Everyday Life

Non-Reductive Conceptions of Difference

“If ‘everyday life’ is going to provide a re-imagining of the study of culture…then it might need to put on hold the automatic explanatory value placed on accepted cultural differences. If cultural differences, such as gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity and so on, are going to be useful for the understanding of everyday life (and I assume that they would be) then there usefulness cannot be just presumed or taken for granted”(2). I am drawn to this quotation because of the conversation that occurred in our small group about whether or not Highmore wants to do away with the notion of difference in favor of commonality. From this quotation I take away the idea that Highmore places a high value on differences between people, that differences are “useful for the understanding of everyday life.” In addition Highmore adds that the identity categories normally used to “classify” people should not be assumed to mean the same thing to each person that may characterize or be characterized by these identity categories. In other words these identities black, brown, white, lesbian, upper-class etc should not be essentialized and fixed as having the same meaning in all contexts for all people. However, while writing these words I see myself alluding to a more nuanced version of differences, as opposed to contemplating his idea of commonality. However, on the next page Highmore suggests that it is the “negotiation” between differences and commonalities that is necessary. So that while we may visibly see, and viscerally feel differences, in our selves, and between ourselves and others, that these differences may not have to be divisive. This may indeed sound a bit “cum-by-ah,” but I do think that we often tend to solely focus on differences, without being at all considerate of ways we might be similar (not the same) as someone else. However, I also think that in order to find commonalities people must be willing to see the things that may mark our bodies as different and be self-reflexive in understanding how power and privilege work in everyday interactions. I think this idea touches on much of what Judith Hamera is saying when she states her second thesis: “Reductive conceptions of everyday practices ignore the social, historical, and political realities that enable or constrain communication”(14). I believe Hamera is echoing Highmore’s sentiments that people’s lived realities are more rich and complex then the labeling of differences can account for. While she is not specifically calling for an examination of commonalities, she is also not set on simply identifying differences, but on examining their layers. Like Highmore, Hamera wants to look at the rich complexities of everyday practices, which, reductive accounts of everyday-ness ignore. Hamera definitely wants differences to be a component of analyses of “the everyday”, however, like Highmore; Hamera is interested in a non-reductive view of the everyday but a more generative approach. I think that this can prove to be a useful too for examining the everyday, one that accounts for difference, but doesn’t settle for it to be simply “the way things are” without the potentiality for things to grow, change, and challenge the status quo.