BRIEF ENCOUNTER - THE MEETING, IN MASS-OBSERVATION, OF BRITISH SURREALISM AND POPULAR ANTHROPOLOGY

Much of the programme of today's literary postmodernists is not new, b ut was prefigured in the 1930s in the early work of Mass-Observation. One central aim of this organization, run by a group of British surrea lists and a popularizing anthropologist, was the production of ethnogr aphy of the people by the people for the people. Though it won great p ublic interest, the work of Mass-Observation was not on the whole acce pted by anthropologists of the day. This article, besides pointing out the importance of this neglected episode in British anthropology, ill uminates the debate on the possible relations of surrealism and ethnog raphy, and discusses the nature of institutional constraint on the int ellectual development of the discipline.