Photographs from Digital Archives of the Polish Ethnographic Atlas as a source of knowledge about rural children's toys and games in the years 1954-1971

Abstract

Studying ludic culture requires using different sources. The Polish Ethnographic Atlas, partially digitalized collection of which was made available online in 2017, contains numerous and valuable archival materials. The preliminary thematic research, which can be treated as an introduction to further, in-depth studies and analyses, showed that some of them depict toys and games of children living in the Polish countryside in the years 1954–1971, though documenting artefacts and phenomena of this category did not result directly from the principles embraced by the authors of the Atlas. The aim of the article is: 1) to describe the digitalized photographic collection of the PAE, 2) to reflect upon certain strategies of browsing through the electronic database in order to single out material illustrating different aspects of past ludic culture and 3) to describe and determine the usefulness of photographs depicting rural children’s toys and games, found in the digital collection of the PAE, in the studies dedicated to the manifestations of past ludic culture. The text contributes to the discussion about the changes that gradually have been taking place in ethnography in the field of analyzing historical visual documents and deepening research on ludic culture. The article emphasizes the importance and indicates further possibilities of using the archival resources of PAE in ethnography from the perspective of contemporary theories and current methodological approaches.