Making something out of nothing: Breaching everyday life by standing still in a public place

Stanley, Steven M.; Smith, Robin; Jones, Joshua; Ford, Eleanor

doi:10.1177/0038026120940616

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…All these concepts of mindful living connect to the currently glorified ideal of 'slow living,' which can be interpreted as a response to the accelerated imperatives of neoliberal capitalism in their orientation toward growth and efficiency: 'To take time, is to take time out of a regular routine dominated by work and characterized by productivity' (Tam, 2008, p. 214). This is also closely linked to the ideal of 'doing nothing' (Stanley et al, 2020) which is gaining more and more social and political significance. In mindfulness discourse, the pace of contemporary life is criticized frequently.…”

Section: Mindfulness Practice and Discourse: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paradoxes of mindfulness: The specious promises of a contemporary practice

Sauerborn

Sökefeld

Neckel

2022

The Sociological Review

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The growing popularity of Western secular mindfulness programs in recent decades has frequently been criticized by sociologists. Mindfulness in this line of argument is viewed as the quintessential neoliberal and capitalist technology of the self. However, this – quite justified – functionalist critique does not account for how mindfulness is increasingly being used to escape growth driven-based optimization pressure. We therefore show, on the basis of our extensive empirical field research, how mindfulness is negotiated as a response to contemporary crises and social change, how this phenomenon can be understood as a symptomatic, contemporary cultural phenomenon. From our ethnographic data from 121 hours of participant observation in mindfulness courses in Germany and six interviews with mindfulness teachers, as well as analysis of relevant literature, we reconstruct four paradoxes of mindfulness. With reference to this, we show to what extent mindfulness is a program of specious promises. For in the final analysis, the broad accessibility and popularity of the program are based on the fact that its application is just as paradoxical as the social problems to which it promises to be a solution.

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Section: Mindfulness Practice and Discourse: An Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paradoxes of mindfulness: The specious promises of a contemporary practice

Sauerborn

Sökefeld

Neckel

2022

The Sociological Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The normal experience of a place perhaps never appears so clearly as when it is disturbed. The emphasis on disruptions goes back to Garfinkel’s (1984) “breaching experiments.” To study what makes up the “‘seen but unnoticed’ background of common understandings,” Garfinkel (1984:37) suggests researchers “start with familiar scenes and ask what can be done to make trouble” (for a recent example, see Stanley et al 2020). The simultaneous study of familiarization and defamiliarization processes seems to be the most effective approach to exploring familiarity as a practical sense of place.…”

Section: How Can Familiarity Be Operationalized?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity as a Practical Sense of Place

Felder

2021

Sociological Theory

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Familiarity is an elusive concept, capturing what we know intimately and what we only recognize from having seen before. This article aims to disambiguate these interpretations by proposing a sociological conceptualization of familiarity as a dynamic relationship to the world that develops over time and through experience and that allows one to progressively disattend from what appears as “usual.” Focusing on how urban environments and their human entities become familiar and stop being familiar, I propose that familiarity be thought of as an ongoing relational and interactional achievement, allowing us to focus on our daily activities while relying on a practical knowledge of our surroundings. The conceptualization process unfolds via five questions: What is familiarity? Where does it come from? What threatens it? What does it produce? How can it be operationalized and studied empirically?

show abstract

“…The emphasis on disruptions goes back to Garfinkel's (1984) "breaching experiments." To study what makes up the "'seen but unnoticed' background of common understandings," Garfinkel (1984:37) suggests researchers "start with familiar scenes and ask what can be done to make trouble" (for a recent example, see Stanley et al 2020). The simultaneous study of familiarization and defamiliarization processes seems to be the most effective approach to exploring familiarity as a practical sense of place.…”

Section: How Can Familiarity Be Operationalized?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity as a practical sense of place

Felder¹

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Familiarity is an elusive concept, capturing what we know intimately and what we only recognize from having seen before. This article aims to disambiguate these interpretations by proposing a sociological conceptualization of familiarity as a dynamic relationship to the world that develops over time and through experience, and that allows one to progressively disattend from what appears as “usual.” Focusing on how urban environments and their human entities become familiar and stop being familiar, I propose that familiarity be thought of as an ongoing relational and interactional achievement, allowing us to focus on our daily activities while relying on a practical knowledge of our surroundings. The conceptualization process unfolds via five questions: What is familiarity? Where does it come from? What threatens it? What does it produce? How can it be operationalized and studied empirically?

show abstract

Making something out of nothing: Breaching everyday life by standing still in a public place

Cited by 7 publications

References 32 publications

Paradoxes of mindfulness: The specious promises of a contemporary practice

Paradoxes of mindfulness: The specious promises of a contemporary practice

Familiarity as a Practical Sense of Place

Familiarity as a practical sense of place

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