How to Have a 'Good Home': The Practical Aesthetic and Normativity in Norway

Abstract

This article presents an exploration of home decoration and domestic aesthetics in the
\nNorwegian town of Skien. The analysis of everyday domestic aesthetics is derived from
\noriginal ethnographic research in which a normative social reference point such as practicality
\nis investigated in the organization of material culture and decorative order. I analyse
\ndomestic aesthetics in terms of Campbell's discussion of need or desire-based rhetoric as
\nforming the basis of consumer choices. I discuss this position through an analysis of 'the
\npractical' (praktiskj as it pertains to ideas of the 'good home' in Norway. I suggest that
\npracticality can be described as an idiom through which an aaeptable image of individual
\npriorities is projected. The articulation of socially legitimate objectives also allows a certain
\ndisjuncture between words and actions and underpins one expression of the normative home.