TEMPORALITIES, RITUAL, AND DRINKING IN MASS OBSERVATION'S WORKTOWN
| Autor: | Jennie Taylor, Simon Prince |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
History
media_common.quotation_subject 05 social sciences Authoritarianism Subject (philosophy) Media studies Spell 06 humanities and the arts Object (philosophy) 060104 history Power (social and political) Politics Temporalities 0502 economics and business Contradiction 0601 history and archaeology Sociology 050212 sport leisure & tourism media_common |
| Zdroj: | The Historical Journal. 64:1083-1104 |
| ISSN: | 1469-5103 0018-246X |
| DOI: | 10.1017/s0018246x20000461 |
| Popis: | In Bolton's pubs at the end of the 1930s, the research organization Mass Observation pursued answers to big abstract questions about time by studying small concrete actions. Drawing on field notes, draft manuscripts, and published works, this article sets out the different understandings and experiences of time documented by the team of investigators. Outside the ‘time-clock factory-whistle dimension of living’ and inside ‘pub-time’, individuals bought drinks for their companions, drank at the same pace, and engaged with everyone around them on an equal footing. Mass Observation presented such behaviours as proof that the pub fostered a socially harmonious, egalitarian community from a pre-industrial age. However, this article shows that the pub study's archive contains material that goes against the published findings. Observers turned in reports about authoritarian conduct, hierarchical power structures, and the intrusion of contemporary politics. Blurring the research subject and object, it was sometimes the investigators themselves who broke the spell of the pub. These moments of tension, confusion, and contradiction offer insights into the observers’ own perspectives on modern temporalities and subjective experiences of time. All the people in the pubs were caught up in a state of flux. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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