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Using interviews, the media and Mass Observation to research the family history boom

Using interviews, the media and Mass Observation to research the family history boom. Dr Anne-Marie Kramer Leverhulme Early Career Fellow Department of Sociology, University of Warwick Research Methods Festival, Oxford Wednesday 7 th July 2010 Anne-Marie.Kramer@warwick.ac.uk.

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Using interviews, the media and Mass Observation to research the family history boom

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  1. Using interviews, the media and Mass Observation to research the family history boom Dr Anne-Marie Kramer Leverhulme Early Career Fellow Department of Sociology, University of Warwick Research Methods Festival, Oxford Wednesday 7th July 2010 Anne-Marie.Kramer@warwick.ac.uk

  2. The family history ‘boom’ • Unparallelled public access to historical records • New technologies • Celebrity genealogy TV programmes • Personal and family biographies & ‘rootedness’ remain extremely important & foundational to identity (Kramer, forthcoming) = Booming family heritage industry

  3. The research project I • ‘The cultural status of genealogy’ – Leverhulme funded Early Career Fellowship (Aug 2008 – present) • Explores the meaning and consequences of the current boom in UK family history research for the individuals undertaking it, their families, and British society more broadly • Interested in exploring how family history research functions in the personal life of individuals and families in relation to ‘connection, relationship, reciprocal emotion, entwinement, memory, history’ (Smart, 2007: 189)

  4. The research project II • Investigates how the meaning of family history is understood broadly within British society. • Locates the family history phenomenon in relation to personal life Asks: • what has stimulated the appetite for family history research or the quest for ‘rootedness’, and what sustains it • what a focus on family history can offer to our understanding of how connectedness, relatedness and affinity function to mediate and structure personal and family lives.

  5. Beyond the in-depth interview • Sociologists need to innovate in terms of the methodological resources they use, going beyond the in-depth interview and the sample survey (Savage, 2007) • A return to sociological description (Savage, 2007) • Treating documents as more than inert texts, but actors in their own right (Prior, 2008)

  6. Sources • Media analysis: Broadsheet newspaper coverage of FHR (2000 – 2008) TV analysis (Who Do You Think You Are?) Genealogy magazines (6 monthlies) • Mass Observation Directive, Summer 2008 Part 1 on ‘Doing Family History Research’ • Interviews with archivists, professional and amateur family historians

  7. Levels of analysis: who to research? • Investigating the ‘boom’ – but from whose perspective? • National – familial – individual & personal identities • Multiple viewpoints: those identifying as family historians; those interested but not active; those with a family member involved in it; those actively ambivalent or hostile

  8. Levels of analysis: Working with multiple texts • Media saturation of everyday life: public representation of family history plus how media texts function and saturate personal lives • Written versus oral responses • Weaving the strands together

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