ESA Research Networks
Call for abstracts
8th Annual Conference of the European Sociological Association
Glasgow, 3rd - 6th September, 2007
(Chair: Dr Robin Humphrey, Newcastle University, UK)
The Research Network welcomes abstracts from researchers using biographical approaches for any of the sessions outlined below. Individual paper submissions, indicating the preferred session, should only be sent through the official form available at
http://www.esa8thconference.com/abstractsubmission/index.php <http://www.esa8thconference.com/abstractsubmission/index.php> before 15 February 2007. Abstracts can only be accepted through completion of the online submission form, and submission in any other form will be declined. Session organisers will then evaluate the proposals and notification of acceptance will be sent out by 15 April 2007.
The Arts and Biography
Session Convenor: Brian Roberts, University of Glamorgan, UK; glentrob@btinternet.com
This session will examine the range of artistic possibilities for the communication of biographies by individuals and the representation of the biographies of others by researchers. The areas to be addressed could include poetry, dance, theatre, music and art in relation to biographical research The session will reflect the rise of interest in the idea of performance and performative biography and the range of issues that are raised by exploring the communication and representation of lives in moving beyond the 'traditional' modes of the transcript and text (academic articles, books).
The Internet and Biographies
Session Convenor: John Given, University of Northumbria, UK; john.given@unn.ac.uk
The web has allowed a dramatic increase in the forms, audience, and interest - by academics and non-academics - in the exploration of biography and its construction. Biographical' work' on the internet can range from genealogical research into origins to discussion groups and weblogs. The internet raises questions concerning archiving and access, deception and revelation and has implications for how research is conducted. Wider issues are also implicated relating to the political and social effects of web use, including the social and personal relations that are developing on the internet.
Transnational Biographies
Session Convenor: Peter Meylakhs, Centre for Independent Social Research, Russia mpeter@indepsocres.spb.ru
This session reflects the growth of migration and other forms of transnational movement by individuals and groups. It will attempt to draw out the implications of transnational movements for biography and identity formation - a transnational biography. Issues here can include the interrelation of biography, space and time; biography, ethnicity and social change; the possibilities and limitations of transnational research; hybridity and identity construction; and ethnic and national affiliation. This topic has an important social and political relevance at a time when questions of identity formation and attachment are to the fore.
Biography and Ageing
Session Convenor: Robin Humphrey, Newcastle University, UK. Robin.Humphrey@newcastle.ac.uk
This session examines the shifts in how individuals understand and relate their lives according to the life course. An emphasis here could be on the later parts of life - as life span expansion is increasing giving greater numbers of the population in 'retirement' with a resulting debates concerning health and social support, work life, and political change; for example, what will be the cultural, social and political effects of the 1960s 'generation' reaching retirement? Other concerns of the session could focus on the life course of the researcher and how he or she understands 'biography' - and how 'interviewees' perceives the researcher according to the latter's age; the relation between memory, ageing and identity change; how ageing alters social and familial relations; and how ageing may be related to differing perceptions of the body, sexuality and the emotions.
Biography, Risk and Uncertainty (with RN 'Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty')
Session convenors: Jens O. Zinn (University of Kent, UK) and Robin Humphrey (Newcastle University); j.zinn@kent.ac.uk; Robin.Humphrey@newcastle.ac.uk
Biographical research and risk research are two rising stars of sociological and interdisciplinary research which converge in many respects. In risk research the pressing question on the factors how people perceive and respond to risk recently developed greater interest into narrative and biographical research since risk perceptions research, the psychometric paradigm and rational action approaches showed significant weaknesses. How current activities and orientations are embedded in the accumulation of experiences during the course of one's life is the central focus of biographical research. In this perspective risk perception and coping with risk is part of the overall management of one's life and its miseries and therefore only understandable against the background of one's biography embedded in a socio-historical context. Papers are welcome which examine people's everyday management of risks in a biographical perspective.
Doing Biographical Research in the Baltics and with Balts in exile
Convenors: Aili Aarelaid-Tart (Tallinn University, Estonia) and Li Bennich-Björkman (Uppsala University, Sweden)
rottnipsi@yahoo.com <
mailto:rottnipsi@yahoo.com> ; Li.Bennich-Bjorkman@statsvet.uu.se <mailto:Li.Bennich-Bjorkman@statsvet.uu.se>The Baltic states are the only territories of contemporary EU which once belonged to the USSR. Both the demolishing of independent statehood in the 1940s and its restoring in 1991 are reflected in the life stories of the people who stayed in the homeland, fled to the West or migrated as Russophones into the Baltic area looking for better life conditions. We claim that the discrepancy between lived lives and told lives is more dramatic after such deep, comprehensive and radical social changes experienced such as the beginning and the end of Soviet occupation. Our assumption is that the told lives of the Balts (the Baltic Russian) are more nation-minded and more commiserate in their style of performance than is usual in Western Europe. We encourage the presentation of papers analysing specifics of the life stories of previous Soviet persons as well as exiled Balts in Europe, America and Australia. Also, biographical self-presentations of living in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as Russians could be the topic of our session. Very welcome are papers concerning the lives as they have been lived and told in the whirling transitional years 1991-2006.
Individual paper submissions, indicating the preferred session, should only be sent through the official form available at
http://www.esa8thconference.com/abstractsubmission/index.php <http://www.esa8thconference.com/abstractsubmission/index.php> before 15 February 2007.Biographical Perspectives on European Societies Research Network
of the European Sociological Association
and
The Centre for Independent Social Research, St Petersburg
Joint Conference
Biographical Research on Post-Socialist Space: Ten Years After
The Centre for Independent Social Research, St Petersburg
15-17 December, 2006
Rationale for the Conference
Ten years ago in Saint Petersburg, the ESA Research Network on Biographical Perspectives on European Societies and the Centre for Independent Social Research (CISR) jointly organised a conference under the title ‘Biographical Perspectives on Post-Socialist Societies’. That conference convened scholars who had carried out biographical studies of post-socialist transformation in Eastern Europe. They focused on the altered lives and broken biographies, and on the changes in identifications and life courses, caused by rapid structural change in Eastern Europe. Papers were presented by over thirty researchers, representing eleven academic communities involved in biographical studies of the transformation processes. Both empirical and methodological issued were discussed. The researchers concluded that the transformation period was especially conducive to all kinds of qualitative studies, in particular biographical research in all its versions. The findings of this important conference were published twice: first, as a Russian-English edition of the working papers of the CISR’s Biographical Perspectives on Post-Socialist Societies; and second (with the inclusion of some especially commissioned additional chapters) as a book edited by Robin Humphrey, Robert Miller and Elena Zdravomyslova, Biographical Research in Eastern Europe (Ashgate, 2003).
This conference will focus on the results of biographical research into post-socialist space carried out during the last decade, and will also touch on methodological questions. We plan to convene the leading scholars in the biographical research field and to make an open call for papers, which will be distributed through the scientific networks of the CISR, ESA and possibly the ISA. A number of basic subjects will be discussed in separate conference panels.
Themes of the Conference
The conference would seek to follow up and update the original conference by exploring the following themes:
From transformation to relative stability: ‘new’ and ‘old’ biographies
The period of deep transformations is coming to an end, though its consequences have not yet been comprehensively analysed. Many societies that experienced the rapid and painful processes of post-socialist transformation, accompanied by acute changes in all social institutions and drastic alteration of previous stratificational and occupational structures, are now characterised by political and economic stabilisation, regime consolidation, and the fixing of stratificational and generational divides.
New, young generational cohorts have emerged who have no experience of living under socialist rule and whose formative years coincided with the period of political and economic instability and a lack of clear and transparent ‘rules of the game’. These new cohorts are less inclined to draw on the experience of their parents and take advice from them, and more inclined to develop their own life strategies and exploit the variety of resources that they find at their disposal. As a result, we are now witnessing the appearance of new, post-socialist biographies.
By contrast, the old-style biographical accounts of people who had lived a significant part of their life-course under socialist rule have undergone reinterpretation and modification as a result of the newly emerging discourses. Indeed, their more recent accounts of their life experiences may well differ substantially from the accounts they gave ten years ago. In addition, processes of divergence may be observed: if ten years ago all post-socialist societies were roughly at the same ‘zero-point’ in terms of the onset of the reforms, now many of these countries have become members of the European Union and, thus, participants in the common European institutional order (local differences notwithstanding), while others have drifted towards authoritarianism and yet others have found their place somewhere in between. All these processes have been reflected on at the individual level and translated into experiences and personal identities. As a consequence, we can make inferences about differences in social changes in various post-socialist countries not only by analysing macrosocial or macroeconomic indicators but also by studying people’s biographies. Moreover, if we are to obtain a comprehensive picture of recent changes in post-socialist countries, we cannot limit ourselves to studying the various quantitative parameters of these changes without seeking to gain an accompanying insight into how such changes are experienced and interpreted by individuals and what meanings they attach to them. This sociological objective can be achieved only by employing qualitative methods, one of the most important and methodologically developed of which is the biographical approach.
Social migration
In the new Europe, migration processes play an ever-increasing role and touch on the lives of an increasing number of people. But the very meaning of migration has been changed by the alteration of the political space, as several post-socialist countries have become EU members. In Russia and on the territory of the CIS migration floods have also take place, but the types of migration have changed. The migration processes have impacted powerfully on the private lives of individuals, have changed the characteristics of family life, and have significantly influenced gender roles and expectations. These processes and changes, as they are reflected in people’s biographies, will be a focus of the proposed conference.
Methodological developments
The methodological developments that have taken place in the biographical approach will also be discussed. Although qualitative research occupies a firm niche in the social sciences, there still exist critics who consider qualitative methods in general and biographical research in particular to be ‘unscientific’ and thus invalid. The role and the place of the biographical perspective in the social sciences are intended to be subjects of debate in the proposed conference, as are the possible directions in which the biographical perspective might develop. New methodologies such as visual biography have been actively developed in recent times, and social scientists are also, increasingly, engaging with material objects in their research into sociality. It will be fruitful, in this context, to discuss the topic ‘biography of objects’ and investigate what such biographical material can tell the researcher about the social conditions and social milieux where the objects functioned or served.
Conference Sessions
The preliminary list of sessions includes:
1) Methodological developments in biographical research. Challenges and future directions.
2) Biographies of the ‘old’ generation and reinterpretation of the transformation. Nostalgia, reconciliation, or a complete break with the past. Stratificational and geographical dimensions. New understandings of biographical landmarks.
3) The ‘new generation’. Life strategies, lifestyles, culture and morals.
4) Comparative analysis in biographical research.
5) Social strata, social classes and social milieux in biographical perspective.
6) Changes in intimacy.
7) Migration processes.
8) Social movements and collective actions.
Submission of Abstracts
Abstracts of proposed papers are to be written in English and should be no more than 300 words in length. Abstracts must include the name of the proposer, his/her affiliation, postal and e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and title.
Abstracts should be sent directly to both of the conference organisers by 31 July 2006:
Robin Humphrey (robin.humphrey@ncl.ac.uk) and
Peter Meylakhs (mpeter@indepsocres.spb.ru)
Places at the conference are limited. All accommodation and living costs during the conference will be met by the conference organisers.
For more information on the research network, contact:
Dr Robin Humphrey (Chair)
Sociology and Social Policy
School of Geography, Politcics and Sociology
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle NE1 7RU
United Kingdom
Robin.Humphrey@newcastle.ac.uk