Consuming Hygge at Home: Perception, Representation, Practice
Consuming Hygge at Home: Perception, Representation, Practice by Jonathan Yorke Bean A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Galen Cranz, Chair Professor Margaret Crawford Professor Nancy Van House Professor Russell Belk Fall 2011 Consuming Hygge at Home: Perception, Representation, Practice Copyright 2011 Jonathan Yorke Bean Abstract Consuming Hygge at Home: Perception, Representation, Practice by Jonathan Yorke Bean Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture University of California, Berkeley Professor Galen Cranz, Chair Comparative research on the relationship between everyday spaces of consumption and cultural metaconcepts offers insight into how consumers experience and construct meaning through the use of space. In practice theory, metaconcepts, the “structuring structures” of consumer meaning and emotion, are understood to operate at the individual, group, and cultural level. Consumers engage cultural metaconcepts — in this case, the Danish concept of hygge and coziness, its typical American translation —!through banal acts, such as making morning coffee, and exceptional consumption, such as remodeling one’s home. Likewise, metaconcepts act across social scale. The emotional experience of hygge can be experienced alone or in a group, but the concept is also strongly linked to Danish identity and to the home. Therefore, the ideal of hygge influences the everyday purchases that constitute the majority of middle-class consumption. Through everyday consumption, hygge has a strong relationship to the material arrangement and use of the home. Hygge influences everything from the size and shape of the dining table to the relationship of the living room to the front door.
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