The life-historical Archive for Saxony

The life-historical Archive for Saxony (LGA) collects and documents biographical materials. At first, after its establishment in 1997, the emphasis was on inventories acquired from the predecessor institutions of the ISGV and from private owners. Meanwhile, materials from research projects, like e.g. life-historical interviews, are also collected, with the focus of the research approach on the perspective of the individual and its written or oral accounts. In this way, perceptions of members of the most diverse social groups and milieus become accessible. Cultural anthropology (Volkskunde) is mainly interested in individual ways of experience, evaluation patterns, and performances of life history ­– between yesterday and today, individuality and social communication. Putting all this together, the spectrum of diverse social conditions, life styles, and mentalities will be documented and analysed. The inventories of the LGA are divided in several sub-projects of respective varying scope (from documents of individual persons up to larger groups). The sources are edited in a data base that is accessible in an online version. In addition, editions of life-historical documents are published in irregular intervals in the monograph series of the Institut “Bausteine aus dem ISGV” and “Volkskunde in Sachsen”. The LGA is connected to the Project “Visuelle Quellen zur Volkskultur in Sachsen. Das Bildarchiv des ISGV” (“Visual Sources of Popular Culture in Saxony. The Picture Archive of ISGV”). See also “Bausteine Band 16: Seifert/Friedreich: Alltagsleben biografisch erfassen (2009)”.