Daily Life Critiques (Book)

Critiques of Everyday Life (original title: Critiques of Everyday Life) is a work in the fields of social science and philosophy by Michael Gardiner that critically examines everyday life. The book explores not only the description of everyday experiences but also the boundaries of everyday life and the opportunities for emancipation that arise within these boundaries. It focuses on linking everyday life with a critical and transformative form of knowledge. The Turkish translation was undertaken by Babacan Taşdemir, Burak Özçetin and Deniz Özçetin.

The book is grounded in the warning by Georg Lukács that “Whether you are a scientist or anything else, you always begin with questions about everyday life.” It places this perspective at the center of its inquiry. Gardiner positions himself within the counter-tradition by examining the dual nature of everyday experience as both limiting and emancipatory. The book engages with various theoretical approaches and thinkers on the study of everyday life. The main themes and figures discussed in the work include:

• Surrealists and theorists: Henri Lefebvre, the Situationist International and Michel de Certeau
• Agnes Heller: The examination of relationships between rationality, ethics and everyday life
• Mikhaïl Bakhtin: Imagination through the concepts of “carnival” and “the everyday”
• Dorothy E. Smith: Analysis of everyday life from a feminist perspective