TVÄTTSTUGAN: Mellan smutstvätt och social kontroll

Resumé

This article will elucidate the Swedish laundry room as a place. Two aspects of the

laundry room will be discussed. First the laundry room is seen as an extension of the

sphere of the private home. In this regard I show how the laundry room becomes a

symbol of what is to be seen as “normal”. This becomes clear when the rules of the

laundry room are transgressed, e.g. what is an acceptable behaviour in the laundry

room? The second aspect is to show how the laundry room becomes a place were social

control is being used. To maintain this control certain techniques are used. I focus

primarily on the “laundry room note”. Certain techniques have in this regard a disciplinary

character. As a place the laundry room unfolds the boundaries when a transgression is

being made. When someone hangs up his or her laundry in a tree it is seen as something

unnatural even though the dryer has been out of function for months. It is not only

about hanging up laundry; it is rather a question of which category is hanging up the

laundry. More or less explicit power techniques are being used in the laundry room that

in their turn reveal the social relations at hand. The “laundry room note” is one of these

techniques, which have the function of erasing the communication between parties and

in that way it dictates the place. Transgressions of the rules of the laundry room are

explained with the “perpetrators” personal faults or their cultural traits.