The paradoxical habits of busyness and the complexity of intimate time-space

Bibliographic Data

ID3978164
AuthorsClare Holdsworth (0000-0002-9064-3493, Keele University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume23
Issue4
Pages485-501
Publication date2022-05-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2020.1769167
OpenAlexW3026046144
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited40

Talk of busyness is everywhere. Obsessions with being busy mediate the temporalities of working and family life. The assumption that busyness is universal suggests a unified experience of temporality in the 21st century. This paper responds to this normative assertion through detailing the diversity of busyness detailed in three one-day diaries collated by the UK Mass Observation Archive on the theme of time pressure. The narrative analysis of the diaries responds to empirical and theoretical accounts of temporal variation to situate busyness in time-space. This analysis makes two contributions to scholarship on the geographies of temporality. First, it details how the negotiation of intimate time-space is framed within wider structural power relations. Second, it develops interpretations of habit though describing how everyday routines anticipate time pressure. Busy habits do more than respond to the demands of time pressure, they are also tactics to hold the body still while simultaneously moving it forward

Assertion · Epistemology · Narrative · Negotiation · Normative · Political science · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Spacetime · Temporalities · Temporality · Theme (computing · Computer Science · Migration, Aging, and Tourism Studies · Night-time city culture · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

Tools

Open DOI