The Historical Contexts and Contemporary Uses of Mass Observation

This edited collection examines Mass-Observation as an innovative research organization, a social-movement, and an archival project. It features essays that highlight the research of contemporary scholars and focuses on the thematic interdisciplinary use of materials from both the Mass-Observation Archive and the contemporary Mass Observation Project.

In the last two decades, many scholars have used data collected by Mass-Observation to study British society in the interwar, wartime, and early post-war periods. In turn, scholarly analyses of the significance of the organization itself to the study of literature, art, history, sociology, anthropology, and the broader realm of cultural studies has been subsequently undertaken. This volume presents cutting-edge scholarship that uses Mass Observation materials in innovative ways, exploring everyday life, visuality, writing, fashion, music, television, and emotion, among other subjects, in Britain since the 1930s in the process.