Living the weather
20 Jun 2016
Professor Jennifer Mason's fascination with the weather in everyday life has yielded a film, book and workshop
The British are known as a nation of weather-obsessives and it is even said that the weather in some cities and regions affects the characters of their inhabitants. New research by Professor Jennifer Mason explores just how deeply ingrained our relationship with the weather is, and how it affects our daily lives from day to day and season to season.
Professor of Sociology and a member of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives, Jennifer is fascinated by the role that weather plays in everyday life, affecting our routines, relationships, activities and. It’s a project for people who get a strange buzz out of being able to put the washing on the line rather than the airer, or who dread winter because they feel trapped in the house, or who love winter for the feel of a run in the freezing rain, or who feel summer is more free and sociable, or who hate never having the right clothes for the weather.
Jennifer collected weather stories in research interviews and through blogs and written weather reports from people living, like her, in the Calder Valley, which she describes as having a lot of weather to study, often with all the seasons represented in one day, and more than once. And some of her participants definitely agree that the idea of hardy northerners and soft southerners.
Lorenzo Ferrarini, filmmaker and social anthropologist, has worked with Jennifer to capture the feel of Calder Valley weather in a beautiful documentary film which tells some of the ‘weather stories’. You can watch either the full 50 minute version or the 15 minute edited version below.
Jennifer has edited some of the weather stories she has been collecting during her research in a book, which is available in print and online, in PDF or as an eBook at:
To hear more about the project, and even have a go at becoming an ‘everyday weather correspondent’ join Jennifer at Manchester Museum on 30 June for her free ‘Living (and writing) the weather’ workshop:
The project is funded by a Leverhulme Professorial Fellowship.