The numerous tasks and routines that shape our daily existence can seem mundane, even invisible-and yet they play an extremely powerful role in structuring and reproducing society. Exploring Everyday Life casts light on these so-called trivialities, serving as both a guide to the invisible world of the everyday and an instruction manual for first-time explorers. Ehn, Lofgren, and Wilk demonstrate how to use a broad array of ethnographic tools to discover, map, and document new and unexplored territories and guide readers through the process of cultural analysis. Their concrete examples shed light on how a study or paper assignment can evolve and point to how cultural analysis of everyday life can be practically applied in business, government, and other arenas outside of academia.
1-Hidden Worlds Finding the tools From idea to finished product The need for a cultural perspective Analytical strategies Structure of the book 2-The importance of small things The first step: getting going The second step: searching for literature The third step: collecting material The fourth step: the analysis The fifth step: writing 3-Making the familiar strange Making a first attempt Looking for entrances To avoid the predictable Choosing methodological entrances New questions and surprising answers Return to the past A life-history perspective The strange home The home as an art installation The importance of details and activities The advantages of limitation 4-Sharing a meal Table manners The hidden world of the dinner table Forming a family meal Power at the table Class and family history Doing mealtime ethnography Meals as models 5-Do you remember Facebook? Exploring media in everyday life Beginning at the end Analog and digital living Media taking place Virtual intimacy Are you there? Follow the Objects 6-Catching a mood Locating the setting Analytical approaches Touring the senses The station as a sensorium Changing moods Describing atmospheres Intimate moods Changing tracks Sensing the World 7-Crafting wood and words Ethnographic writing Making things with words Autoethnographic writing Describing non-verbal experience Do it by feel Writing DIY: three versions Manual Story Analysis Working knowledge The importance of failures Working and Writing 8-Demystifying fieldwork The classic style Making changes to the classic mold The jungle ideal Where is the field now? Organizing information Past, present, future 9-Taking cultural analysis out into the world The surprise effect Open fieldwork What's this thing about culture? A double cultural analysis Learning to communicate Time discipline and teamwork Three ways of surprising a client So what? The critical edge References
