These and other accounts of long-range societal transformation generally point in the direction of growing cultural and temporal fragmentation. In the next section, I turn this framing around and instead ask about the kinds of complexes and configurations of practice-time that might have these shattering effects and that might generate seemingly new challenges of coordination.
Coordinating Everyday Life
Some forms of coordination and synchronization emerge by virtue of what Zerubavel refers to as the ‘social fact’ (Zerubavel 1979: 107) of a sociotemporal order that exists beyond the individuals whose lives are organized and whose experiences are recalled and calibrated around it. Others require more deliberate planning and intervention. The significance of each form and the relation between them arguably depends upon the sum total of practice-time profiles within any one society, and on the manner in which they intersect.
Despite an apparent erosion of collective rhythms and schedules, the spreading of the day (thanks to electric lighting, and more recently to 24-hour opening) and the multiplication of discrete episodes, the extent of sociotemporal coordination remains impressive. The ‘shoulders’ of the London rush hour are getting broader and broader (according to Transport for London, the morning ‘peak’ now runs from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m.), yet Wright’s account of the rhythm of this city remains instantly recognizable. In his words,
Nine tenths of [the working force], despite some attempt to stagger office hours, start homeward within the same 90 minutes, queuing for buses in vacuous resignation, squeezing in indecent intimacy in the Underground, rather than linger awhile in park or café; for who will await the roomy 6:30 if he can just find standing room in the 5:45. (Wright 1968: 216, cited in Zerubavel 1981: 66)
Zerubavel highlights the infrastructural consequences of Wright’s description of the ‘almost complete identity between personal and collective schedules and rhythms’, and the problems this presents for urban designers faced with ‘unbearably congested peak periods around rush hours in the streets and in the public transportation systems, around mealtimes at restaurants, and during weekends and holidays on the road and on the beaches’. He goes on to note ‘the implications of temporal symmetry as a way of life on the consumption of energy (electricity, heating gas, and so on) (Zerubavel 1981: 66), and it is indeed the case that many elements of material infrastructure – including ovens, cars, reservoirs and power stations<sup>6</sup> – are sized in such a way as to cope with peak demands (Wilhite and Lutzenhiser 1999).
Everyday Practice
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