European inventory of
societal values of culture

Ebrey - The mundane and insignificant, the ordinary and the extraordinary

Ebrey, J. (2016). The mundane and insignificant, the ordinary and the extraordinary: Understanding Everyday Participation and theories of everyday life. Cultural trends, 25(3): 58-168.

The Understanding Everyday Participation (UEP) research project questions “official” versions of what constitutes cultural participation and “proposes a radical re-evaluation of the relationship between participation and cultural value” (www.everydayparticipation.org/about/test-showcase-page/). This article maps out a selective literature review of everyday life with a particular focus on sociological writing, and additional contributions from both scholars of history and philosophy. The author suggests how such work might illuminate both UEP research and cultural policy development. Furthermore, she makes the case for such literature usefully underpinning the project’s focus on developing the “research–policy–practice nexus”, arguing that a careful analysis of the complexities of everyday life can help to generate more democratic and participatory everyday cultural environments.