Uncommon Daily Life/Daily Uncommonness. Everyday Life under Conditions of Risk and Uncertainty

Abstract

According to the proponents of the sociology of everyday life, the practices of everyday life maintain the order of social life. Berger and Luckmann argue that such practices are characterised by habitualness and unreflectiveness; they seem natural and self-evident, not requiring justification. However, their statement is no longer valid. It was not only the COVID-19 pandemic that violently disrupted the established order of everyday life. Even before the pandemic, processes of social change had occurred, and these processes shattered the unified vision of the world, the nomos in which all social practices found their justification. The sheer multiplicity of knowledge and belief systems that now exist, as legitimate as they are, forces individuals to be reflexive and to make choices from among different patterns of action. At the same time, new processes of change are constantly taking place that challenge the validity of previous choices. The COVID-19 pandemic did not start these processes, but it did exacerbate these processes. The question for researchers is how do individuals construct the order of their everyday life in these uncertain and risky conditions, an order whose constancy and predictability, as Giddens states, has always been a bulwark against fear and insecurity.