Materializing Memory, Mood, and Agency: The Emotional Geographies of the Modern Kitchen

Drawing upon narrative and visual ethnographic data collected from households in the UK, this essay explores the material and emotional geographies of the domestic kitchen. Acknowledging that emotions are dynamically related and co-constitutive of place, rather than presenting the kitchen as a simple backdrop against which domestic life is played out, the paper illustrates how decisions regarding the design and layout of the kitchen and the consumption of material artefacts are central to the negotiation and doing of relationships and accomplishment of domestic life. Based on fieldwork in northern England, the paper examines the affective potential of domestic space and its material culture, exploring how individuals are embodied in the fabric and layout of domestic space, and how memories may be materialized in their absence.