Paper Short Abstract:

The paper seeks to analyse the often-overlooked visual aspects of handwritten and typescript folklore manuscripts. What are the collectors’ visual cues? From the perspective of visual ethnography, Latvian folklore collections from exile (created after World War II in Sweden, Germany, the US, Canada and other countries) will be highlighted and interpreted.

Paper Abstract:

In manuscript archives, the written texts undisputedly hold a hierarchically dominant position. In contrast, the visualities go overlooked quite often. Marginalia, ornamental vignettes, doodles, specifically chosen layout of the text, various colours of the letters, underlining and other graphic emphases of some words, cut-outs from the magazines, a blurry amateur photography, a transport or theatre ticket saved and pasted into the manuscript: these extra-textual shreds of evidence usually do not deserve much attention of archivists, unless they are of a clearly illustrative nature

Do the design, materiality, and visual elements of the manuscripts serve as forms of communication on their own? Through the lens of visual ethnography (Ali 2018, Pink 2021), the author will attempt to demonstrate and analyse how the visualities that accompany the written content may carry with them collectors’ sentiments, certain sensualities, and testimonies of one’s identity and values beyond words.

The sources of the study are the manuscripts of Archives of Latvian Folklore, in particular, the folklore collections created by Latvians in exile–in Sweden, Germany, the US, Canada, Australia and other countries (as a result of forced migration after World War II). The maintenance of national identity in exile motivated the dispersed Latvian community to collect, publish and research Latvian folklore away from their homeland. This shared ethos is demonstrated quite often in exile collections, and not just in words. A close reading and observation of these collections reveal both explicit and implicit meanings of the visualities noticed alongside texts.