Bringing together conceptual and empirical research from leading thinkers, this book critically examines 'comfort' in everyday life in an era of continually occurring social, political and environmental changes.
Comfort and discomfort have assumed a central position in a range of works examining the relations between place and emotion, the senses, affect and materiality. This book argues that the emergence of this theme reflects how questions of comfort intersect humanistic, cultural-political and materialist registers of understanding the world. It highlights how geographies of comfort becomes a timely concern for Human Geography after its cultural, emotional and affective aspects. More specifically, comfort has become a vital theme for work on mobilities, home, environment and environmentalism, sociability in public space and the body. 'Comfort' is recognized as more than just a sensory experience through which we understand the world; its presence, absence and pursuit actively make and un-make the world. In light of this recognition, this book engages deeply with 'comfort' as both an analytic approach and an object of analysis.
This book offers international and interdisciplinary perspectives that deploys the lens of comfort to make sense of the textures of everyday life in a variety of geographical contexts. It will appeal to those working in human geography, anthropology, feminist theory, cultural studies and sociology.
About the Author: Danny McNally is Lecturer in Geography at Teesside University. His research draws from cultural and social geography, and art theory and practice to explore pressing social and environmental issues. He has a PhD in Cultural Geography from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Laura Price is Research and Project Manager at PositiveNegatives based in SOAS, University of London. She is also co-editor of Geographies of Making, Craft and Creativity published by Routledge in 2018. Her research explores feminist geography, education, craft and creativity.
Philip Crang is Professor of Cultural Geography at Royal Holloway University of London. He was editor of the journal Cultural Geographies from 1999 to 2008. His research is concerned with the material textures of places and the mobilities of people, things and ideas that constitute them.
