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'Who the hell are ordinary people?' Ordinariness as a category of historical analysis
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 14:11 authored by Claire LanghamerOrdinariness was a frequently deployed category in the political debates of 2016. According to one political leader, the vote for Brexit was ‘a victory for ordinary, decent people who’ve taken on the establishment and won’. In making this claim Nigel Farage sought to link a dramatic political moment with a powerful, yet conveniently nebulous, construction of the ordinary person. In this paper I want to historicise recent use of the category by returning to another moment when ordinariness held deep political significance: the years immediately following the Second World War. I will explore the range of values, styles, and specific behaviours that gave meaning to the claim to be ordinary; consider the relationship between ordinariness, everyday experience and knowledge; and map the political work ordinariness was called upon to perform. I argue that the immediate postwar period was a critical moment in the formation of ordinariness as a social category, an affective category, a moral category, a consumerist category and, above all, a political category. Crucially, ordinariness itself became a form of expertise, a finding that complicates our understanding of the ‘meritocratic moment’.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Transactions of the Royal Historical SocietyISSN
0080-4401Publisher
Cambridge University PressExternal DOI
Volume
28Page range
175-195Department affiliated with
- History Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2018-07-17First Open Access (FOA) Date
2018-07-17First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2018-07-16Usage metrics
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