as individuals critically interacting with discourse, a sovereign dupe juxtaposition. Sovereign dupes critically perceive conventions and conscientiously object to those that are deemed oppressive, but also desire participation in wider society to positively construct everyday life in their own and the world’s best interests.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
European Sociological Association , 2019. p. 1148-148
Keywords [en]
Cleanliness, Consumption, Conventions, Norms, Water, Energy, Sustainability, Sovereign Dupe
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-11618Local ID: 30800OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-11618DiVA, id: diva2:1408662
Conference
European Sociological Conference, Manchester, UK (20-23 august 2019)
2020-02-292020-02-292020-11-03Bibliographically approved