Part Of Everyday Routines Research Articles

More than Just Appearance: Management of Clothing-Related Odor in Everyday Life

Framed within Entwistle’s perspective of dress as “situated bodily practice” and olfactory impression management, we explored the topic of odor in clothing. A series of eight focus group interviews were used to explore the types of odors that can adhere to clothing, commonalities among clothing or textile properties that accentuate odor, and odor management practices to control, reduce or avoid odor building up in clothing. We found that many different sources of odor can permeate clothing fabrics and most odors are deemed unpleasant and unwanted. Odors arising from the body, particularly from sweat, were the most commonly cited source of odor. As part of everyday routines, individuals undergo a series of separate and interconnected odor management practices to prevent, control, or eliminate odor in their clothing. Among these, laundering clothing was the most common practice. However, individuals also attempted to control odor at the source, using the “sniff test” to assess odor and actively avoid certain items of clothing known to be persistently odorous. We also found that odor management included a progressive delegation of odorous clothing from one’s “civilized wardrobe” to other uses where odor may not matter or odor was unavoidable. It is clear that part of the embodied practice of selecting, wearing and caring for clothing, odor acts as a sign for interacting appropriately within the social world.

Making “good food” more practicable? The reconfiguration of alternative food provisioning in the online world

Food production, distribution and consumption are necessary dimensions of existence and simultaneously exposed to a number of ecological and social fragilities, especially in the contemporary crisis. The reconfiguration of unsustainable systems of food provisioning is thus a priority, geared towards resilience, ecology and equity. Alternative forms of procurement have been part of this effort and a debate is now emerging on whether digital platforms might promote access to them. Yet, an in-depth interrogation of the ways in which digital food consumption becomes part of everyday routines is largely missing. The objective of our article is to understand if and how digitalisation makes alternative provisioning more “practicable”, allowing consumers to engage in what they consider healthier and more sustainable food practices. In so doing, we also look at platforms’ transformative potentials. Their design and ongoing practicing, in fact, not only capture existing needs, but actively shape the overall meanings, material organisation and embodied interactions with everyday food. Our analysis is based on 23 in-depth ethnographic and multimedia interviews with consumers living in Milan, who utilise online alternative forms of food provisioning.

Behaviour settings theory applied to domestic water use in Nigeria: A new conceptual tool for the study of routine behaviour

RationaleMany behaviours relevant to public health are part of everyday routines. However, few tools exist to study such behaviours. Here we re-introduce the behaviour setting, an ecological psychological concept developed in the 1950s, as an approach to the study of routine behaviour. The setting concept bridges theoretical and applied approaches in sociology, psychology and social practice; its components include stage, infrastructure, props, roles, norms, competencies, objectives and resultant routines. MethodsWe applied settings theory to health-related water use behaviour in rural Nigeria. We captured the dimensions of water use behaviour settings in 23 households at varying distances from newly-introduced kiosks selling purified water. ResultsWe found that routines concerning drinking, laundering, dish washing and handwashing were stable in their settings, varying little between households or by type of water source. Hygiene routines were suboptimal but drinking water was carefully segregated. The majority of water use behaviour was governed, not by an immediate desire to maximise health, but by long-established routines embedded in the social, technical and physical environment. Water kiosks are making only marginal improvements to the quantity and quality of water being used in homes. ConclusionsImproving public health will require the disruption of settings, for example, through bringing water infrastructure directly to the home, through the sale of new props that facilitate hygienic routines, or in the disruption of gender roles via the promotion of new norms. Settings are an ecologically valid, meso-level theoretical approach that link social and techno-physical environmental factors to behaviour. They provide a comprehensive framework within which to judge avenues for changing routine behaviours. The behaviour settings tool we developed was easy to use, provided a systematic means of capturing the determinants of routine behaviour, and the findings offered insight into methods for disrupting such behaviour.

Social media and the doping of sport surveillance

AbstractReviewing literatures from sociology of sport, surveillance, and internet studies, we consider the processes by which social media regulate the behavior of athletes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the current regulation of anti‐doping in elite sport where athletes' social media postings have been highly critical of fellow competitors. As social media becomes increasingly blended into everyday routines, this form of surveillance extends the gaze of those who watch and increases the pressure for online disclosure while making traditional distinctions between formal and informal social control less meaningful. Contemporary social media acts as a form of social control that has become more preemptive and grassroots. When athletes internalize surveillance and disclosure as consistent with their professional norms, the power relationships that surround sport performance become increasingly difficult to discern. This article helps to illuminate the ways in which surveillance through social media have become a part of everyday routines, extends and amplifies the power of more traditional agents of surveillance, and calls for continued research into the role of contemporary social media as a surveillance practice.