Abstract
The atmospheric aspects of places have increasingly come under academic scrutiny by philosophers and social scientists. One strand of literature addresses what they are, while another, particularly from the social sciences, focuses on what they do: the collective aspects of engaging, staging and changing atmospheres. This chapter writes itself into the latter by homing in on how atmospheres can originate from, and play a part in, shaping a sense of community. With an ethnographic focus on quotidian practices of domestic lighting in Denmark, and the atmospheres entitled hygge, the chapter shows how atmospheres are not only individually experienced but also entangled in everyday practices and cultural norms of sensing and appreciating atmospheres that connect people, places and things in atmospheric communities. It is thereby argued that atmospheres may connect different scales of experiences from the individual to the collective, from a neighbourhood, to a national identity.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/shortlist-2016 (accessed May 2019).
- 3.
https://www.danmarkskanon.dk/vaerdi/hygge/ (accessed May 2019).
- 4.
https://www.bolius.dk/derfor-elsker-danskerne-stearinlys-24773/ (accessed 4.4.2016, although that year excluded Sweden, which normally uses around 4 kg per capita, compared to 5.79 kg in Denmark).
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Siri Schwabe and David Pinder for comments on an earlier draft. The article is drawing on material from Bille, M. (2019), Homely Atmospheres and Lighting Technologies in Denmark. Living with Light. London: Bloomsbury.
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Bille, M. (2019). The Lightness of Atmospheric Communities. In: Griffero, T., Tedeschini, M. (eds) Atmosphere and Aesthetics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24942-7_14
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