Defining the Field

During the course of this research we have found it helpful to make clear the concepts we are working within. Therefore we provide a set of definitions that frame how we have conceived our research.

Mobile Worker

Current estimates for the worldwide ‘mobile worker’ population estimate that, as of 2008, it comprised 919.4 million people and accounted for 29% of the worldwide workforce. In 2013, the population of mobile workers was estimated to have risen to 1.19 billion and now accounted for nearly 35% of the workforce (IDC, 2010). However, the term for ‘mobile worker’ is noted as being somewhat nebulous, at most a quantification of the numbers of people who are working away from home is problematic to estimate as current UK national (Office of National Statistics) and international (International Labour Organisation) have no information on the numbers of people who are ‘working away from home’.

In contrast, business travel trends do provide some insight into the growth of a mobile workforce. Measured as a distinct sector for global tourist arrivals, figures show that in 2011 there were 983 million tourist arrivals of which 15% were for business purposes (UNWTO, 2012). In the UK the Office of National Statistics found that in 2011 business travel had grown by 3.1% (ONS, 2011). Yet these figures still provide only an insight into the rise of the mobile workforce, as not all business travellers will stay in hotels and be recorded. Some will use accommodation provided by employers, or make other arrangements, and are therefore hidden from the current representative figures. However, it can be suggested that the practices of working away from home and family is extensive and growing, not only in the UK but on a global level.

Family

The perception of what constitutes the ‘family’ is broad and shifting to encompass a variety of differing social structures and actors beyond those recognised in the western conception of the nuclear family (Chambers, 2012), yet ‘family’ is still considered the cornerstone of our social worlds. Although there is a distinct trend in modern industrial societies for single occupancy space and isolated living, for many people, the home is intimately linked to family, as we share space with those we form familial bonds with, regardless of potential kinship ties (Ibid, 2012).

Family Life

Nippert-Eng (1996) proposes that the boundaries between work and domestic life are becoming increasingly blurred, and that this is being accentuated by the rise of the networked society and the pervasiveness of digital technologies that impact on home life (Castells, 2009; Greenfield, 2006). Changes to patterns of living have also further exacerbated the tension between home and work with a shift towards increased mobility for the purposes of work and a somewhat nomadic arrangement within the home (Urry, 2007).

Increasingly, family life may be disrupted by significant periods of absence in which digital technologies are used to mediate the between the absent family member and home life.

Family Quotidian Rituals

The study of ritual has a long history in anthropological literature, but has often focused on definition and taxonomy that suggest a concentration of descriptions around the construction of ‘ritual’. Grimes (1985) notes that the focus on definition has produced an abundance of ‘ritual types’ that have left uncertainty in identifying rituals and their boundaries. Rituals have been framed in a variety of social worlds that include the religious and secular, political and civic, festivals and games, and whilst these typologies are important for organising the study of ritual, attention to more routinized quotidian ritual activity has become somewhat lost. The focus on defining ritual activity implies a definition of non-ritual activity, the distinction of which De Coppet (1992) argues is fundamental for shaping our values and social relations – this distinction is relative and hence ‘assumes different forms in different societies’. Given the complexity of the activity and actors, De Coppet suggests it is not possible to have a single universal definition of ritual.

Wolin and Bennett (1984) define family rituals as ‘a symbolic form of communication that, owing to the satisfaction that family members experience through its repetition, is acted out in a systematic fashion over time’. Yet, they also identify the difficulty in defining the boundaries of where ritual begins and ends. Whilst notions of ritual may invoke concepts of the sacred and/or celebratory, etymologically ritual also invokes the mundane and the quotidian, as Caletrio (2013) asserts ‘it is often the quotidian details that best reveal the vital pulse of the times, the sensuous, emotional and moral textures of everyday life at a certain historical time’.

Yurman et al (2014) find the ‘grey area’ of ritual boundaries a useful space ‘to open design possibilities’ and the Family Rituals 2.0 project seeks to explore how participation in domestic rituals of family life affects the absence and incorporation of the mobile worker. Our approach has focused on ritual action and practice to critically examine how meaning is derived from otherwise mundane activities. Our investigation has centred on how absent family members are integrated and incorporated into family life when away, so that they are seen as being ‘present’ in the family grouping through the process of ritual. Here the ritual practice not only reaffirms familial bonds but articulates relations of caring (Marouda, 2010), and aims to reveal not what people think about social relations but how they enact them in their daily lives.