30 Tim Winter
a practice theory perspective might view the increase in residential air-
conditioning as the changing practice of household cooling, involving the
complex co-evolution of material infrastructures (changing housing formats,
central heating and cooling, the affordability and availability of the air-
conditioner); common understandings of air-conditioning as a normal and
necessary service, and changing notions of “air” “health” and “wellbeing”
[sic] associated with indoor climate and temperature; practical knowledge
about how to cool the body and home; and rules about how to use and install
the air-conditioner. This is distinct from accounts of the air-conditioner’s rapid
diffusion in western societies that privilege processes of market economics
(affordability and availability), cultural symbolism (the air-conditioner’s role
as a “status” object), or changing individual choices and lifestyle needs
(2012, p. 228)In considering such insights in relation to the rapid uptake of air conditioning
in Asia, rather than focusing on the entanglements that lead to its adoption and
incorporation into everyday life as Strengers, Schatzki, and Shove et al. have
done, I want to focus on its alternatives, those low-carbon comfort practices that
lie outside the comfort regime of electronic AC. To head in such directions and
as noted earlier, we need to see comfort as something that is accomplished—as
opposed to being delivered as a service—such that it is enacted by the occupants
of building on an ongoing basis and reproduced over time. Prior to the widespread
adoption of air-con, comfort practices relied upon an accumulated knowledge that
was transmitted to others over time. In the hot and humid climate of Southeast Asia,
maintaining comfort involved understanding the thermal properties of materials
and the implications of habituated activities. In many cases, understanding the
thermal properties of textiles formed part of clothing practices. Caution here
should be made in not offering an overly climatic determinism, as the histories
of clothing and dress by cultural group are layered with the traditions of religion,
class, gender, different ethno-cultural heritages, and so forth. By recognizing such
factors, it is possible to identify the practices of wearing certain textile fibers, styles
of clothing, or seasonally based garments that all point toward an accumulated
knowledge of maintaining bodily comfort in certain climatic conditions (Khoo
1993; Dhamija and Eicher 2010).
We can think of fans in a similar way. Some of the earliest examples of
hand-held fanning originate from China, with woven bamboo ceremonial fans
having been dated as far back as the second century bc. Accordingly, books by
Irons (1982) and Hutt and Alexander (1992) document the extensive history of
hand fanning in China and Japan, respectively, indicating how the practice of
cooling also became deeply incorporated into the cultural fabric of their societies,
allowing users to hide emotions, demonstrate etiquette and manners, and identify
social hierarchies. Interestingly, across a number of Asian countries, together with
the shade-providing decorative umbrella, fans became one of the accoutrements
of royal and court culture, repeatedly featuring in ceremonies and processions.
In India, the “punkah” began to appear from the seventeenth century onward.