Washing in a Bowl, Bathing, and Showering in Urban Poland
Studying the Dynamics of Practice
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20239267 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joanna Zalewska (0000-0002-2605-669X, Maria Grzegorzewska Academy of Special Education, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-22 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Home Cultures (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1740-6315 • E-ISSN: 1751-7427 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17406315.2026.2687167 |
| OpenAlex | W7166127802 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 20 |
Drawing on practice theory and on retrospective in-depth interviews with 24 couples and four individuals, this article discusses the dynamics of practice, using the example of transitions in body cleanliness practice in urban Poland between the postwar period and the 2010s. The transitions in washing unfold across interconnected practices that take particular forms due to the relations between them and between their elements: 1) in the postwar period, the tension between hygienic cleanliness and lack of modern infrastructure was resolved by a ‘mobile’ element of competences: physical strength in occasional bathing or economy of effort in daily washing in a bowl; 2) in the socialist period, washing was merging with the practice of domestication of technology, and modern body cleanliness practice emerged (daily bathing); 3) in the capitalist period, bathing became infused with pleasure and was merging with leisure practice; 4) the coexistence of bathing and showering was socially dividing
Dynamics (music) · Variety (cybernetics) · Crafts, Textile, and Design · Fashion and Cultural Textiles · Social and Cultural Dynamics
Communism and Consumerism
Solo female visitors in museum tourism
The Site of the Social
The Dynamics of Social Practice
The Construction of Normal Expectations
Bathroom Transformation
Towards Modern Laundry Practice in Urban Socialist Poland
Household consumption and environmental change
Condensing Practices
When materiality ‘bites back’
Comfort, modernity and gender equality at home. Discourses on the modernization of the family and household in Poland from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1970s
Explaining Showering
And it all happened in our lifetime” – progress and comfort
Dangerous Modernities? Innovative Technologies and the Unsettling of Agriculture in Rural Poland
Modernity and Ambivalence
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |