Home Sweet Messy Home: Managing Symbolic Pollution

Abstract

Hanging up our coat, tidying our desk, classifying our books, what meanings do these mundane practices convey? Extending Mary Douglas's work, this article investigates tidiness from the angle of symbolic pollution. Based on photo-elicitation, it shows that, similarly to symbolic pollution described at a macro-social level, tidiness depends on two conditions, namely, a set of classifications and the dangerous transgression of these classifications. However, at a micro-social level, individuals negotiate boundaries between classifications in order to cope with symbolic pollution. Consumers define their domestic classifications through a juxtaposition of micro-practices, which does not necessarily create a hierarchically ordered system but which enables these consumers to avoid anomalies and transgressions. Furthermore, respondents are willing to break tidiness rules on specific occasions because the danger-beliefs associated with transgression are context-dependent. This analysis of tidiness gives new insights into materiality, emphasizing the cultural meaning of ordering one's possessions.H anging up our coat, sorting out papers on our desk, classifying our books, storing our groceries in the kitchen, why are these everyday and apparently normal practices so important to study? What specific meanings do these mundane daily activities convey? According to Mary Douglas (1967), these ordinary practices deploy our system of symbolic classification, that is, the social assignment of things to their place. Putting things in their place is more than placing them in a specific physical Delphine Dion (dion.iae@univ-paris1.fr) is associate professor of marketing, Sorbonne Business School, Paris. Ouidade Sabri (ouidade.sabri @u-pec.fr) is professor of marketing, Paris-Est University, UPEC, Créteil, France. Valérie Guillard (valerie.guillard@dauphine.fr) is associate professor of marketing, University of Paris Dauphine, Paris. The authors thank the JCR editorial team for their very helpful and insightful comments and particularly the associate editor for his remarkable involvement and suggestions. They would also like to thank Eric Arnould, Søren Askegaard, and Barry Babin for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this article. The authors wish to express their gratitude to the informants for sharing their time and aspects of their home and of their domestic lives. They are grateful for support provided by the Sorbonne Business School and the DRM research center at Paris Dauphine University.

Routines Disrupted: Reestablishing Security through Practice Alignment

“…Domesticity is reproduced in the home through practices creating conventional meanings of comfort, order, and efficiency (Dion, Sabri, and Guillard 2014). The convenient and easy cleaning of homes, bodies, and possessions depends on a material configuration of cheap and abundant water (Shove and Warde 2002).…”

Selfie appropriation by young British South Asian adults

“…For instance, they use the word to explain authentic Indian/Pakistani food/recipes. Being mindful of this fact, the translation was checked amongst the co-authors, who foreignized the translation, as suggested by Dion et al (2014). We tried to keep the tone of the statements the same and used some of the Hindi/Bengali words (e.g.…”

How much of too much? What inspections data say about residential clutter as a housing problem

“…Overall, despite attempts to better define diagnostic criteria for hoarding, critics of psychiatric definitions assert that many cases remain necessarily ambiguous (Maycroft, 2009). Hoarding and clutter must be understood as socially constructed problems that reflect, in part, the culturally negotiated meanings of home and tidiness (Cherrier & Ponnor, 2010;Dion, Sabri, & Guillard, 2014;Miller, 2008Miller, , 2011Young, 2002).…”