| Abstract: | Abstract: It is something of an understatement to speak of the UK, and many similar societies, as being obsessed with the mastery of time. From hesitant beginnings in the transformation of production processes and the development of mass transportation systems, the need to co-ordinate activities in time, and accomplish tasks with ever greater speed, has permeated virtually all aspects of everyday life. Many goods and services are sold on the basis of speed, efficiency or explicitly in terms of how much time they can save us. The specific characteristic of speed becomes the master variable on which we distinguish between brands and judge the progress made by manufacturers or providers. Using food as one example of this phenomenon, we can see the congruity of fast food, microwaveable frozen products, pizza deliveries to your door, street grazing and the fragmentation of family meal occasions. Set against this is an apparent counter-tendency to imbue the past – when things were slower – with particular symbolic value. Traditional becomes a metaphor for high quality; a description of ingredients and processes that were in more generous measure than could be expected today. In this, it also serves as an implicit justification for price premiums. Again, using food as an example, products and packaging often make liberal use of the imagery of yesteryear, the farm, the country kitchen, allusions to fresh or natural ingredients and old-fashioned ways of doing things. In this article, we examine the paradoxical relationship with time which seems increasingly commonplace in the final years of this century and draw on a wide range of secondary source materials to demonstrate this. It is argued that nostalgic1 products and leisure practices can be understood not as an irrational, even pathological, reflection of longing for the past but as a coping strategy for the contradictions. Given the centrality of consumer behaviour and social patterns to the field of home economics, there is a need to reflect the issue in teaching and research. |
