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2nd Call for Papers: RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Cardiff (UK), 28-31 Aug 2018 The Lived Life and Told Story: Exploring biographical methods in geographic research Session sponsored by the Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group (GFGRG) and the Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group (GHWRG) Convenors: Angharad Butler-Rees & Eliza Garwood (University of Southampton) Biographical methods have been used as valuable research tools across many subsections of geography, including but not limited to the geographies of gender, intimacy, family, care, youth, disability, health and activism. They provide a way of shedding light on hidden or “silenced” lives, dismantling perceived boundaries between the private and public. A central concern of biographical methods is the formation and transformation of the life across time and space; exploring the way in which personal, psychic and embodied experiences may have been shaped by the landscapes in which they are embedded. These methods include the collection and analysis of largely self-directed accounts of people’s lives through interviews, diaries, letters, autobiographical and biographical writing. As geographers, we find interest in a range of issues such as migration, employment, austerity and inequality. However, these are not isolated experiences and do not carry meaning in and of themselves, but through a process of interpretation. Biographical methods enable these factors to be examined in relation to one another, providing a way to understand the intricacies of everyday experiences, while connecting them to broader social and spatial relations. Furthermore, one must also “attend to the silences as well as what is said” (Munro 1998, p.12), seeing biographical accounts as not simply mirroring a social and personal reality, but as providing a partial, selective and performative commentary on lived experience. This session aims to explore the ways that biographic, psychosocial and narrative methods are being used across various strands of geographical research. We are seeking papers that discuss: • the value of biographical research in geography • biographic methods as a way to examine the relation between the psychic and the social • the tools and techniques used for biographical data collection • the process of analysing biographical data • the practical and ethical experiences of conducting and analysing biographical research Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Angharad Butler-Rees ([log in to unmask]) and Eliza Garwood ([log in to unmask]) by 5pm 2nd February 2018. This should include title, author affiliation and email address. References Munro, P. (1998) Subject to Fiction: Women Teachers’ Life History Narratives and the Cultural Politics of Resistance. Buckingham, England: Open University Press.