Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Filling the Silences? Mass-Observation's Wartime Diaries, Interpretive Work and Indexicality

2010; Routledge; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14484520903342916

1751-2964

A.E. Salter,

Romani and Gypsy Studies

Abstract This article conceptualises the silences encountered when researching life writings and how these are filled through analytical and interpretive activities. Using examples from my research on Mass-Observation's (M-O's) women's wartime diaries and framing the discussion around M-O's concept of its observers as 'subjective cameras', the paper explores three sets of issues. Firstly, it considers the use of part of a data source, such as one diary or particular entries from it, as a means of making sense of the whole and of silences within it. Secondly, it problematises the assumed closeness between life and text in reading the M-O wartime diaries. Thirdly, it discusses interpretive work on life writings and suggests that the ethnomethodological idea of indexicality helpfully characterises how I made sense of the M-O diaries as a whole from working on particular examples. I shall suggest that interpretive indexical work (between part and whole, and indeed between representation and life) is conditioned, if not determined, by the reading practices and activities deployed in research. This in turn points up the 'connecting theories' involved in piecing together indexical knowledges, which are framed according to and help elucidate the 'subjective lens' through which the researcher analyses and interprets the sources worked on. Keywords: Mass-Observationdiariestextual silencesindexicalityconnecting theories Acknowledgements I am very grateful to the Trustees of the Mass-Observation Archive, University of Sussex, for their permission to use original archive material, and also to the ESRC for fully funding my doctoral research (PTA-030-2004-00614). Notes 1. Mass-Observation began in 1937, initiated by a newspaper letter calling for an 'anthropological study of our own situation' (Jeffery Jeffery , Tom . 'Mass-Observation: A Short History.' Mass-Observation Archive Occasional Paper No. 10, University of Sussex Library 1999 [1978] [Google Scholar]; Pyke Pyke , Geoffrey . 'King and Country.' New Statesman and Nation . 12 December, XII.303 (New Series) 1936 : 974 . [Google Scholar]; Sheridan, Street, and Bloome Sheridan , Dorothy , Street , Brian V. Bloome , David . Writing Ourselves: Mass-Observation and Literacy Practices . Creskill, New Jersey : Hampton Press , 2000 . [Google Scholar]). Charles Madge responded to this and, with Humphrey Jennings and others, gathered a group of volunteers who operated from his home in Blackheath, London. At the end of January 1937 a letter from Tom Harrisson, Jennings and Madge Jennings , Humphrey Madge , Charles Beachcroft Thomas O. J. Blackburn Empson William Legg Stuart Raine Kathleen May The Twelfth: Mass-Observation Day-Surveys 1937 . London : Faber and Faber , 1937 [1987] . [Google Scholar] announced the formation of M-O (Harrisson, Jennings, and Madge Harrisson , Tom , Jennings , Humphrey Madge , Charles . 'Anthropology at Home.' New Statesman and Nation 30 January, XIII.310 (New Series) 1937 : 155 . [Google Scholar]) and called for volunteers. Initially, Harrisson worked in Bolton and Blackpool on an anthropological study of the working classes, while Madge and Jennings worked in Blackheath sending out Directives (broad questions on specific topics inviting respondents to put forward their views) and Day-Surveys or Day-Diaries (asking respondents to record their activities over a specific day), publishing those for Coronation Day 1937 (Jennings and Madge Jennings , Humphrey Madge , Charles Beachcroft Thomas O. J. Blackburn Empson William Legg Stuart Raine Kathleen May The Twelfth: Mass-Observation Day-Surveys 1937 . London : Faber and Faber , 1937 [1987] . [Google Scholar]). Harrisson later requested M-O's National Panel to write Wartime Diaries. All the material is archived in the Mass-Observation Archive (M-O A), University of Sussex. 2. See Sheridan Street, and Bloome Sheridan , Dorothy , Street , Brian V. Bloome , David . Writing Ourselves: Mass-Observation and Literacy Practices . Creskill, New Jersey : Hampton Press , 2000 . [Google Scholar] for a comparison between the early and post-1981 M-O projects, see Sheridan Sheridan , Dorothy . 'Writing to the Archive: Mass-Observation as Autobiography.' Sociology 27 1993 : 27 40 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar] 'Writing to the Archive' . 3. See Sheridan, Street, and Bloome (196–197, 229–232) regarding different audiences for M-O material. 4. These were: The Declaration of War; Dunkirk & the Fall of France; D-Day; Hamburg, Dresden & Würzburg (Fire) Bombings; Victory in Europe (VE) Day; Hiroshima, Nagasaki & Victory in Japan (VJ) Day; Armistice Days. 5. See Lejeune Lejeune , Philippe . On Autobiography . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press , 1989 . [Google Scholar]; Marcus Marcus , Laura . Auto/Biographical Discourses: Theory, Criticism, Practice . Manchester : Manchester University Press , 1994 . [Google Scholar]; Plummer Plummer , Ken 2001 Documents of Life 2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism . London : Sage Publications .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar] (86); Roos Roos , J. P. 'The True Life Revisited: Autobiography and Referentiality After the 'Posts' , Auto/Biography , 3 1, 2 & 3 (Special Issue), 1994 : 1 30 . [Google Scholar]; Stanley Stanley , Liz . The Auto/Biographical I: The Theory and Practice of Feminist Auto/Biography . Manchester : Manchester University Press , 1992 [Google Scholar] The Auto/Biographical I , for example. 6. See Broad and Fleming Broad , Richard Fleming , Suzie Mulford Jeremy Nella Last's War: A Mother's Diary 1939–1945 . Bristol : Falling Wall Press , 1981 . [Google Scholar]; Malcolmson and Cockett Malcolmson , Robert W. Cockett , Olivia Love and War in London: A Woman's Diary 1939–1942 . Waterloo, , Ontario, Canada : Wilfred Laurier University Press , 2005 . [Google Scholar]; Malcolmson and Malcolmson Malcolmson , Robert W. Malcolmson , Patricia A Woman in Wartime London: The Diary of Kathleen Tipper, 1941–1945 (London Record Society, Vol. 41), London : London Record Society Publications , 2006 . [Google Scholar]; Malcolmson and Searby Malcolmson , Robert W. Searby , Peter , Wartime Norfolk: The Diary of Rachel Dhonau 1941–1942 . Norfolk : Norfolk Record Society , 2004 . [Google Scholar]; Sheridan Sheridan , Dorothy Among You Taking Notes: The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison . London : Gollancz , 1985 [2000] . [Google Scholar] 'Among You Taking Notes'. 7. See Barthes (111); Eakin Eakin , Paul John . 'Henry James's 'Obscure Hurt': Can Autobiography Serve Biography?' New Literary History 19 3 1988 : 675 692 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Jay Jay , Paul L. 'Being in the Text: Autobiography and the Problem of the Subject.' MLN 97 5 1982 : 1045 1063 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Roos Roos , J. P. 'The True Life Revisited: Autobiography and Referentiality After the 'Posts' , Auto/Biography , 3 1, 2 & 3 (Special Issue), 1994 : 1 30 . [Google Scholar], for example. 8. D 5278 is the 'Diarist Number' ascribed to Olivia Cockett by the M-O Archive. Cockett's and Last's M-O diaries have (partly) been published (Malcolmson Malcolmson , Robert W. Malcolmson , Patricia , Nella Last's Peace: The Post-War Diaries of Housewife 49 . London : Profile Books , 2008 . [Google Scholar] and Cockett; Broad and Fleming Broad , Richard Fleming , Suzie Mulford Jeremy Nella Last's War: A Mother's Diary 1939–1945 . Bristol : Falling Wall Press , 1981 . [Google Scholar]; Malcolmson and Malcolmson), and I am therefore able to use their real names. All other diarists mentioned have been given pseudonyms, however. 9. In relation to ethnomethodology, see Attewell Attewell , Paul . 'Ethnomethodology Since Garfinkel.' Theory and Society 1 2 1974 : 179 210 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] (191–193). 10. See Greene Greene , Gayle . 'Feminist Fiction and the Uses of Memory.' Signs 16 2 1991 : 290 321 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] (292). 11. See McNeil McNeil , Laurie . 'Review: Recovering Women's Lives' , Canadian Literature 172 2002 : 149 151 . [Google Scholar] (151) regarding the problems of trying to speak for others. See Buzard Buzard , James . 'On Auto-Ethnographic Authority.' The Yale Journal of Criticism 16 1 2003 : 61 91 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar] regarding 'giving voice' and examining situated knowledges, political locations or standpoint epistemologies as ideologically-disciplined lenses informing research in the critical humanities and social sciences.