Call for Abstracts
apologies for any cross posting
Biographical Perspectives on European Societies Research Network, The 7th
ESA Conference, 9 - 12 September 2005 in Torun, Poland
This is the first call for abstracts for the 7th ESA conference in Torun,
Poland. The general theme for the ESA conference will be 'Rethinking
Inequalities'. Further information about the conference theme can be found
here: http://www.valt.helsinki.fi/esa/newslet5.pdf . Please bear this
theme in mind when writing your abstract, but please feel free to suggest
other, even unrelated, abstracts if you think they might generate interest.
There will be ten sessions organised by the Research Network, each with
its own convenor. A session will last for two hours, which will allow for
between 4-6 papers, on average. The session topics and convenors are:
1. THE PROBLEM OF GENERALIZING FROM BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
Feiwel Kupferberg
The Danish University of Education, Copenhagen, Denmark: [log in to unmask]
2. DOING BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH IN POST-SOVIET SOCIETIES
Aili Aarelaid-Tart,
Tallinn Pedagogical University, Estonia: [log in to unmask] and
Janusz Mucha
Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland: [log in to unmask]
3. BIOGRAPHY, MEMORY AND TIME
Brian Roberts
Huddersfield University, UK: [log in to unmask]
4. HEALTH, ILLNESS AND BIOGRAPHY
Jens Zinn
University of Kent, UK: [log in to unmask]
5 A BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Rachel Thomson, Mary Jane Kehily, Julia Brannen, and Harriet Bjerrum
Nielesn
The Open University, UK: [log in to unmask]
6 THE USE OF VISUAL MATERIAL IN BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
Robert Miller
Queen's University, Belfast: [log in to unmask]
7 BIOGRAPHY AND LIFE POLITICS
JP ROOS
University of Helsinki: [log in to unmask]
8 BIOGRAPHY AND RELIGION
Irena Borowik
Jagiellonian University, Poland [log in to unmask]
9 BIOGRAPHICAL (UN-)CERTAINTIES AND SOCIAL INEQUALITIES
Jens Zinn
University of Kent, UK: [log in to unmask]
10 THE PROBLEMS OF DEALING WITH CONCEPTS IN BIOGRAPHIES
Wiebke Lohfeld
Bates College, Marine, USA: [log in to unmask]
More details of the sessions are attached. Also attached is an abstract
proposal form, which you should use when submitting your abstract.
IMPORTANT: Abstracts should be submitted before the 28th of February
2005. As the deadline for submitting the final programme to the conference
organisers is the 31st of March 2005, no proposals received after the end
of February will be taken into consideration.
Please email a 200-word abstract in English to the Research Network
organisers (Robin Humphrey and Stephen Macdonald) and the convenor of the
session. Make sure to include the proposed paper's title, the author(s)'s
name, institutional affiliation (both university and department), mailing
address, email address, fax and phone number. Please DO NOT send your
abstract to the local conference organisers. Decisions about whether the
abstract has been accepted will be communicated no later than 31 March
2005.
The Research Network is also hoping to organise a debate between Daniel
Bertaux and Liz Stanley on 'What does the biographical approach contribute
to the development of Sociology?'
We look forward to a stimulating conference!
With best wishes
Robin Humphrey and Stephen Macdonald
For the Biographical Perspectives on European Societies Research
Network, Newcastle University, UK
Biographical Perspectives on
European Societies Research Network
7th ESA Conference, Torun, Poland, September 9-12, 2005
ATTACHMENT 1
Biographical Perspectives on European Societies Research Network the 7th
ESA Conference
1. THE PROBLEM OF GENERALIZING FROM BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
Feiwel Kupferberg
The Danish University of Education, Copenhagen, Denmark: [log in to unmask]
A lot of the methodological discussion among biography researchers have
focused upon what happens during the biographical interviews, and
procedures for how to make certain that the interaction will provide the
researcher with as reliable and valid data as possible such as encouraging
spontaneous narratives and wait with follow up questions until later so as
not to disturb the natural narrative flow etc. Recently the problem of how
to conduct the questions in a way that encourages the free flow of
associations and follows up on hints etc. rather then switching to a new
topic when the situation seems to come awkward has also been raised. In
this session we want to focus upon a different methodological issue,
namely the question if it is possible to generalize from a small amount of
biographical interviews and strategies for how this can be done. How many
biographical interviews are needed and how can we be sure that we have
reached the point of “saturation” of data? How does theoretical sampling
of cases actually work? What do we do, when we have problems of getting
access to the ideal sample we have devised and how does this influence our
ability to generalize from our data? What does generalization actually
mean, what is it exactly we can generalize about and when? Those who
intend to submit papers to this session are encouraged to focus upon their
own practical experiences with these issues, what strategies they have
used, to what degree these have been successful or not but also give
examples of where they have had to give up and what consequences this have
had for the value of the research. Epistemological papers are also
encouraged, although they too should be related to at least attempts to
reach some degree of generalization.
2. DOING BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH IN POST-SOVIET SOCIETIES
Aili Aarelaid-Tart
Tallinn Pedagogical University, Estonia: [log in to unmask]
Janusz Mucha
Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland: [log in to unmask]
Papers are invited for this session that focus on, post-socialist
societies, CEE countries together with the European part of the previous
Soviet Union (pre-Uralian Russia, Baltic States, Ukraine, etc.). The
peculiarity of this region stems from the more or less rapid change of
life trajectories of millions of people accustomed to the norms and
patterns of Soviet thinking and behavior as their everyday habitus. Any
substantive or methodological issues that arise from research carried out
in post- socialist countries will be considered.
3. BIOGRAPHY, MEMORY AND TIME
Brian Roberts
Huddersfield University, UK: [log in to unmask]
This session will explore the writing/telling of biographical experience
by attention to the conceptions of time (past, present and future) that
individuals (or groups) draw upon in the accounting for their lives. Of
importance in this exploration is the part played by 'memory' as the
ordering, resequencing, 'editing' and emphasising particular experiences
(events, periods) in an attempt to ensure consistency in biographical
accounting. A number of substantive areas are particularly relevant for
the session: ageing; career trajectories; health and illness; and personal
relations - in the investigation of the role of memory and time
constructions in biographical formation.
4. HEALTH, ILLNESS AND BIOGRAPHY
Jens Zinn
University of Kent, UK: [log in to unmask]
This session will focus on research into health, illness and impairment
which has increasingly focussed on the problem of how people experience
and manage risks and uncertainties within their life course. Research has
traditionally been framed within a biomedical paradigm emphasizing either
the causes or impact of treatments. Such research tends to focus on groups
rather than individuals especially when it aims at epidemiological
aspects. The uniqueness of individual experience and the importance of
personal context are often filtered out. The intention of this session is
to place individual and personal experience at the centre of the analysis
and in particular to focus on the ways in which individual biography can
be used as a central concept to explain and understand how people manage
health, illness and impairment during their life course. The development
and loss of biographical knowledge and resources are therefore central as
well as the management of ignorance, and how this is related to social
inequalities. The session aims at empirical and conceptual results.
Contributions, which consider social inequalities, are especially welcome.
However, contributions with a theoretical priority are also appreciated.
5 A BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Rachel Thomson, Mary Jane Kehily, Julia Brannen, and Harriet Bjerrum
Nielesn
The Open University, UK: [log in to unmask]
In this session we invite proposals for papers that take a biographical
approach to understanding relationships across generations. Such
relationships may be familial, but may also exist outside of the family:
for example professional relationships, intergenerational connections
around common interests (hobbies, politics, lifestyles), and forms of
support that cross generations and other divides such as mentoring,
apprenticeship, ‘passing the mantle’. Such intergenerational relationships
are as much part of academic production as other areas of social life and
can be associated with rupture, change and conflict as well as
continuities and transmissions of values and resources. As a form,
biography is played out in response to the lives and narratives of
previous generations, in anticipation of those of the future. We invite
papers that address the intergenerational dimensions of biography from a
range of perspectives, and methodologies. We hope that papers will
consider some of the practical challenges of multi-generational research
as well as exploring theoretical, analytic and historical themes.
6 THE USE OF VISUAL MATERIAL IN BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
Robert Miller
Queen's University, Belfast: [log in to unmask]
This session will be centred around an exploration of the issues
(technical, ethical and legal) surrounding the collection and use of
visual and audio material in biographical research and its reporting,
including making life history interview material available for secondary
analysis. Qualitative research is embroiled in a technological
transformation whose effects are profound. So far, the main impact has
come from CADQAS (the computerisation of qualitative data analysis) but
the wider implications for digitization for qualitative and biographical
research are beginning to become apparent. It is now possible through
inexpensive digital technology available for a well-found academic unit to
collect high quality visual and audio information and then to manipulate
and display it through a variety of new media, not least of which is the
Internet.
Qualitative research is only beginning to take on the implications of
digitisation. The analysis of biographical data, while often augmented by
computer software, is still based upon the written transcript. Similarly,
the presentation of biographical research typically is the presentation of
written material, employing excerpts from transcripts and, occasionally,
photographs. Digitization has implications for qualitative research at
both the points of data collection and dissemination (particularly for
direct transfer by internet) and, latterly, for analysis. The
implications of digital technology also raise the intensity of ethical
concerns of informed consent and confidentiality, particularly with regard
to putting research results on the Web. While the eventual parameters of
the impact of digital technology upon biographical research remain to be
seen, it is quite likely that the current limitation of qualitative
analysis to written material will be seen as highly circumscribed within
fifteen years or less.
7 BIOGRAPHY AND LIFE POLITICS
JP Roos
University of Helsinki: [log in to unmask]
Biographies are not only retrospective narratives. Biography is based on
biology, choices, habituses. Looked at from another end biography is a
result of life political choices. There are several approaches to life
politics: giddensian, foucaldian, ecological, evolutionary. These have
important implications to life stories as they are presented. For this
session, papers discussing different life political approaches to
biographies are welcomed.
8 BIOGRAPHY AND RELIGION
Irena Borowik
Jagiellonian University, Poland: [log in to unmask]
In this session papers are invited from those who are interested in
biographies and biographical approaches related in some ways to religion.
The goal of the session is looking at interrelations between biography and
religion. There are many fields that can be examined, including: The
contents and patterns of religious socialization and vice versa; Religion
as a medium of socialization reflected in biographies; Religion as a field
of inter-generational discourses; The language of religious and moral
discourses and the Reasoning on religious and moral problems; Presence and
valuation of religious institutions, groups, movements, leaders in
biographies; Religious and mystic experience.
9 BIOGRAPHICAL (UN-) CERTAINTIES AND SOCIAL INEQUALITIES
Jens Zinn
University of Kent, UK: [log in to unmask]
The thesis of individualisation proposes a new perspective on social
inequality. Old class structures would be overcome by ascriptions of self-
responsibility. But even though the communication and ascription of social
inequalities may have changed, there are still substantial inequalities in
and between European countries. Even if social inequalities are less
interpreted as class-dependent inequalities their persistence should be
observable on the level of the individual’s life course and biography.
The session aims to explore the link between biographical risks and (un-)
certainties on the one hand and social inequalities on the other. How do
(un-) certainties produce or are the result of social inequalities? How do
people manage biographical uncertainties? Are there links between specific
certainty constructions and social inequality?
10 THE PROBLEMS OF DEALING WITH CONCEPTS IN BIOGRAPHIES
Wiebke Lohfeld
Bates College, Marine, USA: [log in to unmask]
In this session, papers are invited on the questions of 1) how is identity
found in a narration? 2) What kind of strategies builds people to deal
with turning points, crisis, 'misrecognition' (or revocation of former
recognition)? 3) What can we learn from biographies when we analyze them
in the perspective of outside given recognition versus 'misrecognition'?
4) How can we understand biographies and recognize them appropriate? (a
form of recognition/misrecognition on the level of the researcher), also
including methodological questions like? What seems to be a good method to
grasp the structure of identity, of acting and arguing of a person? 5)
What concepts are leading the analysis and the biography? How can this fit
together?
ATTACHMENT 2
ABSTRACT PROPOSAL FORM
Please complete and save this form. Return the form by e-mail to the
Research Network conference organisers ([log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask]) AND the convenor of the Stream (see list
below). Remember to attach this document to your email message!
Title of paper:
Session:
Author Name
Title and Academic Position
E-mail address
University/Organization and Department/School
Postal Address
Telephone Number (including country code)
Fax
Co-author (optional) Name
Title and Academic Position:
E-mail address
University/Organization and Department/School
Postal Address
Telephone Number (including country code)
Fax
Abstract (max 200 words):
Please return the form before 28 February 2005 to the Research Network
conference organisers ([log in to unmask];
[log in to unmask]) AND the convenor of the Stream (see list
below). Remember to attach this document to your email message!
Session Convenors
THE PROBLEM OF GENERALIZING FROM BIOGRAPHICAL DATA
Feiwel Kupferberg: [log in to unmask]
DOING BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH IN POST-SOVIET SOCIETIES
Aili Aarelaid-Tart: [log in to unmask] AND Janusz Mucha:
[log in to unmask]
BIOGRAPHY, MEMORY AND TIME
Brian Roberts: [log in to unmask]
HEALTH, ILLNESS AND BIOGRAPHY
Jens Zinn: [log in to unmask]
A BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH TO INTERGENERATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Rachel Thomson, Mary Jane Kehily, Julia Brannen, Harriet Bjerrum Nielesn:
[log in to unmask]
THE USE OF VISUAL MATERIAL IN BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH'
Robert Miller: [log in to unmask]
BIOGRAPHY AND LIFE POLITICS
JP Roos: [log in to unmask]
BIOGRAPHY AND RELIGION
Irena Borowik: [log in to unmask]
BIOGRAPHICAL (UN-) CERTAINTIES AND SOCIAL INEQUALITIES
Jens Zinn: [log in to unmask]
THE PROBLEMS OF DEALING WITH CONCEPTS IN BIOGRAPHIES
Wiebke Lohfeld: [log in to unmask]
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