Page 24 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

Concepts and theories of everyday and ordinary life 15

exciting, more conventionally ‘cultural’ interests (music, films, books,
the leading edge of fashion).
(Couldry 2000a: 53)
In broad outline, this is important, although I will also suggest that it is
also the case that topics such as music and film can be studied in different ways
in the context of a theory of ordinary life. It is significant that Couldry’s main
point here has also been made in other more sociological and anthropological
contexts that have focused on the study of consumption.
A good example of this is in the work of Gronow and Warde (2001a: 3),
who argue that:
The theories of consumption inherited from the last decade of scholarly
inquiry have particular emphases, on choice and freedom, taste and
lifestyle, identity and differentiation, image and appearance, transgres-
sion and carnival. However, these considerations left out a good deal of
the substantive field of consumption. Those actions which required little
reflection, which communicate few social messages, which play no role
in distinction, and which do not excite much passion or emotion, were
typically ignored.
Gronow and Warde (2001b) in accord with this view edited a text that
sought to address the way in which too much emphasis had been placed on:
• extraordinary rather than ordinary items
• conspicuous rather than inconspicuous consumption
• individual choice rather than contextual and collective restraint
• conscious rational decision-making rather than routine, conventional
and repetitive conduct
• decisions to purchase rather than practical contexts of appropriation and
use
• commodified rather than other types of exchange
• considerations of personal identity rather than collective identification
(Gronow and Warde 2001a: 4).
To a very large extent I share the view of Gronow and Warde, however, as
with the point made with respect to Couldry, there is a further dimension,
which is that activities and forms that have previously been considered as
extraordinary can be considered in ordinary ways. Thus, it is not that attention
needs to be paid to ‘ordinary items’ such as ‘petrol for the car, the electricity for
the light and the water for use in the new bathroom suite’ (Gronow and Warde
2001a: 4), but forms and practices concerned with music and fashion might
be considered in new ways. Furthermore, while collective identification is
important, it is not to substitute for the analysis of modes of individual per-
sonal experience as I have suggested earlier. Thus, in many respects I continue
to argue for the interaction of the ordinary and the extraordinary and the
collective and the individual. I will have more to say on this below, but it is
made in a discussion of radio (Longhurst et al. 2001) and can show the com-
plexities of the relationships between the individual and the social, the
ordinary and the extraordinary. A good way of showing this is through the