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

Holdsworth, Clare

Authors



Abstract

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.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Apr 5, 2020
Online Publication Date May 22, 2020
Publication Date May 22, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Social & Cultural Geography
Print ISSN 1464-9365
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 23
Issue 4
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2020.1769167
Keywords Busyness, habit, time-space, temporality
Publisher URL https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2020.1769167