A1 Journal article (refereed)
Walking with : understandings and negotiations of the mundane in research (2024)

Bradley, J. M., & Pöyhönen, S. (2024). Walking with : understandings and negotiations of the mundane in research. Applied Linguistics Review, Early online. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2024-0069

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Bradley, Jessica Mary; Pöyhönen, Sari

Journal or series: Applied Linguistics Review

ISSN: 1868-6303

eISSN: 1868-6311

Publication year: 2024

Publication date: 13/05/2024

Volume: Early online

Publisher: De Gruyter

Publication country: Germany

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2024-0069

Publication open access: Openly available

Publication channel open access: Partially open access channel

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/94820

Abstract

Disruptions, and indeed spectacular disruptions, are understood and experienced by people in many different ways. They serve to both highlight and embed deep-rooted inequalities, changing experiences of the everyday and even challenging the very right to have an everyday. In this joint article we critically engage with conceptualisations of the mundane, exploring how people negotiate everyday life in contexts of unprecedented change. We take up Georges Perec’s call to take account of the everyday, focusing on examples from two ethnographically informed projects, both of which engage with creative practice. The first is long-term research in forced migration settings in North-Western Finland, which explores how people negotiate and re-negotiate linguistic citizenship and everyday life, in a policy context which restricts and limits. The second is a community arts and wellbeing project in the North of England, which investigated creative approaches to re-emergence from the Covid19 pandemic among people who had been particularly affected by isolation, including new mothers. In both projects, our data are drawn from fieldnotes from observations, reflections from our own participation, interviews and creative artefacts made by participants. In our analysis and discussion, we foreground ephemeral everyday moments and how individuals aim to hold up the mundane in the middle of major, internal and international crises. We consider how the ‘right to an everyday’ is central to understandings of being human, and draw on these experiences to show how ethnographic research, with particular emphasis on language(s) and creative practice, can shed light on lived experiences of the mundane and unequal experiences of and rights to the everyday.

Keywords: everyday; documentation; ethnography; creativity; everyday life

Free keywords: everyday; ethnography; creativity; documentation; infra-ordinary

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Preliminary JUFO rating: 1