“Almost Nothing Has Changed”: Ordinary Ethics and Forms of Life in Pandemic Times

Abstract

In this article, we reflect on the daily life of a white middle-class family living in southern Brazil during the Covid-19 pandemic. Approaching care as a practical activity sensitive to the details of everyday life, we emphasize the relevance of the notion of ordinary ethics developed by Veena Das. Through the narratives of members of this family, it is possible to see the invisible and invisiblized work necessary to maintain ordinary life and the weaving together of the ordinary and the extraordinary revealed in the relationship of three generations in the same house. Finally, we argue for the fundamental connection between ordinary ethics and forms of life, highlighting how the domestic space is not only a crucial structure of care in the Brazilian scenario of social and political vulnerability, but is also an active element in which forms of life take form and come to life.