The doctoral thesis explores the characteristics of lifestyle and the changes that took place in the 20th century in the case of five families in Hódmezővásárhely, through specialised sources: visual family histories (private photo collections and the related narratives). The study was based on visual ethnography, but due to the complexity of the subject, it also used approaches from history, sociology and memory studies.
It’s main hypothesis is that during the 20th century the lifestyle of families in Hódmezővásárhely changed due to various micro-level (internal) and macro-level (external) factors. and all these characteristics are reflected in the visual family history.
The study showed that the chosen source – through its complex mix of content – confirmed the premise and provided insights into the different characteristics of the 20th century lifestyles of the examined families, such as the family structure, social situation, housing style, space use, activity structure, relationship system and living conditions. The longitudinal study revealed the details of the processes of change, their consequences and the external and internal factors behind them.
The source material shed light on the problem under study from a micro-level perspective, however it touched the macro-level factors affecting the way of life and living conditions, such as social mobility, power interventions, wars, and economic processes. These factors appeared strongly in the narrations, but contrary the previous opinions, they were also clearly found in the visual references.
Overall, this means that, although it was not possible to explore the whole of life, or to be representative, the deep-drilling analysis of the chosen source revealed new perspectives, new details of known contexts, and thus allowed a different level of detail to be given to a problem often discussed in the history of science.