ISA RC38 Biography and Society Conference
Call for papers
Biographical Methods and Professional Practice
Thursday October 19 - Saturday October 21 2000
Tavistock Centre, Belsize Lane, London NW3
The conference explores the usefulness of biographical methods both in
generating new forms of social practice and in gaining new insights into
institutional processes. The field of social interventions includes health
and social care, education and training, arts work, work with families and
young people, community regeneration work etc.
The conference highlights an increasing fluidity and interaction between
theory, methods and practice, and focuses on interrelationships between
recent developments in social theory and biographical work. Such
developments include sociology of the body, time and place, life
transitions, agency and structure, feminist research, memory and
remembering, difference, the life course, reflection and representation. It
will also seek to clarify boundaries and overlaps between oral and life
history work, narrative studies and discourse approaches, and biographical
interpretive methods. We hope that papers will address and interweave these
issues.
Abstracts for papers and workshop activities are invited by January 31 2000
and the programme will be circulated by March 31. The conference fee of
stlg125 ( stlg75 for ISA RC38 members and postgraduates) is due by June 31 2000.
This includes lunches and teas/coffees for three days and a community
theatre performance (eg by Age Exchange Theatre Group).
Ideas are welcome for themes which connect better with developments in your
work or practice, or for the organisation of the conference. Our
suggestions for themes so far include:
_ Interactive work between researchers, professionals and users
_ Biographical exploration of institutional/agency processes and
practices
_ Biography across cultural boundaries
_ Biographical methods in evaluation work, including of biographical
work itself
_ Ethical issues: eg in community uses of biographical work
_ Biographical methods in comparative policy-oriented research
_ Therapeutic aspects of narrative interviewing and interpretation
Organisers of the conference are:
Joanna Bornat
Centre for Ageing and Biographical Studies (CABS)
School of Health and Welfare
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
Tel: 01908 654270 (wk) 0181 340 2514 (home)
Fax: 01908 654214
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Prue Chamberlayne
Centre for Biography in Social Policy (BISP)
University of East London
Longbridge Rd
Dagenham
Essex
RM8 2AS
Tel 0181 590 7722 (wk); 0181 883 9297 (home)
Fax 0181 849 3401
e-mail: p.m.chamberlayne @uel.ac.uk
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|