Life History and Biography Network of the European Society for Research on the Education of Adults / Europäische Gesellschaft zur Forschung in der Erwachsenenbildung (Web)
Time: 6-9 March 2014
Venue: Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg
The Life History and Biography Network (Web) first met in Geneva in 1994 and has provided the basis for diverse and influential publications, as well as for major collaborative research projects and many other forms of collaboration. The network has explored in the last years‘ conferences areas of research and practice in life history and biography/autobiography/auto/biography that have been neglected perhaps (the body, wisdom) and those which are of growing interest: emotions, words, interdisciplinary research, agency and structure.
The field(s) of life history and biography research are very much characterised by schools of practice, by national boundaries. The convenors and the organizer of the 2014 conference recognize this and wish to explore the possibilities of crossing some of the boundaries of practice, some of the frontiers dividing country-specific cultures of research, crossing, too, some of the persistently obstinate linguistic boundaries/barriers that, we feel, impoverish the debate that is central to a vigorous field of research such as ours patently is.
Thus, the Magdeburg conference wishes to concentrate both on the contents and the results of our research, as well as on how we do our work. We would all agree that the narratives – in the widest sense of the term – that we elicit, collect, listen to, record, film, transcribe, analyse and communicate (and co-construct) are located at the very core of our theory and practice. All the more reason, we feel, to take this opportunity to turn our attention to what „goes in“ to the biographical narratives in our research.
For this reason we have chosen the title „Before, Beside and After the Biographical Narrative“ with the aim of opening up a discussion around the „before“ and „after“ of people’s biographical processes, that is, turning our attention, besides to our more visible practices, as well to that which isn’t protocolled, transcribed, described, or presented and yet which is in the stories, and is an intrinsic part of the narratives. In attending to different aspects of the biographical experience – voice, bodily expression, relationships, silences, signs, unconscious processes and so on – we can ask important questions about our perspectives, our methods, our writings, our discussions.
In our conference, we want to help create spaces for dialogue, demonstration, reflexivity and discovery. There will be a series of keynotes from internationally renowned colleagues, dialogues /round tables, alongside individual papers and symposia, focusing on our theme of before, beside and beyond the biographical narrative and the importance of this in researching learning lives.
Conference languages: English, French, German.
Information: www.esreabios.ovgu.de