The authors of this book analyze the Mass-Observation Project as a way of understanding the nature of writing and the social conditions within which people write, the social purposes they use writing for, and how writing fits in with their life histories, all of which define writing itself. The authors are also interested in how writing is implicated in power relations, and how it is used to establish identities and to transform social situations and relationships. The Mass-Observation Project is a unique institutional context for writing. From the beginning, in Britain, the project involved ordinary people observing and writing about life and collecting those writings for future use by researchers, the media, students and the public in general.