Sarah Pink - Dirty Laundry.pdf

8/10/2019 Sarah Pink - Dirty Laundry.pdf

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S A R A H P I N K

Dirty laundry. Everyday practice,

sensory engagement and the

~~

constitution

of

identity

I always use. some sort of softener, and even when theyve been in the tumble dryer

I

d o l ike

that smell, but I d o like it wh en theyve been on the line .. although] I dont like ironing them

so

much wh en theyve been o n the line. . . Ive fetched some [laundry] in today when I got in from

wo rk, and theyve obviously been o ut there all day an d they were all stiff and g ot mo re creases in,

whereas when theyre in the tum ble dry er its a dod dle really. If yo u just catch them i n time and

theyre just so easy to iron. Y es, I do like my clothes to smell nice. I definitely thin k ab out the feel

of them tho ug h. . once Ive ironed them they feel be t t e r . . . Helen, part-time c omp any director

and housewife, age 32

W h e n

I

th ink

of

advertising fo r soap powders m emories of the win dow test and claims

that som e products wash whiter and produ ce w hiter whites come

to

mind. These

not ions

of

clean laun dry emphasise visual experience and assessment. Such construc ts

bind dom estic mora lity wit h images of families dressed in stainless clothing an d sleeping

in beds made up with gleaming white sheets. Visual appearance certainly figures in

how people assess the cleanliness

of

their laundry. How ever, as any m ode rn western

consumer should realise, ou r selections of soap pow ders and related lau ndry pro ducts

and the pleasure and satisfaction we derive from finished laundry are contingent

on multi-sensory experiences. In fact, the expectation that laundry processes will

produce brilliant white stain-free items is unrealistic for many people because our

visual understandin gs

of

clean laund ry are also embedded in ou r knowledge about th e

biographies of specific garments and our plans for their use. Contemporary Britons

w ho d o their ow n laundry in their hom es using standard dom estic technologies expect

that b y v ir tue

of

having been wa shed in the mach ine w ith a detergent their laundry will

emerge clean.

In this article I examine con tem por ary English lau ndr y as a case stud y to examine

how people constru ct and sense cleanliness, and h o w this con tributes to the c onstitution

of

private and public indiv idual identities a nd moralities. Alth oug h m ost people expect

the machine will get it clean, sensory understandings and processes

of

evaluation

of

clean and d irty laun dry are mo re complex and individually varied. T he example

of

sensory laundry shows how different individuals in the same culture use different

sensory me taphors and m odalities t o narrate their every day experiences and practices

verbally and show them visually. They do

so

in w ays t hat illustrate th eir agency, are

constitutive of selves and m oralities and ultimately con tribu te to processes b y wh ich

conve ntions change.

1 The window test is a memory from British television advertising for soap powders. In my

recollection the housew ife tests her clean laundry visually using the daylight f rom her window .

Social

Anthropology

2005),

13

275-290.

005

European Association

of

Social Anthropologists

doi:10.1017/S0964028205001540 Printed in the United Kingdom

275


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R e s e a r c h i n g p r i v a t e e v e r y d a y p r a c t i c e

Th is article is based o n a visual ethn ogr aph y of lau ndr y practices in England

I

developed

with Unilever Research in 2000.2 The project addressed research questions with a

product focus and provided general contextualising data about domestic laundry.

Altho ugh I d o not report o n that applied dimension here i t was impo rtant in alerting

me to the senso ry aspects of laun dry. Van der Laan an d M atthew s 2003) suggest

contem porary consum ers relate to the idea

of

using all their senses in ma ny diffe rent

areas of their lives wh ich benefits the la und ry pro duc ts mark et by allowing prod ucts

to become more diverse, innovative and hedonistic. They report that addressing

consu me r needs throug h a multi-sensory experience is proven to be generally mo re

memorable: the color, texture and lingering scent work together to reassure that the

job has been do ne well. Since at least the 1930s, com panies that ma nufactu re domestic

goods have realised that attending

to

the sensory properties and experience

of

their

produ cts can bring market success Ho we s 2003:

21

1-12), which reminds

us

tha t social

scientists also benefit fro m acc ounting n ot only f or th e visual and material aspects of

everyd ay life but also for olfaction, tactile experience and s oun d. Th is sensory foc us

is not new; the anthropology

of

the senses is well established. However, I believe

my emphasis on the relationship between sensory experience, self-identity, domestic

practice and changing conv entions is original.

W ith each informant in a sample

of

twenty

I

first conducted a tape-recorded in-

de pth interview, focusing o n the inform ants life and self-identity, lau ndr y routines and

priorities. Th is was follow ed by a video tour Pin k 2004) a collaborative research

me thod that involves the inform ant spending up to an hou r showing me around their

hom e while I video them. Pro mp ted by m y checklist , ou r shared task was t o represent

ho w the lau ndry process was constructed in the hom e the multiple sites for leaving,

collection, transfer, washing and d ryi ng

of

laun dry and th e actual practices that occurre d

in them ), the criteria used to decide wha t qualified as laundry and w hen som ething was

satisfactorily washed, and w hich items in the hom e not laundered that day wo uld at

som e po int become laundry. Th is included clothing, sh eets and towels, curtains, c ush ion

covers, footwear and childrens toys. We discussed the sensory aspects of decision-

making about laundry, the sensory experience

of

doing the laundry and the sensory

qualities

of

dom estic i tems that cou ld potentially become laundry. Th e data this video

ethno graphy produ ced includes inform ants verbal and em bodied representations

of

their sensory, emotio nal and o th er experiences and practices

of

laundry in their homes. I t

by no means constitutes the m ore direct access

to

ho w p eople actually l ive their everyday

lives, gained through participant observation, and diverges from the long-term field-

w or k me thod som e anthropologists insist is the defining characteristic

of

anthropology.

M y m ethods w ere influenced b y th e applied brief

of

the project, but w ere also shaped by

my anthropological concerns and developed to sui t a par t icular research e n ~ i r o n m e n t . ~

As

Miller 2001) stresses, doing fieldwork in contem porary m odern w estern homes

requires multi-sited m etho ds that can focus o n individuals and their relationships wi thin

a private intimate sphere in contras t with a comm unity s tudy set in one locality).

To

2

3

Designed with Jean Rimmer

of

Unilever.

Com bining applied and academic anthropological research also forms p art of my w ider project

to

bridge the gap between applied and academic anthropology. I develop this in other publications

e.g. Pink 2004) and through the Berghahn

Studies in Applied Anthropology

series, of which

I

am

series editor.

276 S A R A H P I N K


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access these worlds, rather than the anthropologist living informants private lives

with them, the video tour asks informants to reconstruct their everyday practices by

reflecting on, and enacting on video, what they think they really do. Advocating an

interview-based methodology, Desjarlais 2003:6 suggests spoken narration supports

a phenomenological approach to sensory anthropology because the phenomenal and

the discursive, live as lived and life as talked about, are like interwoven strands of a

braided rope, each complexly involved in the other, in time, and rightly insists we

can achieve a necessarily limited) understanding of other peoples experiences through

their descriptions. The weakness of Desjarlais emphasis on talk is that it elevates words

over other ways of representing experience. By adding video to the process of telling-

talking, to include showing-touring and embodied enacting, my collaborations with my

informants produced not simply spoken narrations of their sensory experiences but also

visual display, exposure to sounds, smells and textures, thus inviting them to narrate

their everyday lives with reference to multiple forms of sensory engagement, including

a spatial narrative as we moved through their homes. Videotape did not capture these

sensory experiences, but rather allowed me

to

record their visible manifestations audio-

visually

as

my informants articulated them through, for example, verbal descriptions,

embodied performances of laundry practices, facial expressions, gestures and other

embodied metaphors. Knowing that they were being video-recorded, they performed

for the camera, just as people perform oral narratives for the tape recorder.

The research encounter thus became a context in which researcher and informant

intersubjectively produce an audiovisual account of the informants sensory domestic

practices and experiences. Here embodiment is the common ground for the recognition

of the others humanity and the immediacy of intersubjectivity Katz and Csordas

2003: 278). Like other anthropologists who discuss the sensory nature of fieldwork

e.g. Okely 1994; Seremetakis 1994; Stoller 1989; 1997; Geurts 2002), my task was

to understand my informants experiences by sharing the smells, textures and visual

appearances they demonstrated, and imagining those that they narrated. Since such

collaborations are central to the production of ethnographic knowledge they themselves

deserve to be scrutinised. Video facilitates this by representing both ethnographic data

and the immediacy of the research encounter, permitting a deeper reflexivity than

that created in retrospective written descriptions MacDougalll998). In the absence of

long-term participant observation, video therefore provides alternative routes into other

peoples lives that can produce both a record of the research encounter as it happened,

actions as they were performed and experienced, and spoken and embodied narratives.

After the study I contacted eight4 of the informants I interviewed personally to

gain their permission to use their interviews in my published work.5 To preserve their

anonymity

I

have changed the names of those who requested I did

so,

and do not

include images.

4 This small sample is not in tende d to be representative of the whole pop ulation as a larger

sociological stu dy migh t be, and sho uld no t be judged as such. Instea d it pertains t o the traditio n of

anthropologicalwriting o n the ho me e.g. Miller 2001). H ere I discuss just three of these informants,

selected because they represen t three quite typical approaches to domestic tasks that s tood ou t from

my wider research on the hom e Pink 2004).

D r Marie Corb in also collaborated with me in this w ork, by carrying ou t and interpreting half of

the interview. I am indebted t o her f or ou r many discussions and the insights that emerged which

have informe d the ideas I express in this chapter.

5

D I R T Y

L A U N D R Y

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I n d i v i d u a l e x p e r i e n c e a n d t h e a n t h r o p o l o g y

o f t h e s e n s e s

Much existing research in the anthropology of the senses has focused on comparing

sensory hierarchies cross-culturally Ho we s 1991; Classen 1993; Bu ban dt 1998), and

unders tanding culturally specific form s

of

sensory embod ied experience Stoller 1989)

and construction s of sensoria Gu erts 2002). In contrast, some recent wo rk examines

sensory differences within cultures w ith reference t o ge nder difference. Fo r instance,

Classen 1998) analyses how the symbo lic gendering

of

sensory experience fro m the

pre-m odern era to the end

of

the twentieth century associated wo m en w ith the lower

senses of touch , taste an d smell, and men with the higher senses of vision an d hearing,

thus help ing to maintain a gender-role segregation m odel that coupled wo m en w ith

housewifery and men w ith scholarship 1998: 93-4). Desjarlais, also dep arting from th e

emphasis

on

culturally pervasive them es and dynamics, focuses

on

individual variation

to examine how members of a single society live out different sensory biographies

2003: 4). H is tw o ageing Yolmo Bhuddist inform ants share the cu ltural know ledge that

info rm s the sensory categories they em ploy. Yet in practice, whe n narrating and m aking

sense

of

their lives, they use th ese categories in d ifferent ways, wh ich are inextricably

related to their personal gend ered biographical experiences and the way s in wh ich the y

have been situated in relation to cultural k now ledge an d social relations. Desjarlais male

informants recounting

of

his life was dominated by motifs

of

vision and bodiliness

wh erea s his female informants narrative often linked in vivid, mo rally con nati ve terms,

the voicings

of

key actors Desjarlais 2003: 3).

In m y ow n comparat ive analysis

of

the sensory spaces in British and Spanish

homes I also focused

on

the interface betw een cultural discourses that invest sensory

experiences and qualities with moral values and individual sensory narrations and

actions. I have suggested Pin k 2004) tha t w ha t is

of

interest is not simply ho w cu lturally

specific values are manifested in and thu s maintained thr ou gh particular sensory

practices, b ut h o w these values are challenged o r resisted b y individuals who se eve ryday

practices go against th e grain M oo re 1994: 82). M oore points out tha t even m inor

instances

of

resistance suc h as re-orde ring activities o r objects can p rod uce shifts in

meaning 1994: 83). In the m odern western hom e ho w on e senses ones environment,

the sensory categories o ne uses to evaluate and narrate if it is clean, tidy o r dirty, and the

strategies on e uses to create a sensory env ironm ent in the ho m e can all be interpre ted

as acts

of

resistance or conformity that imply human agency. Below

I

discuss how

three different people l iving in con temp orary British homes represent their sensory

experiences and perceptions

of

laundry. By analysing each representation in terms

of

how acts

of

sensing are inherently tied to ethical ideas and moral sensibilities

Desjarlais 2003: 242-3) I suggest ho w these acts and related practices co ns titu te iden tity

statem ents that serve to stretch, resist, challenge o r confirm the cultura l discourses that

su pp ort th e relationship betwe en conventional practice a nd m oral correctness.

L a u n d r y a s s e n s o r y e x p e r i e n c e . V i s i o n t o u c h

a n d s m e l l

An

important twentieth century transit ion in att i tudes to defining clean laundry

was from the belief that boiling was necessary to disinfect and clean laundry

to

the



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understanding that because modern detergents did not require such heat machine

was hing w oul d guaran tee cleanliness Shove 2003:

146-7 .

In Shoves analysis

to

convert those w ho boiled th eir laundry to machine w ashing re quired a shift in beliefs,

which was driven by manufacturers redefinit ions of cleanliness as whiteness rather

than the removal

of

germs 2003: 145 , hence the emphasis on the visual evaluation

of cleanliness in detergent advertising I noted above. Shoves argument is based partly

o n her analysis of m y laundry interviews an d video tours, and coincides w ith m y ow n

conclu sion that machine w ashing is believed to pro duc e clean laundry.6 She also notes

the co ntem porary concern that lau ndry shou ld be freshened, rather than disinfected,

suggesting tha t Smell and textu re are also relev ant. bu t in essence freshness is state

of mind relating t o the wa y on e feels wh en on e is we aring fresh clothes 2003: 150).

Th e idea

of

lau ndr y as a process of freshening up clothin g was central to m y analysis.

Nev ertheless in m y inter pre tatio n the interviews suggest that freshness and freshen ing

up are essentially about restoring the sensory qualities

of

laundry. Even if freshening

has an em otional nd mo ral element, it is based o n the senso ry evaluation

of

tangible

laundry items. I t does not just ap ply

to

clothing, bu t for example) to towels, sheets,

items th at have not been used for a while, items th at have been dro pp ed o n the floor,

and generally i tems tha t are no t really d irty. M oreov er the need for freshening was

usually defined in olfactory and tactile terms, having little

to

do w ith visual staining

or dirt . Shove notes that new ways of] washing also generate new sensations and

in this regard it is im por tant to appreciate th e feelings involved, citing as an exam ple

the olfactory and visual experience

of

pegging ou t laundry. This was indeed o ne

of

the

sensory dimensions of laundry that my informants discussed. However, I suggest this

is not simply a question

of

how feelings are evoked by the smell

of

drying laundry

inside o r outside the house), but

of

how this matter is embed ded in wid er processes

of

sensory tran sform ation th at invoke sen sory values, mem ories and moralities.

In respect of th e convictio n that the m achine gets it clean, there is ano ther po int

to be m ade ab out the visual appearance

of

laundry. M y informants did not expect the

everyd ay practice

of

putting their laundry thro ugh th e machine t o necessarily remove

all stains and visible marks. Such items c ould be freshen ed -th at is, restored

to

a certain

tactile and olfactory cond ition but they accepted that some stains wo uld simply not

go,

or wo uld only fade wit h t ime and co ntinuou s washing. In this sense manufacturers

emphasis o n th e visual o r visible abilities

of

laundry technologies

to

produce whiter

wh ites as par t of the shift fro m boiling t o machine wa shing is misleading. Al thou gh th e

visual is ke y to unders tanding clean laundry, it is not necessarily always in th e privileged

sense used in evaluating th e cleanliness

of

laundry. T he further theoretical implication

of

this is

to

suggest suspen ding cont em por ary cu ltural theories that claim vision is always

The materials are owned b y Unilever who operate a policy of data sharing that

I

agree wi th and see

as a positive me thod of en surin g materials are available to oth er researchers interes ted in similar

themes. Howev er,

I

would suggest that so me of the points S hove uses the materials to make directly

correlate with my ow n findings, and in that sense are also contingent on my research design. This

complicates claims to own ership of the analysis since Shoves

2003)

publication is prior to my

writin g of this article althou gh not to m y initial analysis of the materials in 2000). Here I proceed

to rep ort on my o w n findings, as developed independently

of

Shoves, on the assumption that it

will be taken in goo d faith.

I

assume that the absence of of in Shoves sentence is a typographical error and have added it to

give sense to th e sentence.

7

D I R T Y

L A U N D R Y 279


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the privileged sense in mo dern wes tern culture to explore empiricaliy th e significance

of

oth er sensory categories fo r the cons truc tion of identities see Ingold 2 fo r a critique

of this position). Here I analyse how the modern western sensorium, composed

of

categories of hearing, to uc h, taste, smell and sight a pa tte rn of differential elaboration

of the various senses, thro ug h whic h children learn t o perceive and to experience the

world) Geurts

2002: 5 8

is engaged by differently position ed individuals t o repre sent

thei r laun dry experiences. M ario aged 27 , the president

of

a students union and a

freelance writer, M arga ret aged

50),

a housewife, mother, grandm other and comp any

director, and her daug hter Helen aged

32 ,

have qui te different biographies, k now ledge

resources, aspirations, practices and prio rities. In the next section

I

examine how they

represen ted these in term s of lau ndr y and th e senses.

Case

s t u d i e s

W h e n

I

interviewed M ario he w ork ed full-tim e as the presiden t of

a

University students

un ion and as a freelance writer. H e described himself, w ith reference to laundry, as

follows:

Mario: Im fairly, fairly fussy about clothes.

. .

I get it from my father. He was very, very picky

about his appearance, and Im not that bad but he was really meticulous.. .And Ive got sort of

things in my laundry at the mom ent, got som e trousers, Ive got o ne little dot of fo od just like a

tiny splash on food, washing the w hole thing again..

So

Im quite meticulous about that and I

just like to accrue knowledge

as

well. Im in to reading and Im really into writing , and Im very

keen to get myself there

so

I like to have a very so rt of creative environ me nt, its w hat Ive got.

Im n ot entirely happ y with this ro om bu t itll have to do . Ive got lots of books. Ive got writin g

assignments and bits and pieces hanging up above my computer. Ive got all my favourite

CDs

stacked up.

I

dont know why Im pointing because its on tape. Ive got a lot of my favourite

music to hand, Ive got bo oks by my bedside, Ive g ot papers b y m y bedside, floor, see Ive got

paper on my walls I normally write on.

Marios representations and my experience

of

his hall-of-residence room revealed a

material and sensory environment he identified with and felt comfortable in. His

priorit ies were set ou t in the material culture of his ro om wh ere a new silver laptop

com put er co-existed wi th the plastic sho pping bag used fo r dirty laundry. T he creative

environment he sough t involved multiple sensing isually decorated with objects and

images that mean something to him , filled wi th his favourite m usic and also a tactile,

em bodie d experience since

I

couldnt write in a cold da rk room.

Touch was also important to him when evaluating the quality, condition and

cleanliness of clothing. H e told me: Im ver y big on tactile clothes. Yes, feel of the

cloth. Ive come across several

of

my shirts and jumpers that were just rough and I

just thought

I

couldnt wear that,

I

couldnt have that on my skin, preferring silk,

l inen and cotton. Describing the process by wh ich he evaluated w orn clothing, thoug h,

he referred to the visual, olfactory and tactile character

of

the item. If Mario was

considering wearing a shirt he had already w orn once after washing it he wou ld inspect

it visually and thro ugh smell. H e distinguished betw een different types

of

smell. First th e

This, like all culturally constructed sensoriums, is a folk ideology first determined by Aristotle

Geurts

2002: 7 .



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initial impa ct of the ga rme nt: If its not immediately obvio us then Im okay follow ed

b y a deepe r analysis b y w hich also I smell it just to

ma ke su re that it still smells fresh

and th at I havent sort of swe ated into it. Th is involved a distinction betw een th e smell

of

sweat from his bod y and odo urs that penetrate clothing from outside. If th e former

was a bsent he classified the item as clean. Th is had actually caused him t o re-think his

laundry strategies. Realising he had been washing clothes unnecessarily he bought a

spra y-o n fabric freshener, because I fou nd myself, physically Id be tota lly clean, item s

of

clothing would be totally clean b ut I wou ld just be in the pu b and the smo ke would

have just soaked it up because its a disgusting smell. In particular Marios sensory

evaluation

of

his p otentially d irty laundry reveals interesting contrasts with the sensory

strategies and voca bulary used b y housewives. As part

of

the video tour M ario showed

me tow els that he w ould consider washing.

Mario: So Im going to test the towel, Im going

to

look at the towel.

. .

Its a case of looking

a t

the towel,

a

bit of

a

feel, its a bit dam p, then

I

look at

it.

Right

so

Ill

have a look and

I

can

see

by

looking

a t

it

I

can see that Ive used it quite a lot and now

Ill

do the smell. O h , its not to o bad

actually. N o t as bad as I tho ug ht it might be. O n e thing Im going to do, yes its a bit mu sty th ere

in the middle but roun d the sides its no t so bad. W hat

I

was going to do, what

Im

tempted to do,

Im tempted to hang it up which wou ld be over the radiator Ive got there and Id be tempted to

basically dr y it o ut and see how

I

get on with it.

So

I was tem pted to d o that bu t Ive just whiffed

a couple of very slightly damp musty sort of parts to it, very slightly, which might be the damp,

but Im going to err on the side of caution like

I

usually d o and Ill bung it in the wash.

Interview narratives always reference other existing cultural narratives and no doubt

Marios discourse was influence d by his o w n video app earance and th e testing practices

of

television laundry commercials. Nevertheless his narrative reveals the sensory

me taphors and kno wled ge available to him f or discussing laundry. As he inspe cted his

towe l he viewed it, handled it and plun ged his nose deep into its folds. Using differen t

points of reference from th e norma l laundry terminology

of

housewife informants, he

explained:

Mario: Something thats clean looks a certain way, the fibres

will

flow a certain way and the look

will take on a certain quality, in fact a goo d quality, and w hen its no t q uite there the f ibres matt

toge ther a little bit or they d ont flow the same way and the y just dont, they

look

a little bit tired,

dont look

so

good. Just like

a

hum an being. On e whos had four nights sleep and one whos had

no sleep at all. Just b y look ing

at

them you can tell the difference.

How ever, as with othe r informants, when I asked Mario wha t has to happen to laundry

fo r i t to be clean, he told me Whether i ts presentable or n ot is ano ther matter because

i t comes dow n to i roning, but fo r i t to be jus t c lean i t has

to

go through a decent wash

cycle in th e wash ing machine. Marios definition

of

clean laundry w as in terms

of

visual

appearance a nd an olfac tory qu ality of freshness, as he p ut it: It hasnt got a ny m arks

o n it; it hasnt go t an y excess di rt o n it; it smells fresh. s regards smell, he said, Eith er

it smells vaguely of laun dry o r it doesnt sm ell of anything. T he freshness

of

his newly

washed clothing was also tacti le . As he pu t his laundry away he

told

me, also its tou ch

because they feel warm . The y feel wa rm f rom the tum ble drier and that gives them that

fres h sense.

Apart from visual, olfactory and tactile testing Marios laundry was governed

by tw o other key fac tors the accumulation

of

dirty items, and the availability

of

laundry facilities in the shared student laundrette. The facilities also influenced his

practices. W ith n o space to peg c lo thes ou t or hang them over the radia tor in h is ro om

D I R T Y

L A U N D R Y

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tumble-drying seemed obligatory, meaning Marios experience of laundry involved

different senso ry and social doma ins from th ose

of

housewives. Moreover, his university

hall-of-residence ro om was a space w ith different resource s and m eanings to the ho me s

of

m y housewife inform ants. Significantly, his ap proach

to

clean and dirt y laundry did

not extend

to

laundering the curtains o r show er curtain, wh ich were u niversity property

and n ot his responsibility. H is relationship to laundry was also very unhousewifely in

anoth er way, since he was not prepared

to

engage with ho usewifely knowledge to inform

his ow n laundry practices. H e depended

on

his mother

to

do laundry he regarded

as complicated or beyond his scope, claiming that he was unable

to

understand the

myster ious knowledge that lay behind do ing the laundry . H e sought m ethod without

epistemology. For example, when he asked a woman colleague to solve his problem

of n ot know ing how much soap powd er to use , he d id not want to know why but

how, only wishing to engage with the superficial knowledge required to achieve

his desired sensory results. Thu s the senso ry strategies and actual termino logy M ario

used for assessing dirty and clean laundry, and dealing with laundry techniques and

technologies demonstrate not only a personal way of speaking about laundry b ut a

strategy that rejects the language and know ledge of h ousew ifely laun dry con vention s.

This involved performing an identity throug h both everyday practice and the verbal

and em bodied performance of the interview) that links specifically with the identity

and aspirations he charted for himself w hen he described ho w the sensory layou t and

composition

of

his room was congruent with his ambition to become a writer. For

instance, once Marios laundry cycle was completed he returned the clean laundry to

plastic bags t o transfer it to his room . This was perform ed as fast as possible, he poi nted

ou t I dont co unt, som e peop le fold, I dont bo ther w ith that. Its a good idea but again

its time y o u see. If

I

was employing somebod y I would get them to

fold

them.

Finally,

to

end his laundry process, Mario stressed the therapeutic element of

laundry, itself a sensory practice, and in contrast t o the on-goin g laun dry of mo ther s

and housewives, t he closure

of

finishing the laundry. O n ce

in

his room he was concerned

to create an appropriate sensory atmosphere in which he cou ld enjoy putting his clothes

away wh at he referred

to

as the psychological and physical end

of

m y chore. Playing

the soundtrack of the film Gladiator w hic h was quiet, classical and quite stirrin g in

places and very so rt

of

ethnic Ara bian c hants in others an d chose n because Im very

mu ch in to reflective calm -mood music and Ill o ften pu t that kind

of

music on wh e n

Im doi ng m y laundry, rather th an so me thing faster.

Mario: I find it almost a therapeutic process,

of

being sat there and going through this laundry.

lso moving around.

I

always get quite warm

so

I often d o th is .. maybe a little bit of light on,

and

so

its q uite a calm serene atmosphere. Its often, very often is ho w I d o the laundry. I o ften

d o it late at n ight as well,

so

normally very dark and calm, and a bit

of

atmosphere on the old

s te reo .

Marios social uses of laundry were par t

of

his self-representation to o thers . He

distinguished between public and private clothing, changing on arriving home from

w or k and categorised his clothes in terms of the contexts they w ere clean enou gh for:

a shirt w or n once with a speck of d irt

on

i t or a washed item th at displayed a stain

could no t be wo rn socially, but could be wo rn around the house before being washed

again. H e cares about wha t people think about his clothes, noting that he had fou nd a

friend going ou t wearing a stained T-shirt unacceptable. How ever, he claimed his ow n

practices conform ed not to an existing public morality

of

cleanliness b ut to his person al

282 S A R A H

P I N K


9/16

standard s. Th is he applied not on ly t o the cleanliness

of

his laundry, but t o my w riting,

fo r m y laundry, everything.

As

he p ut it, Whatever I

do,

I

honestly use myself as the

measuring stick. I just think, d o I l ike the look of th at ?. f I do , then its g ood enough.

However, how identities are constituted, and the practices that are behind them, are

contingent o n context.

In

som e contexts Mario l ike many o ther people) clearly shaped

his public uses of laundry to confo rm to w hat he saw as the expectations of others.

Within his hom e, laundry con tributed to his construction of himself accord ing to social

context. Whereas when an untidy friend visited he might tidy up, for his girlfriend

he stressed he w oul d unq uestion ably change his bed linen an d towels. Marios private

practices resisted conv entiona l ways of doing the laundry, and he created continuity

betw een his private a nd public identity b y describing himself as confo rmin g publicly

to his own standards,

not

those of others. However, as the case study sho ws, he was

aware of the dem ands of o thers and was also prepared

to

negotiate with these to use in

laun dry in social contex ts to produ ce an identity that accounted for what oth er people

think.

Marios constructs

of

self and approaches

to

laundry clearly prioritise career

development over dom estic organisation, and results-orientated laun dry processes that

prioritise pu blic self-presentation over conform ing to proper conventional laundry

practices; he informs these with the sensory epistemology that he attr ibutes to

housewifeliness. H is practices also advocate a particular m orality an d subseq uent m oral

judgements of others, which are specific to his ow n bio grap hy and self-positioning. H is

views abo ut self-presentation, being fussy and m eticulou s abou t the w ay he dresses,

insisting

on

his clothing being iron ed an d spotless provide one clue

to

his sense

of

the

right way to presen t oneself in public, that involves pro duc ing la und ry with th e right

texture, visual appearance and smell . In contrast , his approa ch to p utting laund ry aw ay

is abo ut self-id entity-con struction fo r himself in a private d om ain. He re tex ture is less

imp ortant than time-saving, allowing him t o return to his writing; putting lau ndry aw ay

is constructed to enhance his sense

of

well-being and self, a therapeutic experience,

ra ther than par t

of

domestic o rganisation.

W h e n I interviewed Margaret she was 50, marr ied w ith tw o grown-up chi ldren w ho

have left home, and worked full-time for her small family business. Normally she

worked every day but tended to

job

share with Helen, her daughter, som etimes wo rking

fr om hom e. She described her life as very hectic, a co nt ex t in wh ich it is nice

to

have

an autom atic washing machine y o u can just po p [washing] in and forget abo ut it. She

saw herself as a happy family person w ho enjoyed gardening and holidays, and look ing

after her grandch ildren.

Margarets home was stylish, filled with the accoutrements

of

a middle-class

lifestyle. She was responsible for domestic matters and like[s] things right, which

was manifested in ensuring she plumped u p th e cushions

on

the sofas at night b efore

going

to

bed and opened th e curtains in the morn ing before going

to

work. She also

had a c leaner w ho did the ho usework once a week and most

of

her ironing, althoug h

as we see below this did not mean M argaret was an y less involved in sensory con trol

of h er laundry. H e r daily routin e included making the beds, cleaning the bathroo m and

taking d i r ty laundry do wn to her laundry basket in the uti li ty room , while her husband

made breakfast before leaving fo r work. H e r weekly routines included changing bed

linen and towels on Thursdays. Other routines ranged from every three months

to

longer, determining whe n cush ion covers were washed a nd w hen curtains were sent fo r

D I R T Y L A U N D R Y

283


10/16

professional cleaning. Margaret enjoyed laundry and was teased by her family when

she continue d this role while they h olidaye d in a foreign apartm ent. She styled her hair

a n d p u t on make-up every day, and dressed in good quality, smart clothes, from up-

ma rket c hain stores and designer sh ops, wearing jeans and o lder clothes fo r gardening.

She preferred to spend m ore m on ey o n quality items that will wash right, liking fine

fabrics and soft wools as well as linen which she com plained creases to o muc h) and

insisting th at it was imp orta nt cloth es we re soft and com fortable. Smell was also central

in her personal preparation and the env ironment she created around herself, wearing

quality perfumes every day, l iking flowers and bu bble baths. In ou r interview M argaret

linked our discussion of perfumes directly

to

laundry, noting how I must say that

it is important what my washing smells like. Ive started using [a particular scented

fabric conditioner], which she commented had the advantage that it does seem to

make ironing easier, as they say. And it smells lovely. Mmm, it does. Often you can

get awa y wit h just folding things, wh ich is nice. She explained this as som ethin g the

condi t ioner d id to the texture

of

the fabric suggesting it m ust plum p up the fibres he

same term she used for th e process by which she daily restored the sofa cushions

to

an

app rop riate visual and tactile state. Smell was an im por tant element of Margarets h om e

and garden. She regarded creating an olfactory dimension to the h om e as an extension

of

her gardening, w here she enjoyed arom atic plants l ike honeysuckle. In the house

she had fresh flowers, po t pou rri , a plug-in air freshener in the toilet and also burn ed

scented candles in the evening to create an atm osphere fo r a dinn er party. She sought a

fresh smell: Id like t o th in k th at i t smelt fresh, th at i t didnt smell of chips.

Margaret used com bined techniques and complex sets

of

knowledge

to

ensure that

her laundry was nice and clean. H er daughter Helen married with t w o young children)

also depended o n her mothers knowledge

to

supp ort her ow n laundry pract ices . O u r

conve rsation demo nstrates this.

Margaret:

I

dont do an awful lot of hand washing now because I dont think ..

.

most fabrics you

can put in the w asher, but I d o have some things, and i my d aughters got anythin g she sends it to

me.

Sarah: Does she?

Margaret: M mm . Youre ever so good at hand washing, Mum, yo u d o it. I say, Youll never get

good at it Helen, if y ou dont d o it. No, but

I

dont need to because youll do it for me, wont

you. So

I

d o that as well.

Sarah: Do y o u mind doing that?

Margaret: Not really, no. Its not very often. Its odd things..

.

and

I

do try to sort of. . .well, dry

them flat.

I

often put things that

I

want to dry,

I

put them flat on the worktops in the kitchen at

night and by the morning theyre dry anyway, which is quite useful.

Helen was concerned with the sensory d imensions

of

her self , hom e and lau ndry in a

way similar to Margaret, yet limited the knowledge about laundry processes she was

willing to engage with. However, she did so to a different degree to Mario , which

is also typically gendered. He len d id not con stru ct the epistem ology of laund ry as

either m ysterious o r beyond her. Indeed she was involved in a contin uous daily

cycle

of

laundry, and applied a routine-based an d senso ry system

of

determining which

items sho uld be washed and w hich w ere clean. She also derived sensory pleasure from

laundry, w hich she explained n ot in terms of vision, bu t tou ch a nd smell, as is evident the

9 As

I

demonstrate in

Home

truths Pink

2004 ,

women and men who practise housework tend

to

frame their lack of understanding of processes in different w ays.



11/16

quotatio n f rom her interview at the beginning

of

this article. Simultaneously though,

as Helen explained, there was know ledge she did n ot w ant o r need:

Helen: Id washed a pair of grey jogging botto ms and

a

pair of his pale denim jeans, and theyve

both got green grass stains

on

their knees that havent come out. o Im going to have to d o

som ethi ng serious wit h those, I dont kn ow if Ill get

it

o u t o r n o t . .

.

d probably ring my

Mu m , Id say Mum , Ive g ot so me jeans wit h grass stains on, what wou ld y ou do? because shes

brilliant. She can, like, get anything out m y m ot he r.. I have been know n to [leave it for her

mothers W ednesday visit]. I say Ive go t a little jo b .. 111 pr ob ab ly be a quest ion fo r my m other .

I mean, I dont kno w, I don t kn ow if you can get grass stains out.

Just as Helen did not engage with Margarets complete range of sensory laundry

knowledge and practices, Margarets practices differed for her mothers. Unlike her

mothers we ekly wash Margarets washing was con tinu ous , althoug h she no w washed

o n alternate days rather than daily as she did before her children left home. U nlike

the previous genera tion for w h om boiling w as a central practice, Margarets ap proach ,

based o n different kn owledge, depends o n the machine and hand washing. H ow ever

unlike younger inform ants l ike Helen, her practices were informed by kn owledge abo ut

the variable tem perature s she considered necessary t o clean different types

of

laundry.

Tem perature was also cont inge nt o n different visual, tactile aspects

of

dirty laundry,

knowledge abo ut what had happened to each item recently and biographically), and

contribu ted t o a process of transform ation tha t wou ld m aintain o r restore the fabrics

desired co lou r and texture.

Margaret:

Yes,

I

d o

40

[degree] washes, which is usually sor t

of. .

.

most things now are

40,

some

50, but I d o usually d o my towels on

60,

and every so often I perhaps d o them on

95,

but Ive

noticed. . . ve just bo ught som e white towels and it says

40

on them. But I think thats silly

it says Egyptian cotton. I cant see that they want doing at 40, so theyll get done at 60 each

time..

.

urn, and then coloureds.

I

usually do those at

40.

Jeans

I

do probably a t 60. And Ive

always sorted things into sor t

of

the whites and like perhap s. . sometimes I pu t whites and creams

together but often theres enough sort of creams with very pale blues that I kn ow wont run a nd

Ill pu t those together. And then Ill d o

a

dark w ash normally.

This strategy included using stain-remover sprays, different detergents for coloured and

wh ite laundry, and olfacto ry fabric conditioner. M argaret was also reflexive abo ut her

practices, w hich she sometimes scrutinised and m odified. At th e t ime of ou r in terview

she was debating her use of fabric softeners o n a p articular set

of

towels with a sof t

texture she was unhappy abo ut and though t needed to be stiffened up.

Once the machine cycle finished she would, depending on time and weather

conditions, either use her tum ble dry er o r peg the w ashing ou t in the garden. Pegging

ou t was an olfactory, visual an d em otional experience fo r M argaret that evoked n ot onl y

feelings

of

sensory pleasure, bu t mem ories

of

past experience and

of

her own m other

fo r wh om she had pegged o ut w ashing as a child. She noted particularly her visual and

tactile experience as she pegged out.

I

am s ort of looking, and Well that loo ks

O K .

I mean,

I

dont expect that

to

be as white because its quite an old one, but it looks

pr ett y w hite really, com bin ing visual assessment of cleanliness w ith her kno wled ge of

the b iography

of

each individu al item. She assumed that the washing w oul d be cleaned

by the machine, without expecting all stains to be removed. Smell was important as

she noted that it smells lovely an d fresh, wh ich ag ain ..

.

he lines just an ex tens ion

of

the h ouse, isnt it?. She again constru cted a relationsh ip betw een the smell

of

house

and garden, not this t ime through flowers but in a parallel way through the laundry

D I R T Y

L A U N D R Y

285


12/16

process. Fresh air also transform ed lau ndr y that was not washed ev ery time it was

wo rn, such as trousers, skirts and dry-clean-only i tems. These Margaret wou ld hang up

indoors by an open window so they could be freshened-up. T he imp ortance of smell

was emphasised in a story M argaret told me abo ut her cleaner:

Margaret: She used

to

do

the ironing for me at her hou se and

a t

that tim e shed had family problems,

shes on her own now, but

I

know that money was

a

problem and they used to have chips

a

lot,

and shed perhaps do ne m y ironing and hung

i t

in the hall, and then sometimes Id pick it up and

it had this sort of smell, and I didnt like that,

so

now she does it here.

Finally, touch was important. Pegging out avoided the fluffiness of tumble-dried

laundry. To restore its texture Margaret felt clothing needed no t o nly ironin g but t o go

thro ugh the w hole laun dry process. Fo r example, she described how

i

her husband p ut

his shirt back in the w ardrob e after only wearing it for a couple

of

hours she wo uld have

to retrieve it. O ft en he w ou ld h ang it sort of a bit skewh iffed and later, she explained,

hell say Wheres s o- an d- so ? and hell get it ou t and Ill say You cant w ear th at,

love; yo u hu ng it u p like that, its all creased,

so.

then its just going in the wash,

because, she told me, I dont think things iron that well, do they, when theyve been

creased an d hu ng up.

Margarets social contexts are family, w or k, holid ays with her hus band and frien ds

in apartm ents and villas o r hotels, cinema and eating out w ith friends. She was alm ost

always prepared for a social encounter. As she pu t it, I dont w ant pe ople seeing me

wi thou t m y make-up on .

I

thi nk its just pa rt of getting up and getting yourself ready

in the morning, and stressed that she even put her m ake-up on t o

do

the housework o r

gardening. The question of public scrutiny of her lau ndry was an issue fo r Margaret,

wh ose husband teased her for worrying abou t what ot her people think. She saw laundry

as par t

of

public p resentation.

M argaret w ore similar sm art skirts, tops dresses and jackets for w ork and socialising,

changing in to a com fortable shir t and trousers at hom e and w earing jeans fo r gardening.

She wo uld n ot contem plate wearing a clean but s ta ined i tem at hom e o r ou t , and would

persevere in rem oving the stain. She also policed her husbands ward rob e ensu ring he

didnt w ear dirty jumpers and shirts . This morality also applied to oth er lau ndry items.

Fo r instance, w hen she washed th e tea towels from the kitchen at wor k she ensured tha t

they w ere always white wh en she returned them, how ever stained the y had become.

Likewise, when friends stayed overnight at her home, laundry was important in the

presenta tion of the guest ro om . Marg aret always m ade sure th e bed linen all look s nice

and crisp and liked to put tow els o n each bed and a face cloth as well, w hich often

meant freshly laundering items in preparation f or the visit .

He len shared som e practices w ith her m other: dressing smartly for work, with skirt ,

blou seh op and jacket, and changing into joggers o r jeans at hom e an d wearing different

perfumes according to the occasion. H e r social life centred o n work , fam ily and their

youn g chi ldren . However under ly ing her smart

look

was a slightly different appro ach

to her mothers, guided b y the idea that one m ight conceal m arks o r textures that a public

house wifely mo rality wo uld classify as dirty, since like stains o n wash ed clothin g

they w ere no t really dirty. Fo r example, she explained h ow she had rationalised we aring

a T-shirt mo re than once:

10 See Chevalier

1998)

wh o discusses the relationship between the English hom e and garden.

286 S A R A H

P I N K


13/16

Helen: Id w orn o ne

of

these T-shirts in the evening. Id just popped

to

my Mums. Id just put

it on and when I came back, I just checked that it didnt smell under the arms or anywhere,

and then I just put it on the hanger, but then wh en .. I saw it on the hanger [the next day].

I

thought . . Oh, Ill pu t that T-shirt on, and I thoug ht Nn nn Ive wo rn it once. But then I

though t, Ive wo rn it once, then I tho ugh t But it isnt dir ty. . .And it wasnt dirty at all, and I

wore

it

and it was fine.

Contrary

to

her mothers view that one could no t wear an item m ore than once because

it would lose its texture, Helen noted that if

on

the hanger the T-shirt appeared

to

have lost its shape, w hen she put it on again it would mould back

on to

her body. She

therefore m aintained a conv entiona l standard of public presentation , while contesting

this in terms of her private practices.

S e n s o r y l a u n d r y a n d t h e s e l f . M o r a l i t y

i d e n t i t y a g e n c y

Mario, M argaret and H elen were at contrasting life and career stages, with d ifferent

aspiration s and priorities. The y had different relationsh ips to th eir homes, w hich varied

materially, socially and spatially. Their biographical relationships with laundry differ,

like the sen sory knowledge, practices an d strategies they em plo y in the private sp here

to

produ ce their desired laund ry results. In co mm on, however, they believed one should

pro perl y prese nt oneself publicly in go od quality, well textured, fresh smelling, pro per ly

ironed and un stained clothing.

To conclude I suggest this comparative analysis of sensory laundry practices

invites a series of anthropological reflections. First, it demonstrates modern western

individuals ability, th rou gh everyd ay do mes tic practice in specific sensory, material and

technological environments, to carve out gendered identities by living them . Second,

it reveals how moralities are constructed through everyday practice and the public

presentation

of

self. Th ird , it suggests how, b y resisting existing con ven tion s, individuals

participate in processes of change.

M ario, Ma rgaret and H elen all used categories

of

smell, tou ch and vision

to

describe

their laun dry experiences, practices and results. H ow eve r w ithin these categories they

emp loyed different tactile, visual an d olfactory m etapho rs. Th eir uses of language were

emblematic of their conform ity and resistance to co nventional discourse abo ut laundry

and cleanliness. For Mario, when an item needs

to

be washed its matted fibres look

tired, taking a metaphor from a counter narrative

to

the proper domestic routine

of conventional family life, they are like someo ne w ho has not slept. F or M argaret,

to

be restored texture fibres need

to

be plumped u p b y the w ashing process, using

the sam e term as for her daily re-shaping of the sofa cushions. These informants used

different patterns of embodied sensory evaluation and reasoning

to

know if an item

sho uld be washed. M ario evaluated his shirts by item, examining the ir smell and visual

appearance,

to

decide if th ey s ho uld be washed o r sprayed w ith fab ric freshener, while

Margaret knew a shirt her husband had wo rn for tw o hou rs must be washed as i t had

lost its texture. H elen in con trast reviewed Margarets proce dure, having decided th at

if she had worn a T-shirt for an evening it would have lost some of its shape and

texture, but that it wo uld fit the same body again if hu ng u p and could be wo rn w ithout

washing. F or each individual these sensory evaluations no t on ly inform ed the ir practices

D I R T Y L A U N D R Y 287


14/16

but constituted what they regarded as morally appropriate and justifiable actions.

In

making their judgements each informant drew on a specific set of biographical

experiences and senso ry know ledge. Such know ledge is culturally specific, thou gh the

case studies dem onstrate that such cultural knowledge is not simply distributed and

sha red thr ou gh an auto ma tic process of transmission, bu t that individuals are selective

in the k nowledge the y are willing to accomm odate. This is part of their wider project

of self-identity.

La un dr y practices, like identities, are form ed intersubjectively and are comparative,

bot h f or anthropologists and for the subject, w ho compares her o r his practices w ith

those

of

oth ers in m y experience usually their mothers). M y informan ts all had

a sense of a right way of doing laundry, and presenting the self to others. The

contradiction lies in the fact that some moralities and identities resist what they

regard as conventional laundry practices, while achieving what they perceive to be

conventional standards

of

public self-presentation.

In

doing

so

they challenge the

hegemony of the morality that performs laund ry according to the sensory know ledge

and practice of convention, while not necessarily challenging that knowledge itself.

Sensitivity to such issues is an im portant com pone nt of an anthropological approach that

endeavours

to

understand, and engage with, the ambiguities that ethnography reveals

because an thro polo gy succeeds ethically insofar as it recognises the contingencies he

slippages, ambivalences, aporias, and generally speaking, the ambiguities -w hi ch inh ere

in its ow n and others ideas an d practices, as being cons titutive

of,

and n ot m erely lapses

in, mor al orders Battaglia 1999: 115). T he alternative moralities being suggested assert

ho w lau ndr y should fit into a life and identity wi th different priorities and aspirations.

Both Mario and He len w ere very busy, M ario as a writer with anothe r full-time job

and Helen as a mother, wife and company director running

on

a domestic hamster

wheel, who regarded the satisfaction she derived from laundry as sad. They had

no temp oral o r intellectual space to accomm odate complex laundry practices o r their

mothers detailed sensory kno wledge,

so

depended

on

their mothers and o ther skilled

women

to

provide method-based solutions and actual practical help. According to a

theory of social contingency, selves are subject to the constraints and manipulations of

cultural forces, on the one hand, and

on

the o the r capable, upo n reflection, of breaking

wi th and transform ing the situations in which the y are forme d Battaglia 1999: 115).

Mario and Helen both conformed

to

cultural conventions regarding wh at they thoug ht

was th e proper w ay

to

represent themselves in public, but simultaneously departed

fro m the mora lity associated wi th it by resisting dom estic conven tions in private. T he y

thus became, in a subtle way, agents involved in transform ing co nventio n. By breakin g

the taken for granted connection between ho usewifely domestic practice and pub lic

appearance, they also brought into question the validity of conventional domestic

morality throug h their practice.

Earlier I note d Shoves poin t th at changing technology, an d the discourse attached

to

it , contributed

to

shifts in laundry practice.

In

her analysis, changes in laundry

11

Existing wo rk o n the intergenerational transmission of knowledge does no t suggest that know ledge

transmission is automatic. However to my knowledge both sides of the debate over whether

knowledge transmission follows Sperbers 2001) epidemiological model or Ingolds model of

embod ied practice within given environments Ingold

2001;

Whitehouse ZOOl , tend to focus on

examples of when know ledge and practice

are

repeated from one generation to the next. My

concern is, rather differently, with when they re not.



15/16

technology have rescripted laundry practice and its moral meaning through an

interface with how the people w ho do the wash [are]. central to the reproduct ion

and revision of normal standards wh en they d o the laundry my way Shove 2003:

156).

Th is sociological analysis draw s similar conclusion s

to

mine, but is limited in its

definit ion

of

individual difference as do ing it m y way. Shove 2003:

157)

recognises

diversity since just about an ything could be incorporated into new systems

of

meaning

and n ew versions of m y way, suggesting that this is constrained by technological and

discursive possibilities and limitation s set by m anufac turers. Th is is not incom patible

w ith social contin gency theory. B ut the value

of

an anthropological approach is that

it demands an awareness of ho w o ur informants and ou r own) subject posi t ions

intersect in the field. This allow s

us

to see simultaneously how informants constru ct

difference on their ow n terms and th e ambiguities

of

their ow n destabilising practices

Battaglia

199: 115).

It invites

us

to deconstruct doing it my way as a complex and

intersubjective practice that has inheren t contrad ictions, is abou t diversity and agency

and reveals ho w individuals p articipate in unevenly patt erne d processes

of

change. In

this article

I

hope t o have demonstra ted ho w a sensory anthropology can contr ibute

to

ou r understandings of changing practices, identities and conventions in modern

western contexts. A n analysis

of

everyday sensory practice show s

us

ho w individuals

use categories, knowledge and acts to maintain, bounce

off,

imitate, invert or resist

moralities they hold as conventional.

As

such, it presents

us

with a route to s tudying

ho w o ur diverse everyd ay wa ys of living identities and selves intro duc e new cultural

conve ntions an d m oralities.

Sarah Pink

Department of Social Sciences

Loughborough University

Loughborough LE l l 3T U

U K

[email protected]

References

Battaglia,

D.

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