Paper short abstract:

The paper wishes to reflect on the scientific value of ordinary everyday life, working with material that is as individual as fruitful: personal diaries from archives that allow scholarly research. As a medium of importance for cultural history, diaries offer a wide range of tracks to follow.

Paper long abstract:

Personal diaries, written on paper and stored in volumes often covering decades of events, thoughts and ideas, seem - in times of social media and blogs - to have become an anachronism. But this ageing medium has contained a surprising and growing popularity, especially in a sphere located between professional social research and honorary initiative: Diary Archives, focusing on unpublished documents which have not been produced by professional writers. Founded in the last 30 years, receiving more material than they can process, eight such initiatives formed the network "European Diary Archives and Collections" in 2015 (with three more archives/collections having joined since). Their various activities endorse, among other things, scholarly research that can be widespread in terms of topics or historical and regional differences. As diaries put ordinary everyday lifes on record, and often do so without any specific instruction or leading motivation, they allow tracking changes in a unique way. Using such material covering a timespan of 40 years, the proposed contribution aims predominantly at the following questions: 1.) How can the unspecific nature of diaries with some elements seeming too common be handled methodologically? 2.) How hard is the border between literature and diaries - considering prevalent assumptions that authors of the latter almost always expect readers as well? These questions will be addressed in the frame of contemporary biography research in social sciences/cultural studies - complemented by a theoretical outlook on the specifics of diaries as a medium of human self-reflection, informed by critical theory.