Colonization of Everyday Life
Colonization of Everyday Life
Definition
The colonization of everyday life names the process by which everyday life is increasingly penetrated, managed, and attenuated by external forces — bureaucratic administration, commodification, work imperatives, and the "programmed character of contemporary life." Lefebvre diagnosed this as the "bureaucratic society of controlled consumption." Maycroft (2007) empirically grounds this thesis, showing how infrastructure changes (train service removal) force everyday life to be "framed a little more by the imperatives of work" — commuters pay more, waste time, endure overcrowding, and must "work more in order to be able to pay more to get to work."
Key Thinkers
- Henri Lefebvre — the "bureaucratic society of controlled consumption"; everyday life as the target of colonization.
- Neil Maycroft — empirical grounding of colonization thesis; everyday life as "respite from non-everyday life pressures."
Related Concepts
Source Support
Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:
- Everyday Life in the Modern World (Lefebvre 1971)
- Critique of Everyday Life (Lefebvre 1991)
- Everyday life in the real world (Maycroft 2007)
Open Questions
- What are the mechanisms of colonization in contemporary everyday life (digital platforms, gig economy, financialization)?
- Is colonization total, or are there spaces of everyday life that remain uncolonized?
- Maycroft suggests "resistance to everyday life" rather than resistance from it — what would this look like?