The development of self-tracking technologies has resulted in a burst of research considering how self-tracking practices manifest themselves in everyday life. Based on a 5-month-long photo ...elicitation study of Danish self-trackers, we argue that no matter how committed people might be to tracking their activities, their use of self-tracking technologies can be best described as episodic rather than continuous. Using Annemarie Mol’s theoretical framework for understanding care practices as a lens, we show how episodic use can be interpreted through the logic of care. By using self-tracking devices episodically, users employ strategies of care in a way that can be productive and useful. These strategies often come in conflict with the logics of choice that underlie the design of many self-tracking technologies. We argue that this has consequences for the way self-tracking devices need to be imagined, designed, and introduced as part of workplace and insurance-type tracking programs.
This paper considers the value of using interviews to research routine practices. Interviewing could easily be framed as inappropriate for this task, either because such practices are too difficult ...for respondents to talk about as a result of having sedimented down into unthinking forms of embodied disposition or because this method is out of step with a current enthusiasm for research styles that do not focus unduly on the representational. The discussion starts with how some key proponents of social practice theory have characterised the possibility of talking with people about these matters before turning to my own experience with two interview projects that attempted to do so inside city offices and older person households. I conclude that people can often talk in quite revealing ways about actions they may usually take as a matter of course and offer suggestions about how to encourage them.
This paper explores the ways in which social space is produced through the development of horizontal power relations in public spaces that function as fields of conflict. Through a six month long ...ethnographic study, it focuses on the production of exclusionary territories and their contestation by collective and individual non-institutional actors through the production of inclusionary counter-territories in two public spaces in central Athens (Greece), namely, Exarcheia and Agios Panteleimonas Squares. Key findings include (1) the decisive role of everyday unintentional, non-collective productions of space which are in both sites difficult to be overturned, even through collective action, (2) the differentiated characteristics of conflicts developed over and in public space and their influence on collective claims for control, and (3) indications that power relations in urban public space enclose and are built upon contrasting practices and territories that can only be traced and analyzed at the level of everyday life.
This paper seeks to bridge the divisive split between advocates of trauma-focused and psychosocial approaches to understanding and addressing mental health needs in conflict and post-conflict ...settings by emphasizing the role that daily stressors play in mediating direct war exposure and mental health outcomes. The authors argue that trauma-focused advocates tend to overemphasize the impact of direct war exposure on mental health, and fail to consider the contribution of stressful social and material conditions (daily stressors). Drawing on the findings of recent studies that have examined the relationship of both war exposure and daily stressors to mental health status, a model is proposed in which daily stressors partially mediate the relationship of war exposure to mental health. Based on that model, and on the growing body of research that supports it, an integrative, sequenced approach to intervention is proposed in which daily stressors are first addressed, and specialized interventions are then provided for individuals whose distress does not abate with the repair of the social ecology.
Communities living with nuclear infrastructures have widely been positioned as quiescent and accepting of the risks posed. Drawing on ethnographic data collected in 2008 in the village of Seascale, ...which neighbours the UK’s Sellafield nuclear site, and on recent thinking on nuclear and toxic geographies, this paper troubles the idea of nuclear quiescence. In doing so, it critically engages with a long tradition of geographical research on nuclear communities, much of which adopts a risk‐perception paradigm, foregrounding the presence (or absence) of localised concern. Within this body of work, interest has centred on the apparent paradox that those spatially exposed are also most quiescent, pointing to the play of economic dependency, risk denial, and familiarity with nuclear infrastructure. This paper addresses the slow violence inherent in living on with nuclear infrastructure: drawn‐out effects and affects of nuclearity on place that are barely visible in the routines of everyday life. I locate these expressions of social and geographic damage in techno‐political relations that obscure the exceptionalism of the nuclear industry. The analysis challenges passive renderings of toxic victimhood by emphasising modes of pragmatic resistance – subtle and contingent ways in which residents challenge the identity and structural relations of being nuclear. I stress the need for geographers to find alternative ways of theorising the unjust relationship between nuclear economies, infrastructures, and places in situations of political‐economic dependency and domination. I argue that policy instruments aimed at securing social justice in nuclear infrastructure planning will need to more fully, and openly, grapple with questions around the socio‐political relations of care that might sustain a ‘good life’ for places that have very long histories and even longer futures with toxicity.
This paper draws on ethnographic data collected in 2008 in the village of Seascale, geographically and historicallylinked to the UK’s Sellafield nuclear site, to challenge the idea of nuclear quiescence. It addresses the slow violence inherent in living on with nuclear infrastructure and makes clear the techno‐political relations and practices that underpin these protracted forms of damage. The analysis reveals the partial, pragmatic resistance offered by the residents to the toxic identities and relations imposed on them.
Everyday life expands the debates about the role of capitalist production relations in the production of space and urbanisation to everyday life practices. The digital space has become part of ...everyday life with extensive use of social media by individuals and institutions as a key communication sphere. Dwelling on these, this paper explores the role of the digital space in the processes of the production of space and the role of the networked practices of local governments within those processes. Investigating the practices of local governments and their engagement with individuals opens up areas of exploration for everyday life, local governance and institutional politics. The paper explores these via two case studies about acts of everyday life: holiday-making during the re-running of an election campaign and New Year's Eve celebrations in Turkey. It discusses the dialectical relationship between the lived space and the conceived space (Lefebvre, 1991) and how everyday politics submerges with everyday life via the practices of local governments by focusing on the networked (Castells, 2004) engagements among local governments and with ordinary citizens through the use of social media. It concludes that the digital space acts as a conduit where the conceived and the lived are submerged.
•The study offers a novel approach to the production of space by bringing the ‘digital front’ into the debates.•It brings together Social Network Analysis, and textual and visual content analyses by adopting these on Twitter data.•The study suggests that networked practices on social media become a part of the production of space from the digital front.
This article contributes to the literature on migration aspirations by examining their temporal dimensions and capacity to shape and be reshaped through migration. Drawing on qualitative research ...with Chinese migrants in New Zealand, we unpack the shifting character of aspirations to migrate in relation to three dimensions: everyday times; individual lifetimes; and institutional times. Utilising this temporally sensitive theoretical approach, the article shows that migration aspirations do not occur at one time – before migration – or across one duration – but rather articulate with multiple temporalities ranging from the intensity or slowness of everyday life, through appropriate progression through life courses, to the broader vistas of institutional and geo-historical time. Migration aspirations are hence necessarily temporally distributed rather than located in a singular chronological instance, or only in relation to a linear arrangement of past–present–future, and as a result, we argue for greater attention on the generation and reconfiguration of aspirations across time.
This paper joins in with the discussion on the temporalities of rural gentrification. Based on a case-study in the rural town of Ağlasun in South-West Anatolia, Turkey, we compare the influx of ...diverse groups of seasonal gentrifiers (second home users, students, tourists) and its material and experiential effects. Although actual material displacement was generally found to be limited, experiential displacement pressure did differ amongst the three groups. Our findings indicate the importance of the temporal dimensions of gentrification in understanding its differential effects. We identified four key dimensions which determined the effects and perceptions of seasonal gentrification in Ağlasun: The three groups did not only differ according to the periodicity of their migration, but also in their rhythms of everyday life. In addition, the particularity of our case study revealed the importance of two additional temporal dimensions: the impermanence of gentrifiers’ residence, as well as the historical sequence of events gentrification is embedded in. Both significantly influence the evaluation of gentrification’s costs and benefits by long-term residents.
•Emerging economies experience various forms of seasonal gentrification.•Housing displacement is less of an issue than displacement pressure or cost/benefit distribution.•Temporal dimensions of gentrification influence the perception of seasonal gentrification.•Gentrification’s temporality includes periodicity, rhythms, sequences and impermanence.
Autistic traits are associated with frequent psychological distress, suicidal ideation, and everyday functional challenges. These associations may be especially prominent in women. Some women with ...autistic traits “camouflage” feelings of awkwardness in typical social situations by effortfully engaging in expected social behaviors. We explored camouflaging because emerging evidence posits an association between camouflaging behaviors and poorer outcomes related to mental health, daily functioning, and access to mental health care. We recruited a sample of 58 women (age M = 25 years; IQ M = 115) who reported that they find social situations confusing and who scored high on a measure of broad autistic traits (Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire score > 3). The majority of participants reported significant levels of psychological distress, suicidal ideation, and daily functioning difficulties. Regression models showed that camouflaging efforts (Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire) and autistic traits (Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition) modestly but significantly predicted psychological distress and functional challenges, respectively. In a subgroup of participants with high Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire scores, camouflaging scores were significantly associated with psychological distress and functional challenges. Camouflaging may help predict when clinicians should be concerned about higher mental health distress in autistic women and may be beneficial to measure as part of a comprehensive, multimethod assessment of mental health in women who report difficulties fitting into social situations.
Lay Abstract
Women who try to hide or “camouflage” their autistic traits are likely to report that they feel distressed, think of suicide, and/or struggle to function in everyday life. We asked 58 women with autistic traits to complete questionnaires about camouflaging and mental health. Most of these women did not have a formal diagnosis of autism, yet a majority reported that they camouflaged autistic traits, and a large majority reported significant mental health challenges. Some researchers have suggested that women with autistic traits are more likely than autistic men to experience mental health challenges because women may try more to “fit in” socially by camouflaging their autistic traits. Analyses showed that camouflaging was associated with feeling distressed (depressed, anxious, and/or stressed). For women who reported above-average levels of camouflaging, camouflaging was also associated with having thoughts about suicide and struggling to function in everyday life. Trying to camouflage autistic traits was associated with mental health challenges, regardless of whether those traits were very mild or more severe. The findings of this study may influence how mental health professionals evaluate and treat women with autistic traits.
This article addresses the methodological challenge of capturing and comparing children’s experiences of everyday life by using a novel rhythmanalysis approach to explore the experiences of a small ...sample (N = 16) of home based children aged 7–10 in England and Greece during the 2020 global lockdown. The children kept a 1 day diary in which they recorded their activities and feelings at regular intervals during their waking hours. The data collected indicates that the children’s lives were both disrupted and synchronised during this period, and highlights how their individual experiences were interconnected in time and space by shared rhythms which underpinned the patterns of their day. The paper highlights the utility of the specially designed rhythmanalysis data collection tool and analytical approach for future comparative international studies of children’s everyday lives.
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