The transformation of the Norwegian notion of everyday life

Abstract

This article argues that the current prominence of the notion of “everyday life” is tied to a particular stage in the development of modern secularized society and that, therefore, the notion should not be applied cross‐culturally or historically without careful qualification. This argument relies on an examination of the transformation of the notion of everyday life in Norway, based on long‐term fieldwork among working‐class families as well as on analyses of social planning and social science documents. During the 1980s, “everyday life” (hverdagslivet) became a central notion in Norwegian society. Once part of a temporal polarity between the everyday and the festival, it has now become part of a somewhat different polarity, that between everyday life and the sociopolitical system. The fact that the notion's old connotations (drudgery and plainness) coexist to some extent with its new ones (closeness, wholeness, and integration) makes everyday life a rich and potent political symbol. The potency of a political symbol thus rests on what in this article is termed the “span of ambiguity” ofits associated meanings. [political symbolism, history, local community, everyday life, home, Scandinavia]