Out of the ordinary: Everyday life and the “carnival of Mussolini”

Heywood, Paolo

doi:10.1111/aman.13850

Out of the ordinary: Everyday life and the “carnival of Mussolini”

Heywood, Paolo

Authors

Dr Paolo Heywood paolo.heywood@durham.ac.uk
Assistant Professor

Abstract

Ordinary life is in many ways the quintessential object of anthropological analysis. Yet little attention has been paid to contexts in which it is important to people themselves that they and their actions are seen to be ordinary and to the work that goes into making something or someone appear ordinary. An exploration of ordinary life in Predappio, Italy, birthplace and grave of Benito Mussolini and premier site of neofascist tourism, reveals just how much effort has to go into producing a scaled sense of ordinariness in this extraordinary place. In this way, ordinary life is exposed as the object, not the site, of such work. This suggests the need to reconsider our usage of ordinary life in order to attend to situations in which the category itself—not just its particular contents—has ethnographic relevance.

Citation

Heywood, P. (2023). Out of the ordinary: Everyday life and the “carnival of Mussolini”. American Anthropologist, https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13850

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Oct 21, 2022
Online Publication Date	May 29, 2023
Publication Date	2023
Deposit Date	Oct 25, 2022
Publicly Available Date	May 30, 2023
Journal	American Anthropologist
Print ISSN	0002-7294
Electronic ISSN	1548-1433
Publisher	American Anthropological Association
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13850
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1190777

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© 2023 The Authors. American Anthropologist published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Anthropological Association.

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