Collective cool

Abstract

Would you share your freezer with your neighbours? Today, most Swedish households have access to a home freezer, but in the middle of the 20th century, collective freezer lockers offered affordable access to modern technology. Geographers have suggested that encouraging collective cooling practices could reduce environmental impact. The aim of this article is to investigate collective freezer lockers as a cultural phenomenon, and thereby getting closer to collective cooling practices, and to discuss the conditions for (re-introducing) collective freezer practices. Through personal narratives and media material, I trace meanings, norms, and discourses that formed part of these practices. The lockers were involved in daily practices of food, managing distances and social relations, and declined when home freezers became depicted as more affordable and rational. I conclude with discussing the possibilities and implications of a potential upscaling or revitalising of the practice of collective freezing.