Domestic Cultures

Although ‘home’ is central to most people’s experience of everyday life, the meaning of home is often taken for granted. In this accessible and student-friendly introduction to domestic cultures, Joanne Hollows surveys current thinking and approaches to demonstrate why home is so central to our lives.

Domestic Cultures examines which meanings and values have been associated with home and demonstrates how these have been transformed and reworked in different historical contexts. The book shows that while certain meanings of domestic culture are frequently produced ‘for us’, these can be negotiated and resisted through everyday home-making practices. She demonstrates how elements of domesticity have been dislocated and mobilized within public life.

This wide-ranging text challenges a range of ideas about domestic culture. It examines how the meanings of domestic life are produced across a range of discourses and practices, from architecture, lifestyle media and advertising to home decoration, cooking and watching television. The book demonstrates how domestic cultures are not only linked to particular ideas about gendered identities, but how they are also differentiated by class, race and sexuality.

Domestic Cultures is a key introductory text for media, sociology and cultural studies students.