Territorialized everyday life between proxemics and diastemics: Time-space rhythms in a context of acceleration

Abstract

The acceleration of contemporary societies is an unavoidable phenomenon, widely introduced in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The acceleration got a major boost with the technological development of the twentieth century and its origin is rooted in the current process of capitalist accumulation. However, it has overwhelmed technological and economic aspects, it has been enthroned and has also been culturally articulated as nodal part of the social construction of the world. In this paper, we examine the acceleration and social rhythms associated with it from the perspective of the subjects in their everyday world. Like any focused perspective on the subject in everyday life, this brings analytic interest in practical action, sense and meanings. However, this time those dimensions of everyday life are considered by the physicality-emotionality of the subject and its space-time. This paper addresses some strategies developed by some types of social subjects who are entirely immersed in that acceleration. Sometimes they spontaneously develop strategies to adapt to the acceleration; some other times they shape strategies of resistance. In other cases, hybrid strategies that include both adaptation and resistance are developed. Thus, these strategies seek daily routines immersed in various forms of physical and emotional proxemics, or, in some cases, daily routines pursue the physical and emotional diastemics through the distance and isolation. This article starts by discussing the first type of proxemic strategies, then turns to diastemic strategies and it finally presents some concluding remarks