We need as historicans to consider myth and memory not only as special clues to the past, but equally as windows on the making and remaking of individual and collective consciousness, in which both fact and fantasy, past and present, each has a part.
(Samuel and Thompson 1990: 210. )
I also learned abour ritual in house building and how inscription could be woven into the very fabric of the house. I liked thinking about how values and practices could be inscribed into the fabric of the house. Ritual mediated this experience.
I also learned about ritual by reviewing this book, which argues that we need to re-think the category of ritual as a sensitising concept for thinking about classroom discourse that falls into a regular pattern, such as the question and answers involved in learning German.
I was able to see how our data on 'knocking through' fell into the category of inscription. People re-made their own houses, and, in doing so, inscribed their identity into the fabric of the space.
I was also interested to note that tidiness is associated with Facism and also with South African Germans and their racist ideologies.
Very cheering as my house has been utterly turned upside down by the new kitten.
Dr Joolz' paper called 'Chilli - stylists' own' about Flickr and domesticity was particularly inspiring. I learned about fridge doors as a site for meaning.
I also did lots of thinking about my new research project, of which more in the future.
Thank you to Karen Harvey and Susan Reid who did all the work.
A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions
of stability. We are constantly re-imagining its reality: to distinguish all
these images would be to describe the soul of the house; it would mean
developing a veritable psychology of the house. (Bachelard 1958:17)
