The Everyday and the Political: Contrast, Resistance, or Foundation?

Abstract

The paper examines various interpretations of the relation between everyday life and politics. Three types of approach are identified: the everyday can be taken as opposed to politics, as a site of resistance, or as the foundation of political action in the narrow sense. Contemporary theory, it is argued, increasingly departs from the first approach while developing the latter two. In this way the understanding of politics is substantially transformed and enriched.