Introduction

Copyright permission has been sought but has not been received, therefore this material will remain restricted.Before you begin reading this book, take a moment to think about its title: Interpreting Everyday Culture. What kind of project does this title suggest? What’s the definition of ‘everyday’, and what sort of ‘culture’ might characterize it? And, whatever definition we agree on, is ‘everyday culture’, in any case, amenable to interpretation? Or does the very ordinariness and taken-for-grantedness of the culture of our day-to-day lives make it inherently resistant to academic elucidation? Evidently, since you hold in your hands an entire book written by us on this subject, we’re going to try to convince you that there is indeed much to be gained from subjecting everyday culture to intellectual scrutiny. But we want to start out by drawing your attention to what a strange, slippery, and paradoxical concept ‘everyday culture’ is, despite its deceptive obviousness. Consequently, the interpretation of everyday culture is often a counterintuitive -even unsettling- endeavour. But in the pages that follow, we hope to show you how it’s also a very rewarding project, one that can lead to unexpected and illuminating insight into the surprisingly complex significance of all the things we do, day after day, while barely noticing that we’re doing them