Apologies for cross-posting!
CALL FOR PAPERS
ESA Research Network ‘Biographical Perspectives on European Societies’
6th European Sociological Association Conference of Sociology
Murcia, Spain, 25-28 September 2003
The 2001 Helsinki sessions of the ‘Biographical’ Research Network were
very successful, with ten panels and over thirty-five paper
presentations. At Murcia, we plan to continue some of the conversations
that started in Helsinki, while adding new themes to our agenda.
Accordingly, we are now calling for PROPOSALS FOR PAPERS. Your
proposal should be sent as an ABSTRACT in the following format:
Paper Title
Author(s)
Your e-mail
Your postal address
An Abstract of no more than 200 words
Preferred session (if you have a preference).
Abstracts should be sent by 31 January 2003 to BOTH the Chair of the
‘Biography’ research network:
Robert Miller ([log in to unmask])
School of Sociology & Social Policy
Queen’s University
Belfast BT7 1NN
Northern Ireland, U.K.
AND
to the Convenor of the session in which you would like to present your
paper (listed below).
If you require further information about a session (e.g., if you are
not sure whether your paper fits with the topic), contact the Convenor
directly.
If you feel your paper does not fit into any of the named sessions,
send it directly to Robert Miller. There will be at least one
‘General’ session at the conference. (Please do not submit the same
paper to more than one session or more than one research network.)
General information about the 6th European Conference of Sociology is
located at the website: http://www.um.es/ESA/
As of now, the following sessions have been proposed:
‘Visuality and Biographical Research’
Convenors: Julia Vajda and Eva Kovacs, Hungary
([log in to unmask])
Institute of Sociology
Budapest Univ
1446 Budapest
‘Transitions in Eastern Europe’
Convenors: Julia Vajda and Eva Kovacs, Hungary
([log in to unmask])
Institute of Sociology
Budapest Univ
1446 Budapest
‘Biographical research: Impacting on policy and practice?’
Convenors: Tom Wengraf and Prue Chamberlayne, United Kingdom
([log in to unmask]) & ([log in to unmask])
Tom Wengraf (Middlesex University)
24A Princes Avenue
Muswell Hill
London N10 3LR
Prue Chamberlayne
School of Health and Social Work
Open University
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
United Kingdom
‘Biographies and Genealogies: Borders of locality in the globalizing
world’
Convenor: Oleg B. Bozhkov
([log in to unmask])
‘Recherches Biographiques de Langue Française’
Convenor: Armelle Testenoire, Université de Rouen, France
([log in to unmask])
Cette session se déroulera en français. Les résumés devront être
rédigés dans les deux langues: français et anglais.
‘The Role of ‘Theory’ in Biographical Research’
Convenor: J.P. Roos, Finland
([log in to unmask])
Dept of Social Policy
Box 18
00014 University of Helsinki
This session will consider (among others) questions of construction,
social determination, evolution of life stories etc.
‘Bourdieu and Biography’
Convenor: J.P. Roos, Finland
([log in to unmask])
In memory of Pierre Bourdieu.
‘The Inter-generational Transmission of Cultural Beliefs and Practices’
Convenor: Robin Humphrey, United Kingdom
([log in to unmask])
Department of Sociology & Social Policy
Newcastle University
Newcastle NE1 7RU
'Migration and Narration'
Convenor: Tamar Rapoport and Edna Lomsky Feder, Israel
([log in to unmask]) & ([log in to unmask])
School of Education
Hebrew University
Jerusalem
'Women in Non-traditional Professions - the Social Reaction in
Different Cultures'
Convenor: Anat Mordechai, Israel
([log in to unmask])
'Biographical Research in the Spanish context'
Convenor: To be announced
‘Biographical Research and the Feminist Movement’
Convenors: Laura Torrabadella and Mònica Nadal, Spain
([log in to unmask])
We are interested in:
? how engaged feminists refer to their past and present experiences in
the present context of lower political engagement;
? feminist movements during and after periods of transition;
? how a biographical perspective throws light on crucial aspects of
the feminist movement; and
? the interplay of the biographical perspective and feminist thought.
Our own work looks into the role of memory in recollecting biographical
experiences of women who joined the Feminist Movement during the
Spanish transition period in the 70s and are still committed today.
‘Workshop on the Archiving of Qualitative Data’
Convenor: John Given, Northumbria, United Kingdom
([log in to unmask])
The advent of the internet and the spread of digital means of recording
visual and aural information is producing new possibilities for the
collection and dissemination of biographical and narrative information.
This workshop will feature ‘real-time’ demonstrations of online
biographical archives and discuss issues – technical, methodological
and ethical – around their management.
‘Identity Forms in Late Modernity - Borderlines, Bridges and
Transitions’
Convenors: Ana Paula Marques and Emília Araújo, Portugal
([log in to unmask]) & ([log in to unmask])
The social world is split permanently by struggles fought between
social agents where reality classification systems are at stake. One
resort to the classification or categorisation of the surrounding
reality aims at turning it predictable by objectifying it. At the same
time, the production of those classification systems, which are, thus,
organisation systems, also serves as a tool for self and hetero-
identification, defining the frontiers of belonging or non-belonging,
simultaneously reflecting and (re)producing divisions in society.
Everything else that does not fit one of the poles is relegated to the
plan of social non-existence. Thus, the questions we want to open for
discussion are: What happens, then, to all those who do not effectively
fit any of the polar categories? How does one live on the borderline of
two margins? What does it mean, for oneself and for others, to be
‘in-between’, ‘half way to’? How is non-belonging, non-definition,
social non-existence, experienced? What strategies are developed by
agents under such circumstances and what strategies are developed by
social systems to deal with those who do not fit the official
classification systems? How to deal with these "non-categories" when
they seem to cover a growing number of individuals?
'Region and Biography: Conceptualizing the relation between an
influence structure and individual actors'
Convenor: Thomas Loer, Germany
([log in to unmask])
University of Dortmund
Department of Economic and Social Sciences
D-44221 Dortmund
Tel: +49 (0)2 31 7 55 29 42 Fax: +49 (0)2 31 7 55 32 93
This session is concerned with the relation of biography (the case
structure of biographies) and region (as an 'influence structure').
Papers discussing the methodical and methodological problem of grasping
the phenomenon of 'region' (not only in its economic sense but as a
socio-cultural influence structure) are welcome as well as
contributions to the theoretical problem of conceptualizing the
relation of structure and actor and action/praxis as the place of
practical mediation of the two (exemplified by analysing the above-
named relation between biography and region).
‘Life Histories and the Reconstruction of National Identity in Eastern
Europe’
Convenor: Vieda Skultans, United Kingdom
([log in to unmask])
Department of Sociology,
University of Bristol,
12, Woodland Road,
Bristol, BS8 1UQ.
Autobiographical writing has become a dominant genre in Eastern Europe
following the collapse of Communism. This panel will examine how life
histories position themselves in relation to certain historical events
and in turn come to determine those events as critical for the shaping
of national identity. Papers are invited which address:
* The relationship between social memory and life-writing
* The role of life-writing in transforming individual suffering
into social suffering
* The role of critical historical moments in life-writing
* The shaping of autobiographical experience by shared cultural
plots and symbols
* The contribution of specific genres of life-writing to
national identity
* The convergence and divergence of personal narratives from
core cultural narratives
* The distinctiveness of East European life writing
* The contribution of memory writing to the reconstruction of
history
‘Extending the Possibilities for Presentation & Dissemination of
Narrative Studies’
Convenor: Kip Jones, United Kingdom
([log in to unmask])
The emerging synthesis of the arts and social sciences present
challenges to the methodological-philosophical foundations of
knowledge. At the very heart of this matter is knowledge transfer.
The need for innovation in dissemination of detailed descriptive
information has, until recently, been neglected in the social sciences.
As collage-makers, narrators of narrations, dream weavers—narrative
researchers are natural allies of the arts and humanities.
Abstracts are invited that grapple with extending the possibilities of
presentation and dissemination of narrative studies. Presentations
using tools from the arts and humanities are especially encouraged for
this conference thread. The use of other media, in addition to
traditional papers, is welcomed. Possibilities include, but are not
limited to, performance, dance, film, video, audio, graphic arts, new
media (CD ROM, web-based production), poetry and so forth.
Presentations may deal with the theoretical, methodological, ethical
and mechanical issues of using such media or, simply be a presentation
that uses one of the media as an example of narrative as performance.
‘”Biographical Certainty”. How do people organize their live-course in
present society?’
Convenor: Jens Zinn, Germany
([log in to unmask])
Fakultät SoWi
Universität der Bundeswehr München
D-85577 Neubiberg
Contemporary discussions of the process of modernization reveal a loss
of unambiguity (Bauman) as well as a return of uncertainty (Bonss). The
discussion of change in modern societies and social individualizing
processes concerns after all expectations on the individual's life-
course. The starting point of the planned session is the questions: How
in changing modern societies can expectations on the life-course be
worked out? How can the individual life-course be managed if its
central institutions, like the family or the occupation, are breaking
away? What are the effects on individual's biographical action when the
traditional constellations of primary social relations or work-life
erode and can't be used to stabilize biographical expectations any
longer?
In the session both empirical results as well as conceptual questions
(for example, the meanings of ‘certainty’, ‘security’ and ‘safety’ and
its normative premises) could be discussed.
‘Biographies of Ageing from Different Cultures’
Convenor: Sibel Kalaycioglu, Turkey
([log in to unmask])
The session will compare different practices and experiences of ageing
from countries with different traditions and welfare system structures.
Such experiences could be significant, especially in the light of
current discussions on ‘succesful ageing’.
‘Self-reliance and Successful Life Strategies’
Convenor: Sibel Kalaycioglu, Turkey
([log in to unmask])
With drastic changes in the welfare regimes of many Western societies,
how do people cope with the responsibilities of ‘developing successful
life strategies’ or with ‘self-reliance’? Cases from Turkey or many
eastern European countries also may be very relevant for the discussion
of ‘the personal and individual strategies in a global risk society’
(Beck).
‘Reflection of Cultural Traumas in Life Stories’
Convenor: Aili Aarelaid-Tart, Estonia
([log in to unmask])
Aili Aarelaid-Tart
Head of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies Institute of
International and Social Studies
Tallinn Pedagogical University
Blvd. Estonia 7
Tallinn 10143, Estonia
Tel: 372-6454498, Fax 372-6454927
Cultural trauma is a traumatic event in the life course of persons
dealing with compulsory and rapid changes of previous value systems and
behavioral patterns. Cultural trauma may take place as a result of the
collapse of a political regime, as an unexpected effect of migration,
as part of personal bankruptcy or imprisonment, or as the impact of a
rapid invasion of new cultural mores into a traditional region etc.
From different personal stories we could map the main strategies and
behavior of winners as well as losers in these kinds of situations. We
are interested in analysing traumatic collisions in the life course;
stories of:
- people from small places under the pressure of rapid urbanization;
- - political prisoners under any kind of non-democratic regime in
Europe (Stalinism, Francism, ect.);
- poorly acculturated migrants;
- - persons who have lost their positions in social or cultural
hierarchies.
The problem actually is part of the coming enlargement of the European
Union where thousands of people’s life courses may be put through
unpredictable traumatic changes.
ADDITIONAL SESSIONS: Members of the ‘Biography’ research network and
indeed all researchers in these and cognate areas are invited to submit
additional proposals for topics for sessions as well as individual
paper abstracts.
----------------------
Robert Miller, Chair
ESA Research Network 'Biographical Perspectives'
School of Sociology & Social Policy
The Queen's University of Belfast
Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland
United Kingdom
tel: +44 (0)28 90273275
Fax: +44 (0)28 90273943
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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