The Flexibility Reading Room was held on the 1st October 2020 and did not actually read anything on seasonality (partly because we could not find anything suitable. If anyone out there has any suggestions, do let us know). Instead we had four short presentations on the topic; one from Mikko Jalas on infrastructures, variations in demand and the ‘shadowy’ sides of these arrangements; one from Elizabeth Shove, who did a quick summary of what seem to be relevant ideas from Marcel Mauss’ work on seasonality amongst the Eskimos; Dale Southerton and Jen Whillans on looking for seasonal variations in UK time use data and Jacopo Torriti, taking a similar approach to energy and time use data.
We then went around the ‘room’ which was quite crowded – some 18 people, from a splendid range of different disciplines and countries. Hearing about which ideas caught the attention and sparked interest from each person in turn resulted in a powerful sense of potential: in different ways and from different angles topics of seasonality are here to stay.
There was so much going on here – as you will discover if you listen to the recording – that we will almost certainly have to return to this topic in the future. In the meantime, welcome to autumn.
You can listen to the recording here: