This week, Nick Clarke is presenting a paper at the Royal Geographical Society’s annual conference with Khaleda Brophy-Harmer on Using Mass Observation for qualitative longitudinal research. Here’s the abstract:

Since 1981, Mass Observation has run a panel of writers who respond to ‘directives’ – sets of open-ended questions – every few months. If geographers have used this qualitative data recently, they have mostly done so by analysing a range of responses to a small number of directives on a particular topic e.g. Brexit (Clarke and Moss 2021); thrift (Ehgartner and Holmes 2022); time pressure (Holdsworth 2022); the Covid-19 pandemic (Clarke and Barnett 2023); bedrooms (Walsh 2024); drones (Jackman 2025). It is possible, however, to analyse the responses of certain panellists to multiple directives over multiple years. In this paper, we reflect on two studies using this longitudinal approach. One project on the performative production of whiteness followed a small number of panellists over time, tracking their mobile racial identities. A second project on political understandings is currently following a larger number of panellists, tracking development of understandings over the life course.