Forked times: documenting "ordinary time" in everyday life

Abstract

“Ordinary” time is commonly defined as time that is neither holidays nor emergencies, which suggests that “ordinary time” events are routine rather than singular. An analysis of how people document events in “ordinary” time, however, shows that the stream of “ordinary” time has multiple forks; that ordinary does not necessarily mean predictable, and that both vacations and emergencies could, in certain circumstances, take on the character of routine rather than singular events.

Pam McKenzie

Faculty of Information & Media Studies, Western University

Pam McKenzie is a Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at The University of Western Ontario, trying to remember who she is as a researcher after 10 years as an administrator.