Postcards represent one of the world’s largest visual communication artifacts ever produced, yet academic research on them often focuses on specific pictorial themes (historic postcards of New York City) or printed types (Curt Teich cards). To explore migrants’ postcard writing more thoroughly, this article takes an innovative collaborative ethnography-based approach and uses collaborative ethnography as its methodology.

Introduction

Postcards have long been one of the primary forms of communication used by humans, providing an unprecedented method to record and transmit global information.

Postcards presented local sights and global events occurring within society – from culture clashes, class divisions, women’s rights issues and new money to diverse migrant dreams for their future as articulated by Wilde et al. in this volume. They also demonstrated how postcards could serve as tools of reflective scholarship and reconfiguring an ethnographic methodology.

Chapter 1: Paris

Postcards allow travellers to share their travel experiences with those back home, yet still share unique travel, cultural and social ideas through this ephemeral medium. This exhibition examines its multifarious uses.

This rare carte postale print by Andre Kertesz shortly after his arrival in Paris in 1921 showcases his daring experimentation with composition and cropped formats, as well as his widening network and artistic influences.

At their height around 1900, postcards were one of the most prevalent forms of printed photography. Their ubiquity across cultures demonstrated globalized communication networks while perpetuating exoticizing stereotypes about foreign places and people.

Chapter 2: New York

Vintage travel postcards capture the architectural marvels, cultural diversity and historical charm of urban landscapes from all over the world. Ranging from 1920s through the dynamic present eras, these postcard images show how cities evolve over time.

At its height in 1900, postcards were an increasingly prominent reflection of Europe and America’s turbulent industrialization and urbanization experience, where shifts in attitudes about culture, class, women’s roles and new money all altered society significantly.

This exhibition draws upon Lauder Archive material to demonstrate how postcards embodied these social issues. Their emotive images and sentiments allowed people to communicate their experiences and interests to those unable to attend in person; additionally they served as a means of recording history and spreading knowledge.

Chapter 3: London

Postcards have long been seen as an exoticizing medium used by colonialists to depict “the other.” Yet postcards can also provide snapshots of diverse biographies that would otherwise remain silent, and allow migrant communities to express lived experience more directly and interactively. This exhibition challenges this view and redefines it as collaborative ethnography.

Postcards as global artefacts have rich histories. From producing to consumer, to building global and local networks and connecting dispersed families and industries – not to mention providing photographs with new context for circulation in cultures of circulation – postcards have long played an intricate role. This exhibition presents some of these complex trajectories through an assortment of postcards with diverse aesthetics.

Chapter 4: Tokyo

Today postcards serve as souvenirs that remind us of beautiful places visited or memories shared with family and friends. However, earlier postcards also illustrated social and geographical conditions at different times and locations through documentaries or correspondence advertisements.

Postcards were once a primary medium of colonialism, depicting people, products and cultures from distant lands (i.e. colonies) before sending them around the world via metropoles and postcard distributors. This curriculum uses woodblock prints, manga scrolls and postcards from the Tokaido Road as tools to explore this centuries-old route and its ever-evolving societies along its course – as well as data analysis of historical maps in order to discover change over time in this region.

Chapter 5: San Francisco

Step into a time capsule of cities and memories captured in the delicate brush strokes and faded hues of old travel postcards. These charming souvenirs demonstrate architectural marvels and cultural vibrancy of iconic urban landscapes worldwide.

Around 1900, postcards were one of the most prevalent forms of communication, showing not just local sights but also global events within societies – culture clashes, class divisions, women’s issues and new money.

Postcards have long been used as powerful instruments of propaganda, reinforcing colonial notions of exoticism while masking more violent realities. This collection features administrative and production archives from Teich Company as well as printed postcards which reflect these themes.

Chapter 6: Los Angeles

Postcards offer an intimate glimpse into how global culture interacted during the early twentieth century. Their movement between homes, museums, flea markets collector fairs online stores and book collections provides us with invaluable data not only about local sights but also on social relationships between owners.

Los Angeles is known for its entertainment industry, particularly film, which accounts for an astounding 81% of its workforce. Theater and performing arts also play an integral part of Los Angeles culture with many leading theater companies and orchestras providing performances within its city limits. Los Angeles is also well known for its cuisine with numerous restaurants situated throughout Chinatown, Koreatown and Little Tokyo alone.

Chapter 7: London

Today postcards are often considered souvenirs that can be bought and sent as presents; but once upon a time they were an accessible form of global communication for all social classes around the globe. Postcards allowed global cultural bridging and collaboration across cultures; complicated consumer/producer relationships; built local networks; connected dispersed families/friends/industries/industries to one another; altered how photographs were read – among many other functions they fulfilled.

Scholars tend to view postcards as banal expressions of popular culture; however, they can also be used to challenge pedagogical norms that require students to go into the field alone and instead provide a collaborative and multimodal approach to ethnographic research. This chapter will examine how postcards can serve as decolonial tools that collapse “the field” into visually engaging spaces.