quotidianes

Quotidianes refers to the everyday, ordinary aspects of life as studied in cultural and social contexts. The term is derived from the Latin quotidianus, meaning daily, and enters English most often through the adjective quotidian. The plural form quotidianes appears mainly in scholarly writing when a non-English or Latinized register is desired to discuss multiple instances or types of daily practices.

In usage, quotidianes denote the routines, rituals, and tasks that comprise daily life, such as cooking, commuting, caregiving, and work. Rather than focusing on remarkable events, discussions of quotidianes aim to understand how social norms, institutions, time-management, and material conditions shape and are shaped by everyday activity.

Analyzing quotidianes can reveal how gender roles, labor division, class, and cultural values are embedded in the mundane. This approach often intersects with fields such as ethnography, cultural anthropology, and sociology, offering insights into how people organize their days and how such organization reflects broader social structures.

Related concepts include quotidian (the ordinary itself), daily life, routine, mundane, habitus, and ethnography. While quotidian is widely used as an adjective, the plural quotidianes remains relatively rare and is typically confined to formal or academic prose.