著者

福西 由実子

出版者

英米文化学会

雑誌

英米文化 (ISSN:09173536)

巻号頁・発行日

no.35, pp.75-95, 2005-03-31

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Mass-Observation (M-O) was probably the largest investigation into popular culture to be carried out in Britain in the 20^<th> Century. It was established in 1937 by a small group of upper-middle-class intellectuals. The founder, Tom Harrisson, an anthropologist, was aware of the serious gap between what ordinary people, 'the mass', actually thought and what the press, the media and politicians said they thought : 'How little we know of our next door neighbour and his habits; how little we know of ourselves. Of conditions of life and thought in another class, our ignorance is complete. The anthropology of ourselves is still only a dream'. M-O had three main methods : firstly, inviting ordinary people to report on their everyday lives in diary form; secondly, recruiting observers whose role was to watch, listen and document all aspects of ordinary behaviour; and thirdly, involving poets, writers and artists to comment subjectively, in complement to the documentary bias of the observers. These latter believed that it was possible to study society in an entirely objective manner and that the widespread collection of data would 'contribute to an increase in the general social consciousness'. This paper will examine M-O's first and most ambitious study on holiday culture in the seaside resort of Blackpool. This was called the Worktown Project, which, in addition to documenting Blackpool, looked at everyday life in nearby Bolton in 1937-9. (Both towns were chosen as representative of the industrial North.) There is evidence that M-O's image of working-class people and their holiday escapism in Lancashire during the Depression reveals a unique, deeply textured image of being on holiday and something of what it meant. This would suggest much about the evolution of the commercial mass leisure industry and the significance of leisure to the labouring classes.