Introduction: Towards a Sociology of the Everyday in Brunei Darussalam

Abstract

To borrow Bourdieu’s (1990) terminology, the habitus of everyday life is a lifeworld simultaneously constrained by and resistant of more powerful social structures and institutions. It alerts us to the idea that everyday life and ‘ordinariness’ can serve to mask extraordinary levels of adaptability, fortitude and reciprocity. This introductory chapter details a sociology of the everyday and its utility for developing our understanding of the ways in which people and communities in Brunei Darussalam perceive and interpret their contemporary reality. It considers the new angles of vision and scale that such an approach may offer on this most discrete of countries.