RN3 - Past Conferences
Mid-term Conference 2012
European Sociological Association
RN03 BIOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON EUROPEAN SOCIETIES
University of Lodz,
14th and 15th September 2012
Biographical Research: emotion, ethics & performative praxis
Call for Papers
Theoretical and methodological discussions in RN03 over recent years have focused upon: theoretical and applied biographical approaches; creative and innovative methodologies in biographical research such as sensory and visual approaches; memory and methodologies; with strong interest in applied biographical research too. The mid-term conference 2012 will examine questions of experience [emotion and ethics] and practice/performativity within these major areas of biographical research.
Biographical research is concerned most centrally with emotion and a number of members are currently concerned with issues of ethics and the application of biographical research to social policy as well as interventions in practice. RN03 mid-term conference 2012 will be held at the University of Lodz, September 14th and 15th 2012.
The mid-term conference in Lodz is planned in a format where RN03 members can take part in more in-depth discussions on the theme of emotion, ethics and per formative praxis in biographical research. The intention is to create space to allow for greater discussion and participatory exchange and for papers to stimulate discussion and reflection.
Papers are invited on the following themes and we welcome suggestions for further themes:
Theme 1. Biography and Emotion
Theme 2. Biography and Ethics
Theme 3. Theorising biographical research at the intersections of emotion and ethics
Theme 4.Visual and Performative methodologies: ethics, emotion and praxis
Theme 5. Applying biographical research: interventions in policy and practice
Call for papers deadline: 30th April 2012
Abstracts
We invite colleagues from different countries and different disciplines of the social sciences to submit abstracts until 30th April 2012. Please send your abstracts to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Expressions of interest for research workshops are welcome, with reference to the topic of the conference. Poster presentations and other forms of presentation are also welcome.
Book Launch: The Evolution of European Identities: Biographical Approaches edited by Robert Miller and published by Palgrave.
Conference Fee: Includes conference registration, lunches, refreshments and conference dinner: 50 Euros regular, 30 Euros for ESA members. Concession for PhD students.
Conference venue: Institute of Sociology, University of Lodz, Poland.
Registration/Accommodation: Registration will be available from May 2012 and up to June 30th 2012.
If you have any questions please contact Maggie O’Neill maggie.o’
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
OR Kaja Kazmierska,
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Research Network 3: Biographical Perspectives on European Societies
CALL FOR PAPERS
The 10th European Sociological Association Conference
Geneva, Switzerland
September 7-10, 2011
T. D. Boldt‐Jaremko 1,*
1KWI, Essen, Germany
Description of the Research network: RN03 'Biographical Perspectives on European Societies'
General call for paper:
Biographical Research in Turbulent Times:
Re-thinking Biographical Perspectives on European, National and Glocal Identities
The term ‘identity’, once primarily a topic of philosophical and psychological deliberations, markedly conquered the field of sociology, political science and historical investigations in the 1960s. Since then the concept ‘identity/identities’ has inspired many critical and stimulating academic discussions accurately summarized by Derrida (1981) when he said, “identity is an idea that cannot be thought in the old way, but without which certain key questions cannot be thought at all”.
The 10th ESA conference on “Social Relations in Turbulent Times” opens the possibility to further discuss the theoretical and empirical implications for re-thinking biographical perspectives on identity/ies in the twenty first century. Current times are marked by an increasingly complex relationship between the local and the global, instability, a focus on risk and security, the sharpening of social inequalities, analysis of cross border flows, movement, mobilities and migration, as well as the material and imaginative configurations of identity and belonging. Biographical research with its theoretical, methodological and policy implications proposes to re‐think identity/ies in terms of contemporary processual structures that include both collective and individual experiences and contestations under specific socio--‐historical social conditions, and in certain constellations of power. To this end Research Network 03 welcomes theoretical, methodological and empirical papers exploring the following themes.
Specific Session title I: BIOGRAPHY AND THEORY
Chair: Wolfram Fischer
Specific Session title II: EUROPEAN IDENTITIES AND ‘THE OTHER’ (Presentation of the research results by the EU--‐project ‘Euroidentities’)
Chair: Robert Miller
Specific Session title III: ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS IDENTITIES BETWEEN THE FIGURE OF ‘SELF’ AND ‘OTHER’
Chair: Thea D. Boldt-Jaremko
Specific Session title IV: BIOGRAPHICAL TURBULENCE: BIOGRAPHY, PERFORMANCE, ARTS
Co‐Chairs: Brian Roberts and aggie O'Neill
Specific Session title V: APPLYING BIOGRAPHICAL AND PERFORMATIVE RESEARCH
Chair: John Given
Specific Session title VI: MIGRATION AND BIOGRAPHY: GLOBAL, LOCAL, AND GLOCAL IDENTITIES
Chair: Baiba Bela
Specific Session title VII: MEMORY AS BIOGRAPHICAL AND COLLECTIVE RESOURCE IN TURBULENTTIMES
Co‐Chairs: Kaja Kazmierska, Victoria Semenova and Elena Rozhdestvenskaya
Specific Session title VIII: BIOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON AGEING IN MIGRATION Joint session RN3and RN1
Co-Chairs: Harald Künemund and Thea D. Boldt‐Jaremko
CALL FOR PAPERS
for
the Interim Conference of the Research Network “Biographical Perspectives on European Societies” of the European Sociological Association (ESA) and the Annual Conference of the Research Section “Biographieforschung” of the German Sociological Association (GSA)
in cooperation with
the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg, Germany
“Applied Biographical Research”
18th - 20th September 2010,
Nuremberg, Germany
Programme:
Please, click here to download the programme.
The issue of practical applications had already been a major topic in the early phase of biographical research. In this context the classical studies of Chicago sociology, e.g., Clifford Shaw’s “The Jack-Roller” (1930), but also similar studies of social scientists at the University of Poznan (under the influence of Florian Znaniecki) like Stanislaw Kowalski’s “Urke Nachalnik” (1933), come to mind. A first interest in a “clinical sociology” (Louis Wirth) emerged in working contexts in which sociologists developed a special interest in the life histories of their research subjects and encouraged and supported them to articulate and to write down “their own story”. Life history studies were not just relevant in the context of academic sociological research (in a more narrow sense) but were supposed to enlighten professional practitioners, the public and local elites. At the same time the act of collecting data was marked by the fact that research “subjects” intensely participated as co-workers or even co-authors: They were prompted to actively turn to and reflect about their life history and by doing so they gained new insights. This aspect was more or less neglected in basic theoretical considerations of the early phase of biographical research – as compared with new developments in which, e.g., the creation of knowledge in story telling and “biographical work” (in the sense of Anselm Strauss) become topics of inquiry.
The Nuremberg conference will focus on the practical uses and consequences of biographical research. Such uses and consequences might be intended, registered, surprising, subtle, neglected or just rhetorically invoked or imagined. The idea is to reflect about our studies and to reconstruct what we want to accomplish, whom we want to reach and how we have to deal with restrictions and limitations. Biographical researchers in different countries have gained quite different experiences and specific traditions have developed (cf. the relevance of the concepts of “user participation” and “user empowerment” in the UK and other countries). It will thus be very stimulating and rewarding for colleagues from different European countries to share their experiences and discuss their insights and ideas.
In the last years the topic of practical applications and the applicability of biographical research had been mainly discussed in the context of professional work and education (cf., e.g., the articles in Chamberlayne, Bornat and Apitzsch, eds., 2004). We would like to broaden the focus and invite colleagues who are working on quite different substantive areas to reflect about their studies in terms of their practical uses and consequences. This is just a list of possible topics for our discussion which might be expanded:
- Biographical research for whom: clients, professionals, institutions, social policy makers, the public? How is it possible to deal with possible conflicts of interest?
- The possible tensions between basic and applied biographical research
- The acquisition of skills of biographical research among professionals and the development of settings for acquiring such skills (workshops for reflecting professional practice etc.)
- The application and further development of procedures of data collection and analysis (of biographical research) in professional interventions: chances, risks and limits (in terms of legal barriers, ethical considerations, institutional restrictions etc.)
- The relevance of biographical research for different spheres of activity (counseling, educational support, working with unemployed persons, rehabilitation, therapy, organizational development, medical diagnosis and treatment, counseling of drug addicts, community organizing, supervision, etc.), policy areas (social policy, health policy etc.) and political discoursesØ Biographical research and the arts
- Biographical research as a “meta” counseling procedure in order to sensitize professional counseling of clients with regard to their biographical processes
- The influence of funding institutions and officials on different phases and the results of a research project
- Strategies of dissemination of research results in fields of professional practice and their social arenas
- The relationship with research subjects and processes of creating knowledge in the research process
- Practical applications in early “classical” biographical studies
- Practical implications of different approaches of biographical research (including oral history research)
- Specifics of applied biographical research in different countries
- Arenas and debates in which the usability of biographical studies is contested and defeated or defended
PLEASE NOTE
There will be both English and German language sessions. In any case the organizers will do their best to make sure that the bilingual character of the conference will be an asset for all participants, that everyone will be able to participate in discussions and that no one feels excluded.
We invite colleagues from different countries and different disciplines of the social sciences to submit abstracts until 30th April, 2010. The abstracts should be no more than one page and can be written either in English or German. They should be sent to Thea Boldt ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) for the Research Network “Biographical Perspectives on European Societies” (ESA) as well as to Gerhard Riemann ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) for the Research Section “Biographieforschung” (GSA).
It is also possible to express an interest in research workshops for discussing data from ongoing research projects (with reference to the topic of the conference), to present posters and to opt for other forms of presentation. Conference venue: Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Bahnhofstr. 87, 90402 Nuremberg, Germany.
Registration/Accommodation/Fees
Please register on-line by visiting www.ohm-hochschule.de/applied-biographical-research
There, you will also find information about the location of the conference venue, accommodation and different conference fees for participants from different countries.
Please make sure to read the information about accommodation soon, since there is a short deadline for booking in certain hotels which we have contacted.
Registration Deadline:
Presenters by July 25th
Participants/Audience by August 13th
If you have any questions please contact Thea Boldt: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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CALL FOR PAPERS
The 9th ESA Conference in Lisbon
September 2nd - 5th 2009
European Society or European Societies
to register and send your abstract please visit the website www.esa9thconference.com
List of Sessions:
- Social Theory and Social Practice. Towards Theory of European Society based on Qualitative/Biographical Research. Chair: Thea Boldt, University of Goettingen, Germany.
- European Biographies, Art, Performance, and Methodology.
Chair: Maggie O'Neill, University of Loughborough, UK. - Teaching Visual Methods.
Chair: Timothy Shortell, Sociology Department, Brooklyn College, New York, USA. - The Language(s) of Europe: Issues of Meaning and Translation in European Biographical Research.
Chair: Robin Humphrey, University of Newcastel, UK - Generations and Social Memory in Context of European Societies.
Chair: Edna Lomsky-Feder, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel & Efrat Ben-Ze'ev, Ruppin Academic Center, Israel - Methodological Issues in Biographical Research on European Society.
Chair: Bogusia Temple, University of Central Lancashire,UK - Euroidentities. The Evolution of European Identity: Using biographical methods to study the development of European identity.
(International Project Presentation – abstracts submission only for project collaborators).
Chair: Robert Miller, Queens University, Belfast School of Sociology, Social Policy & Social Work, Northern Ireland
Sessions' Outlines:
1. Social Theory and Social Practice. Towards Theory of European Society based on Qualitative/Biographical Research.
Chair: Thea Boldt, University of Goettingen, Germany.
The discourse on European Society that has a power to influence social policies in different countries is not based on singular case studies but on research results, which can be generalized in form of social theories. Therefore biographical research that aims to be a part of that discourse and have an impact on broader discussions about European Societies shall not ignore the fact, that its research results without being skillfully generalized, will not be considered as representative for understanding wide range of problems European citizens are facing in their everyday life practice. The connection between everyday social practice, biographical research analysis and social theory of European Society/Societies are the subject of that session.
Papers are invited to clarify and exemplify systematic ways of theoretical generalization based on qualitative and biographical research results in particular. Questions for discussion are: how Max Weber's concept of Ideal type can be used to generate social typologies on European Society/Societies in biographical research context? What other concepts and traditions can be adapted by working on social theories based on biographical research? What are the main differences between different biographical paradigmes on the level of creating social theories?
2. European Biographies, Art, Performance, and Methodology.
Chair: Maggie O'Neill, University of Loughborough, UK.
At the recent RN3 conference in Cracow Dec 12-14th 2008 participants explored biographical research through narrativity, performance, photography, digital media and arts practice at the intersections of European biographies, performance and art. Papers are invited that both reinforce and develop the inter-disciplinary work presented in Cracow. Questions to explore in our session include: What are the epistemological and methodological underpinnings of these inter-disciplinary undertakings? Given the performative turn as well as the turns to art, the senses and visual methodologies in Social Science research what remains distinctive about Social Science research? To what extent does biographical research that uses performative, digitial and arts based methods re-invigorate biographical methods and/or help us to better understand broader social, cultural and historical structures and processes [formations]? What can working in the hyphen between biographical research and the performative/ arts practice tell us about European Societies?
3. Teaching Visual Methods.
Chair: Timothy Shortell, Sociology Department, Brooklyn College, NY, USA
Papers are invited that elaborate on the sociological pedagogy of the visual, with special attention to how visual and narrative data relate. The main question here is: how do visual methods help us to understand the connection between biography and society? In what ways do visual data and narrative communicate our sense of self, sense of biographical belonging? With globalization, the migration of peoples -- both within European states and globally -- makes it ever more likely that we will live among cultural 'strangers'. As a result, we regularly encounter visual markers of identities different from our own. How do we make sense of our own or others' movement from 'there' to 'here' -- as migrants, or as members of majorities learning to live with minorities? And how do we teach a sociologically oriented spatial semiotics?
4. The Language(s) of Europe: Issues of Meaning and Translation in European Biographical Research.
Chair: Robin Humphrey, University of Newcastle, UK
JP Roos, in an essay on 'Which (or Whose) Language should I use', laments the need to disseminate life story research beyond his native Finland in English, even though the life stories have been told in Finnish or Swedish, and in contexts which 'may be totally misunderstood in other countries'. Does the rich range of European languages aid or hinder the prospects of European integration? And how problematic are the issues inherent in translation for European biographical research?Roos's essay was on our website: http://www.dur.ac.uk/writingacrossboundaries/writingonwriting/jproos/
5. Generations and Social Memory in Context of European Societies.
Chair: Edna Lomsky-Feder, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel& Efrat Ben-Ze'ev, Ruppin Academic Center, Israel
Sociological literature suggests that a generation is a social category that mediates between personal, group, national and global memory. The relationship between these categories takes on new meanings in the context of Europe in the 21st century. Despite the sociological importance of a generation, its demarcation is not clear. The concept is characterized by multiple meanings: a generation can be a cohort, it can embody a form of consciousness, it can represent a stage in life and it can incorporate kinship descent transfer. Each of these definitions raises a different set of questions.
Our first set of questions takes us back to Mannheim's discussion of a generational consciousness. Generations are often associated with historical events and as an outcome, their members identify with, and are identified by them (be they local, national, European, global). These events may be considered heroic (such as the foundation of a state or a social movement), or traumatic (such as genocide and exile). What is the place of these foundational events in individuals' biographies? How does the "proximity" (or distance) to these foundational events affect power relations within generations and between them?
A second set of questions pertains to the transmission of memories from one generation to the other. What are the practices of transmission? What are the arenas and settings for transmission? How does the context, and specifically political developments, feed into processes of transmission? The study of the Holocaust brings to the forefront these questions.
Finally, the third and last set of questions that we would like to address touches on life-stages within a generation. There is a bond between the life cycle and social/political/economic changes. How does the self awareness and the memories of a single generation change through time? For instance, what happens to a generation that evolves within a specific national context and finds itself later in a completely new political setting (such as the states that emerged following the disintegration of the Soviet Bloc)? In addition, and at times complementary, how do aging processes affect the memory and perception of a generation?
6. Methodological Issues in Biographical Research on European Society.
Chair: Bogusia Temple, University of Central Lancashire, UK
Researchers within Europe use a variety of approaches to their work, each with its strengths and weaknesses. One of the strengths of biographical research is its ability to focus on the individual within society but this presents many challenges when different cultures, languages and borders are involved. This session aims to pull together different sociological approaches to investigating being European and belonging to Europe society in a way that reflects on the benefits of approaches as well as possible pitfalls. The focus is not on the results of such research.
Questions of interest include:
What are the contributions of different approaches in examining European society?
How can we examine multiple allegiances?
What is the influence of the researcher’s own background on the way research is carried out and analysed?
What influence do community researchers and bilingual researchers have on the research process and findings?
What are the ethical implications of particular approaches to working with people from different cultural and language backgrounds?
These questions are a guide to possible topics but suggestions for innovative methodological papers are welcome.
7. Euroidentities. The Evolution of European Identity: Using biographical methods to study the development of European identity.
(International Project Presentation – abstracts submission only for project collaborators).
Chair: Robert Miller, Queens University, Belfast School of Sociology, Social Policy & Social Work, Northern Ireland
This dedicated session will focus upon preliminary results from Euroidentities, a European Commission Framework 7-funded project that is using biographical interviewing and analysis to gain insights into the evolution and meanings of a European identity or identities from the ’bottom up’ perspective of the individual. The project’s research strategy targets five special ‘sensitized groups’ – aggregates whose life experience will have caused them to confront questions of their own identity within Europe. The five groups broadly conceived are: ‘transnational workers’ at all levels from menial economic migrants to ‘high end’ technological workers; mature adults who experienced cross-border educational exchange schemes earlier in their lives; farmers who are subject to Europe-wide markets and systems of regulation; those who have experienced cross-border ‘cultural contacts’; participants in civil society organisations with a reconciliation or cross-border role. The seven partner teams in Euroidentities – Belfast, Magdeburg, Lodz, Bangor Wales, Tallinn, Sofia and Napoli -- include large and small nations who are in original and accession states located both in the peripheries and the core of Europe. Euroidentities plans to employ a focused dissemination strategy that will include from the outset interaction with policy makers and others in public arenas at national and European levels.
CONFERENCE
PERFORMING BIOGRAPHIES, MEMORY AND THE ART OF INTERPRETATION
12-14 DECEMBER 2008
CRACOW, POLAND
ORGANISED BY:
European Sociological Association, Research Network 3 “Biographical Perspectives on European Societies”
IN COOPERATION WITH:
Institute of Audiovisual Arts, Jagiellonski University, Cracow
Institute of History, Jagiellonski University, Cracow
and Pauza Foundation for Promotion and Development of Contemporary Art
CONFERENCE THEME
This interdisciplinary conference aims to explore and analyze systematically a wide range of biographical perspectives through story telling, performance and different kinds of visual art like film, video, photography, digital media etc. It is addressed to researchers who are willing to discuss and discover new fields and not take answers for granted. We hope it to be an open forum for discussion and networking in the context of each others company.
The discussions, workshops and performances within the realms of social science research will be accompanied by an exhibition of biographical photography by Tomek Sikora and meeting with the artist organized by the Pauza Foundation. The participants in the conference are welcome to take part in the exhibition.
Please see www.pauza.pl for details.
For further details about the conference please find the Conference Materials below and/or contact Thea Boldt, the Chair of the ESA RN3: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Click here for the BOOK OF ABSTRACTS
Click here for the ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Click here for the PROGRAMME
Click here for the WORKSHOP OUTLINE
