University of Sussex
Browse
__smbhome.uscs.susx.ac.uk_fafa2_Documents_RESEARCH_Research Current_Ordinariness_RHS_Langhamer.pdf (286.21 kB)

'Who the hell are ordinary people?' Ordinariness as a category of historical analysis

Download (286.21 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 14:11 authored by Claire Langhamer
Ordinariness 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 Society

ISSN

0080-4401

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Volume

28

Page range

175-195

Department 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

2018-07-17

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2018-07-17

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-07-16

Usage metrics

    University of Sussex (Publications)

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC