Nick Clarke’s Everyday Life in the Covid-19 Pandemic and Jonathan Moss and Emily Robinson’s The Politics of Feeling in Brexit Britain
This month, the Mass Observation Archive hosted a book launch for two newly pressed publications: ‘Everyday Life in the Covid-19 Pandemic’ by Nick Clarke (University of Southampton) and ‘The Politics of Feeling in Brexit Britain’ by Emily Robinson and Jonathan Moss (University of Sussex). Both books utilised some of the more contemporary collections from the MO archive to compile and consider public opinion on two pivotal moments in recent history: the coronavirus pandemic and the EU referendum/Brexit.
Eight years out from the EU referendum and merely four years since the pandemic was pronounced a national emergency, these two texts allow us insight into our immediate present; that is, how our lives today have been shaped by these two major events, and how we can move forward in their wake.
Everyday Life in the Covid-19 Pandemic
Author and academic Nick Clarke was joined by the Mass Observation team and academic Ben Highmore to discuss his experience writing the book and working with the MO Archive. The talk took place on Zoom on Thursday May 2, 2024.
On May 12th 2020, the MO received over a thousand diary entries from individuals across the UK. This was, to use the term of the time, an unprecedented number of submissions for the archive, which usually receives submissions in the hundreds. By May 2020, the entire nation had been in lockdown for months, and was at that point hopeful that the pandemic would ‘ease up’ by the summer months. The diary entries from that period thus encompass a vast array of emotional responses to this strange moment in history and serve as a useful record of an experience everyone shared.
Author Nick Clarke solely utilized the COVID diaries to develop what he described as a ‘pandemic encyclopaedia’ of emotional data. As such, the book is less of a commentary on the pandemic, and more of resource for those looking for a qualitative assessment of how the pandemic influenced individual lives. Clarke organised the diary entries into recurring themes such as ‘Furlough, ‘The New Normal’ and ‘Birdsong’. This approach to thinking about the pandemic could be considered a necessary and slightly more humane companion to the more analytical, quantitative datasets on the effects of the pandemic we have seen heaps of since its onset.
One of the most important questions MO has consistently asked of us is to reexamine what is deemed worthy of documentation. During his research, Clarke noted how the slower pace of life that many diarists encountered made way for particularly ruminative and vulnerable entries. More than ever, though, diarists saw a newfound sense of value in contributing to MO in this period because they felt that they were living through an historic moment. The widely felt extraordinary nature of lockdown allowed diarists to reflect on the importance of each passing day.
The Politics of Feeling in Brexit Britain
Authors Jonathan Moss, Emily Robinson and Jake Watts. Jonathan and Emily were joined by the Mass Observation Team to launch their new book and discuss how they used MO’s directives to consider political opinion pre, during and post the EU referendum. The talk took place on Sussex Campus on Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
2016: ‘What are your hopes and fears for the UK after the referendum is over?’
2017: ‘How has the EU referendum affected (if at all) how you feel you belong?
2019: ‘Did you celebrate, commiserate, or ignore the UK leaving the EU?’
Between 2016 and 2019, the MO sent out several directives related to the EU referendum, leading all the way up to the day the decision to leave was made. The questions encouraged diarists to track how they considered the EU referendum over time. This resulted in the development of a rich and complex catalogue of individual thoughts and feelings regarding the issue.
At their book launch this month, authors Moss and Robinson discussed how they used this collection to develop an ‘archive of feeling’ on the Brexit vote that elucidates the ways in which emotions and inner lives became increasingly tangled up in the way UK citizens decided to cast their vote.
The book considers the feelings of ‘Leavers’ and ‘Remainers’ side by side, in an attempt to gain a broad understanding of how both ends of the political spectrum were emotionally affected by this vote. It further begs the question: how are the public’s political ideas shaped by emotion as opposed to reason? Many diarists expressed difficulties understanding those who held different opinions from their own. Additionally, diarists also admitted to basing their decisions on a ‘gut feeling’ due to a sense of distrust in what was being dispersed by news outlets.
Is it dangerous to factor emotions into how individuals vote across the country? Furthermore, has this period changed how we see and interact with those who share different political opinions from our own? Has it changed how we feel our political opinions shape our ‘authentic selves’? Robinson and Moss interrogate these challenging questions in the book via the 500 diarists who contributed their thoughts on the matter.
Both books use the MO to ask challenging questions about how we engage with the present. They also allow us insight into why people make the decisions they do. Though, ultimately, as Nick Clarke commented in his talk, one cannot walk away from reading MO diary entries without feeling inspired to think about the lives others with ‘modesty and care’. As such, these two books may allow us to view difficult issues, and ask difficult questions, with a little more empathy towards others.
The COVID Diaries will be universally accessible online this summer on the Mass Observation website online. The book may be purchased online here:
The EU referendum/Brexit directives are available to view by appointment at The Keep. The book may be purchased online here:
Manchester University Press – The politics of feeling in Brexit Britain