The Geography of Everyday Life

Abstract

At first sight, everyday life may not appear to be a subject worthy of academic investigation. When we think about what we do in everyday life, we tend to think of mundane, routine activities (often seen as chores) which we all appear to do. Indeed, because of its routine nature not many of us think about our everyday lives very much at all. Of course, we do ponder about segments of our lives — a family event, problems at work, making a journey — but as soon as we bring these activities into our consciousness they tend to be taken from everyday life and given their own distinctive and special meaning and status. But what we should recognise is that these distinctions are only seen as distinctions in the context of our everyday lives and concerns. We thus treat everyday life as unproblematic and unimportant at our peril.