Power and Everyday Practices

Power and Everyday Practices is a unique, contributed one that takes up sociological theory and methods in the approachable context of everyday objects and practices primarily through Foucaultian and Marxist lenses. Rather than focusing first on abstract concepts, many of the chapters are organized around a familiar everyday activity for students, which engages the students and seeks to "trouble" their normative assumptions about the everyday world (for example, the chapter on coffee examines how our everyday activity of drinking coffee is linked to global economic relations and inequalities). This text uniquely focuses on "unpacking the centre" rather than concentrating on the margins (as an example, rather than focus on people of colour, the chapter on whiteness unpacks how whiteness works to occupy the centre and thus reproduce privilege). Students are asked to explore not only why questions but also how questions; to make visible not only why things are as they are, but how they have come to be historically, socially, and culturally organized. Deftly edited by Brock, Raby, and Thomas, a group of renowned Canadian sociologists have gathered to write a perfect core text for undergraduate and graduate courses on the subject of power and inequality.