Additional information
by Elizabeth Shove (Author), Mika Pantzar (Author), Matt Watson (Author)
Everyday life is defined and characterized by the rise, transformation and fall of social practices. Using terminology that is both accessible and sophisticated, this book guides the reader through a multi-level analysis of this dynamic. The book provides discussion of real world examples such as the history of car driving and the emergence of frozen food, bringing abstract concepts to life and grounding them in empirical case-studies and new research. Demonstrating the relevance of social theory for public policy problems, the authors show that the everyday is the basis of social transformation.
Author Biography
Elizabeth Shove is professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. She has written widely on theories of practice, technology, consumption, environment and everyday life. She is co editor (with Frank Trentmann and Rick Wilk) of Time, consumption and everyday life: practices, materiality and culture, (Berg, 2009); co author, with Matt Watson, Martin Hand and Jack Ingram, of The Design of Everyday Life (Berg, 2007) and of Infrastructures of Consumption: Restructuring the Utility Industries, (Earthscan, 2005), with Bas van Vliet and Heather Chappells, and author of Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: the social organization of normality (Berg, 2003).
Mika Pantzar is research professor at the National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki. His current project, "The co-production of innovations - Towards an integrative theory of practice" is funded by the Academy of Finland and Helsinki School of Economics. Mika has published many articles in consumer research, design and technology studies, the rhetoric of economic policy, future studies and systems research, for example: Tools or toys. Inventing the Need for Domestic Appliances in Postwar and Postmodern Finland (Journal of Advertising, vol. 32, no. 1 (Spring 2003), p. 81-91), Domestication of Everyday Life Technology: Dynamic Views on the Social Histories of Artifacts (Design Issues, Vol 13, No. 3, (Autumn 1997): 52-65) and The growth of product variety - a myth? (Journal of Consumer Studies and Home Economics, (1992) Vol. 16, No. 4: 345-362). He has written two books in Finnish: Future Home (Otava, 2000) and Domestication of Technology (Tammi, 1996), which received awards from the Finnish Ministry of Education and the Finnish Science Council.
Matt Watson is Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Sheffield. In addressing empirical themes including consumption, waste and mobility, his work engages with a range of literatures including theorisations of practice and everyday life, science and technology and of the structures and processes of governing. He is co author, with Elizabeth Shove, Martin Hand and Jack Ingram, of The Design of Everyday Life (Berg, 2007).
