Cleaning. A Cultural Technique | Book Presentation

“Cleaning” takes a closer look at everyday life in Western societies. Culture takes place every day: in every household, with every bite, with every piece of clothing; it is negotiated through the products we choose and how we use them. The book sets out to highlight cleaning as a cultural technique through which culture is lived and nature is vanquished, through which hierarchies are created, social rankings manifested, and traditions implemented. Addressing dirt and cleanliness, cleaning agents, equipment, and machines, (clean) surfaces and polluted environments, it interrogates the unwritten cultural rules around cleanliness and order, asking what they reveal about our beliefs and value systems. In 2020, the original German-language edition of this book was published under the title “Putzen. Eine Kulturtechnik”. It triggered tremendous media coverage in German-speaking countries.

The English-language edition is now being presented to the public for the first time at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London.

Austrian Cultural Forum London
28 Rutland Gate
London SW7 1PQ

More information about the event.

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More on the book Cleaning can be found here.