Paper short abstract:

One of the trivial scenes of everyday life is commodity shopping in supermarkets and shopping senters. In this survey we move into the shop to study how this space forms the steps and the formalized interaction between the store service and customers. How are such shopping behavior constructed?

Paper long abstract:

In this study, customers’ movements in store areas are studied with inspiration from the work of consumer researcher Arne Dulsrud and social geographer Jon Goff. Shopping involves a formalized superficial interaction between customers and store service. Shop behavior and conversation is seen through the lenses of sociologist Erwing Goffmann’s theories of role play and sociologist Louis Wirth’s theory of impersonal urban behavior.

The empirical base of the study is current observations, photographic studies of grocery stores and supermarkets and descriptions from the (NEG) Norwegian Ethnological Research Questionnaire on shopping. The questionnaire responses provide individual and subjective descriptions of how customers experenced shopping behavior and environments in the stores.

In today’s self-service stores the sale areas are designed to get customers to move around as much as possible to be exposed to the goods. The picking of goods are a lonely act and store service is often limited to a few polite phrases. Seen in a historical context this form of shopping behavior is relatively new. The transition from counter service to self-service during 1950 to 1970 in Norway meant that customers and shop assistants had to adopt to new ways of shopping behaviour. In the traditional shops the store counter was a visual center and marked a boundary between the customers and the goods. The store staff acted as an important intermediary between customer and goods. The store staff was trained to behave within a role of formalized standard phrases and practices that the customer was internalized into.

Paper short abstract:

In this presentation we will return to the classic essay ‘the Stranger’ to investigate a Danish volunteer initiative, where foreigners and older Danes are matched to socialize and talk Danish. Based on an ethnographic fieldwork, we describe the precarious work involved in the act of social bonding.

Paper long abstract:

In his classic essay “the Stranger – An Essay in Social Psychology” from 1944 the Austrian American sociologist Alfred Schutz describes the workings, challenges and insecurities facing a stranger wanting to join a new social group. However, to understand the stranger Schutz turns to the detailed mechanisms and layers of self-evident knowledge entailed in belonging to and maintaining the bonds of a social group. Schutz hereby details the cultural pattern peculiar to a social group, as well as the inherent routines, know-how and shared tacit knowledge involved in belonging to a specific social group. Through this description he exposes the challenges, constant questioning and ongoing work that is at play in meetings between strangers wanting to create social bonds.

In our presentation we will return to the insights from ‘the Stranger’ to investigate the Danish volunteer initiative Elderlearn, where foreigners, who want to practice and improve their Danish, and older Danes are matched to meet, socialize, and talk Danish to each other. Based on our ethnographic fieldwork carried out among Elderlearn volunteers, we highlight the amount of work, as well as emotional and practical engagements the volunteers invest in the acts of social bonding, and thus shed lights on key aspects of social life that is otherwise regarded as common sense and an everyday expertise i.e., ‘something we know how to do’.

Paper short abstract:

Activities like that of eating, are a repeated everyday practice. Throughout time, in every culture, people have consumed either traditional or modern meals, individually or in a group, in or out. Moreover, they have reworked and reshaped such activities, which I am going to explore in this paper.

Paper long abstract:

Everyday life happens ongoingly around us in an unstoppable flow of events, processes and things of different affordances and properties. One of most repeated practices in our everyday routine is the habit of eating, which is a fundamental social activity of creating and cementing relationships. The focus of this paper lies on the repetitive practices of eating/having a meal by Albanian families and individuals in Prishtina/Kosova, especially after the war (1998-1999). It is necessary to point out that Kosovans have undergone enormous political and social changes in general since the war that have directly impacted their everyday life, consequently not only the social life has been transformed, but routines have been changed, reinvented, and reshaped along with it too. Taking this into account, it is in my interest to observe everyday practices such as: cooking traditional or modern cuisine, sitting by (fixed) places around the dining table, serving food, having the basic or the grandest breakfast, lunch/dinner alone, with friends or family members, having a conversation or just eating, etc. For further explanation and deeper analysis, I raise the following questions: How has the social practice of eating returned to everyday routines after the war of 1998-99 in Kosovo? How (and what) gets cooked, eaten, and served in dining rooms in Kosovo? How do Kosovans rework cultural differences during meals?

To address the above-mentioned questions, this research requires to be qualitatively approached; therefore, the mostly used research-methods will be ethnography, ethnographic field notes, participant observation, and interviews.

Paper short abstract:

Routines reproduce society and thus play a powerful role. At the same time, they limit our viewpoints as the body, the place from which the world unfolds, repeats its paths. Coffee is an addictive psychoactive that is part of most Scandinavians routines. What viewpoints does coffee have to offer, and what is hidden from a caffeinated viewpoint?

Paper long abstract:

Even though coffee needs tropical climates to grow, Scandinavian coffee consumption is the highest in the world. Coffee permeates Swedish society writes ethnologist Renée Valeri (1991) and has been called Sweden’s national drink (Svensson 1970). How does coffee align so well with Scandinavian cultural life? Coffee is commonly reported to enhance wakefulness, effectiveness, and focus. Historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch claims that coffee, from the 18th century onward, infused ethics of rationality into the bodies of consumers, profoundly shaping modern working life (1993). A study by Gevalia states 85 percent of Swedes drink coffee. Coffee is regarded highly addictive and stays in the body up to two weeks after an intake, indicating that the majority of the Swedish population is constantly affected by caffeine. Drugs, including coffee, are simultaneously objects with potential to change the perception of the everyday, and cultural as well as corporeal parts of the very ability to perceive. Drugs are therefore a potential means for changing the boundaries of daily life, but simultaneously constructing new boundaries. Some are infamous for leading to unwanted changes - repetitive and inhibited life conditions - if excessively consumed. Illicit drugs are culturally perceived as add-ons, exterior artifacts, that by some are invited into their bodies, but by mainstream society and laws are kept at distance, outside of the nation, norms and schools for example. Coffee, conversely, has been described as a core feature of Swedish cultural life. How does this consumption affect vision, and what is consigned to the background?

Paper short abstract:

The tick season brings about special habits and routines for humans and companion animals. What are these habits, why do they occur and what is the purpose of them? This presentation addresses questions of habits and routines in relation to ticks, humans and companion animals in Finnish context.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 1990s, an increased knowledge of ticks and the danger to our health they may possess have changed many daily habits and routines for people living especially in the archipelago and along the coastline of Finland. With the climate change, the number of ticks and tick related diseases like TBE (tick-borne encephalitis) and Lyme disease have increased rapidly. The fear and risk of these diseases have had a profound impact on the everyday practices for humans but also for the relationship between humans and companion animals. The fear of ticks have also changed and continues to change the ways in which people spend time in nature and enjoy the outdoors.

The habits and routines affected by ticks is closely related to the tick season, which in Finland lasts from early Spring until late Autumn. During the season, ticks become active in search for blood meals. In my presentation, I want to address questions of how ticks influence human habits and everyday routines during the tick season. I also want to shed light on the changed habits among pet owners. What kind of habits and routines emerge and re-emerge during the tick season in both awaited and real confrontations with ticks? What kinds of strategies are adopted and what kinds of practices are people adapting to in order to protect both themselves and their companion animals from the risks of ticks?

The questions will be discussed in relation to questionnaires and newspaper articles.