ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at disruption to illuminate the tenuous, fragile nature of everyday life. Disruptions deserve more respect than they tend to be given. If it were unwise to romanticize breakdowns, it would be equally wrong to see them purely as a temporary, external intrusion or an irritating nuisance. Breakdowns are a systemic part of everyday life. Breakdowns can serve as a temporary flashlight, illuminating dynamics of everyday life that lie obscured in more continuous and holistic accounts of consumer culture. Disruptions disturb the conventional view of consumer culture, which has been painted either as a paradise of choice and freedom or as a smooth materialistic machine that has turned active citizens into docile, privatized consumers. ‘Disasters’ have been the type of disruption that has received most attention, especially from experts on contingency, crisis management and the organizational risks of tightly coupled systems.
