While some innovations add to the pressures of daily life (e.g. new practices have to be fitted into an already crowded schedule), others, like so-called ‘labour-saving technologies’, promise to release time for competing pursuits. Whether they have this effect or not (Cowan 1983; Hand and Shove 2007; Shove and Southerton 2000), the key point, at least in the context of the present discussion, is that such devices acquire value in relation to and as part of a struggle between competing practices. The nature of this struggle is coloured by the fact that concepts of effective accomplishment translate into seemingly necessary minutes of participation and powerful injunctions of timing. Although not undertaken with a discussion of time in mind, Kaufmann’s (1998) study of ‘Dirty Linen’ points to two time-critical aspects of the practice wars of daily life, these being an understanding of appropriate performance and a related sense of compulsion.
Everyday Practice
23