Abstract

Derridean deconstruction has often been accused of not being relevant to the anaysis of 'real life' contexts and phenomena. This article develops a critique of such a perspective on the basis of its inadequacy with regard to the thinking of the everyday. Everyday life is a key area of cultural study today and this argument presented here, developed through a reading of several texts of Derrida, Heidegger and other thinkers, attempts to go beyond naive, unphilosophical claims about the everyday as an object of inquiry - often based on a naive narturalistic notion of the everyday. In doing so it shows how a detailed engagement with deconstruction might lead to a productive rethinking of what is taken for granted about the supposed immediacy of experience.