The Daily Life, the Gestures and Life
In general, everyday life is represented by the routine, as an insignificant commonness. However, the study of the gestures analysed in terms of the clumsiness and the break in the routine reveals its uniqueness. This article is based on an ethnography of the everyday domestic gestures of Blacks descendants of African slaves on the Pacific Lowlands in Ecuador. The aim is to show how daily life offers many opportunities to act on life and death. The domestic acts being gestures to clean the house, utilitarian and intimate performed inside the house. Their « symbolic efficiency » depends on their ability to maintain a constantly renewed distance from the threat of death. It symbolizes a willingness to act on and to react to uncertainty with regard to the future in order to make room for life.