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Minotaurs and other Monsters: `Everyday Life' in Recent Social Theory

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the everyday among social theorists from Habermas and Giddens to de Certeau and Maffesoli. Taking Habermas as a benchmark, it is argued that recent accounts of the everyday in divergent traditions of analysis converge on two suspect theses: that of the everyday as `taken-for-granted' and that of the everyday as `living history'. These two theses are related to Minotaur-like concepts of the everyday that are hybrids of `form' and `substance'. It is suggested that three myths - of unity, life and resistance - give life to the Minotaur of the everyday. The Minotaur of the everyday thus carries a great weight of theoretical baggage and its monstrosity serves, paradoxically, to preserve the homogeneity and purity of the social domain. It is argued that the mythologies of the everyday can be dissolved if a more far-reaching and monstrous heterogeneity is allowed to the social (or socio-technical) world.

Key Words: Everyday life • Habermas • Maffesoli • nostalgia • socio-technical • vitalism

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