Biographical Narrative Interviews Research Articles

The Loss: Conceptualising Biographical Experiences of Disability, Social Isolation and Emotional Loneliness in North-East England

Research into experiences of social isolation and loneliness has predominantly focused on older adults, i.e. post-retirement, as a significant at-risk group. Similarly, research exploring disability and loneliness has been associated with old age and conceptualised as an inevitable outcome of ‘failing’ health. This study seeks to conceptualise experiences of disability from a wider age group to understand if occurrences of social isolation and loneliness are commonplace. Fifteen qualitative biographical narrative interviews were completed by a Community Research Team, including seven males and eight females aged 32–89. A Disability Studies approach was applied to identify significant pathways from isolation into emotional loneliness, experienced by participants; fourteen of whom were affected by disability issues. Key risk factors were identified relating to disabled participants’ experiences of ‘loss’. Loss was associated with ‘loss of ability’, ‘loss due to bereavement’, ‘loss of social connectivity’ and ‘loss of self-confidence’. Participants connected life events concerning loss with spending time alone, leading to feelings of emotional loneliness. The findings illustrate key risk factors in being alone during evenings and weekends, periods where disabled participants were most likely to experience subjective feelings of emotional loneliness. (NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those of the authors not necessarily those of their employing agencies.)

‘Ik ben een Afrikaander’: Redrawing Afrikaner Ethnic Boundaries in New Zealand

This paper examines the state of Afrikaner identity in a New Zealand diasporic context, exploring perceptions, experiences, how Afrikaners see themselves fitting into their community, and how this community fits into New Zealand society. Through biographic narrative interviews, participants described an implied representation of Afrikaner which was then constructed into an analytic model consisting of four key characteristics: heritage; faith as a cultural value; language; and, a conservative worldview. Participants referred to themselves against this model in order to ascertain how ‘typical’ they are regarding shared community behaviour and perspectives. Although New Zealand and Afrikaner-South African societies are vastly different, New Zealand’s socially liberal worldview allows an easy transition for today’s comparatively diverse Afrikaners. This transitional process and ethnic boundary modification was found to impact Afrikaner identity in varying ways, particularly related to areas of personal security, new friendship formation, manner of speech, and how they perceived what New Zealanders think about Afrikaners.

Biocultural learning – beyond ecological knowledge transfer

Education sciences research has showed that learning is a complex interaction between individuals and their surrounding world. The simplification of learning complexity has been commonly assumed in local and traditional ecological knowledge (LEK/TEK) research. Based on a modern learning theory, this article describes learning complexity behind the LEK/TEK held by fishers and farmers in Sweden. It leads to the introduction of the concept of biocultural learning that contributes to this field by giving details to this complexity. From a biographic approach, this research combines case studies, in-depth biographical narrative interviews, participant observations and the analysis of personal blogs and family pictures as data collection methods. This combination reveals the interconnection between professional knowledge about nature, identity construction and emotional bonds to nature. This article highlights the value of giving professional status to LEK/TEK and discusses the need to promote and strengthen biocultural learning in different society sectors.

One at a Time: LGBTQ Polyamory and Relational Citizenship in the 21st Century

Drawing on biographic narrative interviews with self-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and/or queer polyamorous people in Portugal, this article explores the contradictions and opportunities involved in living as a relationally diverse LGBTQ intimate citizen in Southern Europe. The article starts by unpacking citizenship in relation to dominant sociolegal expectations around monogamy. In this section, it is suggested that the mononormative underpinnings of law and social policy restrain intimate citizenship. The second part of the article explores the legal and cultural meanings attached to coupledom, suggesting the notion of relational performativity as an analytical tool for interpreting cultural norms and expectations around partnering. The last section discusses citizenship and coupledom in light of the biographic narratives produced by LGBTQ polyamorous participants in the INTIMATE study in Portugal. Based on thematic analysis of these narratives, it is argued that the framework of intimate citizenship is not fixed, and the notion of relational citizenship is offered. Arguably, relational citizenship enables a gradual detachment from the strictly monogamous underpinnings of citizenship studies, hence offering an opportunity for further intellectual engagement with intimacy and diversity in the 21st century.

First‐generation migrants become grandparents: how migration backgrounds affect intergenerational relationships

AbstractFirst‐generation migrants are not only reaching the age of retirement, but they are also becoming grandparents in the host society. Through the specific case of Portuguese migrants in Luxembourg, we look at what point their migration background becomes important to their intergenerational relationships. We have acquired the data for this article from biographical narrative interviews with ten older first‐generation grandparents and ten second‐generation parents. On the basis of these findings, we address three important aspects of intergenerational relations: (i) how first‐generation migrants socialize their grandchildren, (ii) grandparental mobility patterns and their embeddedness in practices of socialization and care, and (iii) the challenges produced by language in intergenerational relationships.

“Why is it that here we can be a family, and there we cannot?” How Wider Socio-Institutional Frameworks Shape Experiences of LGB Parenting

The legal status and social acceptance of same-sex partners’ families vary to an astonishing degree, even within the European Union (EU). These differences are sharply reflected in the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) migrants from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) residing in countries such as Belgium or the Netherlands, where same-sex partners can marry, access adoption and assisted reproductive technologies (ART) services, and acquire legal co-parenting rights. For this group, every visit to a CEE country of origin with a constitutional definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, with limited or no access to adoption services, nor to ART or co-parenting rights, highlights the societal and institutional vulnerability of their families. Based on biographical narrative interviews (BNIM) with six LGB migrants from selected CEE countries of origin, raising children with a same-sex partner in Belgium or the Netherlands, this study analyses how differences in wider socio-institutional frameworks shape experiences of LGB parents relating to the formation, display, recognition and acceptance of their families. The findings highlight how the restrictive legal and institutional frameworks not only exclude LGB individuals from full citizenship, but also provide support for the individual-level discrimination of non-heterosexual families. In contrast, inclusive frameworks allow LGB individuals to realize life and family trajectories already accessible to others in society, while also discouraging the expression of individual prejudice. Therefore, the study concludes that the only way to ensure full equality and to protect LGB individuals and their children from stigmatization is to create a fully inclusive socio-institutional framework for non-heterosexual families in which individual prejudice is no longer supported.

Cursos migratórios e novas circularidades: migrantes da África Ocidental no Sul do Brasil

Resumo Utilizamos os métodos de entrevista narrativa biográfica e reconstrução de caso biográfico para compreender e explicar as experiências de mobilidade de migrantes da África Ocidental no Brasil. O artigo está fundamentado na sociologia do conhecimento, na sociologia de orientação fenomenológica e na sociologia dos processos e figurações. Os resultados indicam a) a limitação de categorias restritivas para a compreensão do fenômeno, como a baseada em eixos geográficos; b) a necessidade de reconstrução dos deslocamentos anteriores e posteriores dos migrantes para explicar seus cursos migratórios; e c) a tradução dos pertencimentos étnico e religioso e de ativos pessoais e familiares em estratégias que impedem reduzir a explicação das motivações para migrar a determinantes estruturais.

Never after? Queer temporalities and the politics of non-reproduction

What kind of family is evoked by the label ‘family geographies’ and who might be excluded from this conceptual frame? Drawing upon literature from feminist and queer geographies, this paper examines the lives of those who exist outside of normative notions of ‘the family’. Data comes from biographical narrative interviews, conducted in Britain, with those who are both single and childfree. The paper outlines the potential queerness of a 'non-reproductive' life, exploring the alternative temporalities and spatialities this produces. In what ways does the non-reproductive challenge normative ideals of the way a life should unfold? How do 'procreational norms' shape the landscape? By answering such questions, the paper contributes an empirically grounded reflection on the queer potentialities of non-reproduction, challenging certain queer theorizations that equate non-reproduction with anti-futurity. Ultimately, the paper argues that an exploration of the non-reproductive may help reform our understandings of the geographies of intimacy, care and relatedness.

Learning biographies in a European space for social mediation

Within the framework of a European Erasmus+ project, trainee mediators were interviewed about their experience. The encounters took place in unstructured, in-depth qualitative biographical-narrative interviews, in which individuals who are engaged in dialogic interaction create shared understanding and give meaning to their stories. The interview is interactive, co-constructed. The detail of the interview language documents how meaning-making takes place, and how this is affected by group belonging, ethnic or cultural discourses, as well as gender, age, professional and educational relationships, and so on. The interview is sensitive to language resources and their use in the co-construction of meaning. This paper, using extracts from one biographical narrative, shows that the languaged form that these narratives of the biographical learning of mediators take can offer insight into the learning processes triggered by learning in communities of practice, and that the creation of a common space of experience can be heard as it emerges in biographical talk. Biographical resources, biographicity, and their relationship with language and society are considered, and in the interview narratives the creation of a learning space, a space for the development and unfolding of notions and practices of mediation can be observed, heard and shared.

EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING AS THE PRECONDITION OF TEACHER’S PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT

Society is pausing higher and higher requirements for teachers regarding their professionalism, efficiency of activity, personal qualities and other aspects. If we treated teachers’ professional development as a life-long process, we would find alternative learning forms, which enable continuous, individual and flexible learning. It is important to reveal the role of informal learning in the area of life-long learning process because its significance to teacher’s professional competence has not been fully estimated. Knowledge, skills, and abilities that teachers bring into their professional activity, gained as the outcome of informal learning and development, are not adequately valued. Insufficient attention is paid to professionality and contextuality of teacher’s professional competence development. Therefore, it is crucial to perceive experiential learning which determines development of the competence as a constituent part of informal learning. The aim of the article is to reveal the interaction between experiential learning and teacher’s professional competence development. Methodology of the research encompasses both theoretical, namely scientific literature analysis and summary, and empiric research methods. Qualitative research data were collected using biographical-narrative interviews while data analysis and findings are based on Abductive Reasoning Theory according to Peirce, Grounded Theory according to Strauss and Corbin and Formulating Interpretation according to Bohnsack. Scientific literature analysis has revealed that experiental learning is frequently random, spontaneous and unplanned. Due to its nature it is considered as a part of informal learning. The results of the biographical-narrative interviews with teachers show that professional activity provides pedagogues with rich experience and opportunity to develop regarding the contents of the subject taught as well as methodological and personal perspectives.

Mobile Work, Veterinary Subjectivity and Brexit: Veterinary Surgeons’ Migration to the UK

AbstractThis article extends studies of ‘global work’ by considering the mobility of veterinary surgeons in the global countryside. The article develops the concept of ‘disease ecology’: an assemblage of heterogenous actors and relations that inscribe and normalise mobility within professional subjectivities. Disruptions to these disease ecologies can contribute to new patterns of mobility. Drawing on biographical narrative interviews with 35 vets who have migrated to the United Kingdom to work, the article shows how veterinary mobility is shaped by and emerges in response to these disease ecologies. Specifically, the article describes how four narratives – ‘the first job’, ‘escape and adventure’, ‘the lucky break’ and ‘staying mobilities’ – contribute to veterinary migration to the UK, and how the lived experiences of work and inscriptions of mobile veterinary subjectivities within disease ecologies lead vets to stay in the UK. However, the article also considers the role of Brexit in disrupting established disease ecologies and creating new patterns of veterinary mobilities. In identifying how Brexit challenges vets’ sense of place, the article concludes by exploring Brexit's potential impact to the future of veterinary services in the UK.

Considerations on triangulation of biographical narrative interviews and expert interviews

Um die Komplexität und den Zusammenhang biographischer Konstitutionsbedingungen pädagogischer Professionalität fassen zu können, bedarf es eines entsprechenden Erhebungsinstrumentes. Aufgrund der Gemeinsamkeiten und Überschneidungen von biographisch-narrativem Interview und Expert*inneninterview gilt es theoretisch zu begründen, warum eine Verschränkung beider Interviewformen umfassender ermöglicht, biographische und berufsbezogene (professionelle) Sinnstrukturen in Subjektiven Theorien zu identifizieren und aufeinander zu beziehen.

A Critical Overview of the Significance of Power and Power Relations in Practice with Children in Foster Care: Evidence from an Irish Study

ABSTRACT This paper is based on findings from an Irish study of permanence and stability outcomes for children in long-term care which involved biographical narrative interviews with 27 children, young people, parents and foster carers. The study concluded that power and power relations featured significantly in the narratives of our interviewees. To advance guidance for practice, this paper aims to build on the findings of the study reported with an emphasis on the theorisation of power and power relations to inform practice. To do this, we use illustrative quotes from children, young people and their families to demonstrate how power markedly affected their experiences. The findings are considered in the context of an adapted version of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model with a focus on the interaction between the social work system and individual social workers (exo system) the young person and their wider family (micro-meso system) as perceived by the latter. The wider impact of policy (macro system) and transitions and experiences over time (chrono system) are considered in the context of this interaction. In the discussion, the need for more explicit studies of power and power relations within the context of an ecological model to capture the complexity of layers and interactions of each child’s social system is highlighted. The contribution and limitation of the research is discussed. We end with a commentary about the importance of promoting an increased voice for children and young people in the development and improvement of public child welfare services.

Lost in Transitions? Biographical Experiences and Life Strategies of Young Precarious Workers in Poland

This article discusses conditions, properties and consequences of life strategies of young people in Poland in the context of the rise of precarious, low paid and uncertain employment. The analysis is developed against the background of the debates about three transitions, to adulthood, flexible and precarious labour market and changing political-economic regime. Based on the tentative analysis of 45 biographical narrative interviews with young people, aged 18–30, in various forms of temporary, low-paid jobs, and unemployed, a typology of coping with the three transitions is proposed, including four types: proletarian, postetatist, projectarian and entrepreneurial. The typology reflects the logics of stories’ told by young people, the desired relationships between the world of work and world outside work, as well as the relevance of resources and reflexivity for the transitions among the types of life strategies in coping with precarity. The authors conclude that the “normalization of precarity,” manifested into the emergence of institutional action schemes which define insecure employment as an expected pattern of occupational careers, encounters its biographical limits within each types. It is suggested that these “gaps and cracks” in the institutionalization of insecurity might represent important sources of young people collective mobilization in various spheres of political and social life despite an overarching individualization of their life strategies.

Pesquisa social interpretativa alemã: os métodos de entrevista narrativa biográfica e de reconstrução biográfica de caso

A pesquisa social interpretativa alemã desenvolve e aplica métodos qualitativos de pesquisa mais intensamente desde a década de 1970. O principal objetivo do artigo é apresentar e discutir os métodos de entrevista narrativa biográfica e de reconstrução biográfica de caso sistematizados pela socióloga alemã Gabriele Rosenthal em seu livro Pesquisa Social Interpretativa (2014). Estes métodos aplicam os princípios de uma pesquisa social interpretativa, os quais têm suscitado interesse em pesquisadores brasileiros nos últimos anos. Na primeira parte do artigo, apresentamos os pressupostos teóricos e metodológicos de uma pesquisa social interpretativa. Posteriormente, explicamos e discutimos as etapas de uma reconstrução biográfica de caso com base em dados gerados em uma entrevista narrativa biográfica. Por fim, apresentamos um estudo brasileiro e outro alemão para demonstrar como estes métodos permitem reconstruir a gênese dos fenômenos sociais e explicar sua manifestação no presente, avançando em relação a métodos que se restringem a uma análise sincrônica e descritiva dos fenômenos. Isto contribui para o desenvolvimento de uma sociologia histórica do conhecimento e para o estabelecimento de uma tipologia sociogenética dos fenômenos sociais.

Two adult women managing career and family after mature higher education: alternative notions of agency?

This biographical case study explores how two South Korean middle-aged married women have managed their career and their family commitments over the period of 9 years after their mature higher education. In doing this, this study focuses on the role of agency with reference to the structure of gender throughout these women’s experiences. Biographical narrative interviews were conducted four times over the 9 years to trace various changes to their lives. The analysis suggests that the two women’s agencies were ostensibly different, but were quintessentially embedded within their intimate relationships in common. Drawing on the empirical evidence, this study seeks to address alternative notions of agency that highlight endurance, interdependence with close relations, emotion and affection, which exert a gradual but powerful impact on others and society. This study, therefore, disturbs the prevalent notions of a self-directed and rationalistic model of agency and its individualistic and dichotomous relation with structure.

Persuasion, Adaptation, and Double Identity: Qualitative Study on the Psychological Impact of a Screen-Detected Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis.

The NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme (BCSP) is aimed at reducing colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality through early detection within a healthy population. This study explores how 5 people (three females) experience and make sense of their screen-detected diagnosis and the psychological implications of this diagnostic pathway. A biographical narrative interview method was used, and transcripts were analysed using a thematic analysis with a phenomenological lens. Themes specifically relating to posttreatment experience and reflections are reported here: Do it: being living proof, Resisting the threat of recurrence, Rationalising bodily change, and Continuing life—“carrying on normally.” Participants described their gratefulness to the BCSP, motivating a strong desire to persuade others to be screened. Furthermore, participants professed a duality of experience categorised by the normalisation of life after diagnosis and treatment and an identification of strength post cancer, as well as a difficulty adjusting to the new changes in life and a contrasting identity of frailty. Understanding both the long- and short-term impacts of a CRC diagnosis through screening is instrumental to the optimisation of support for patients. The results perhaps highlight a particular target for psychological distress reduction, which could reduce the direct and indirect cost of cancer to the patient.

Nerovná startovní čára? Intersekcionální analýza počátků profesních drah jedenapůlté generace vietnamských mužů a žen na českém trhu práce

Based on 14 biographical-narrative interviews, using an intersectional approach to examine multiple discrimination based on age, gender, and ethnicity, we analyse the subjective reflections of young Vietnamese migrants from the second and the 1.5 generation on their integration into the Czech labour market. We analyse ethnicity and gender as socially constructed identities in the specific context of the labour market, school, and family. Important advantages that appear in the biographies of young Vietnamese migrant women and men influencing their positions in the labour market are their level of education, their knowledge of Czech and Vietnamese culture and language, and specific work experience. Focusing on potential discrimination and marginalisation, we can say that the young Vietnamese we interviewed often move between two identities - Czech and Vietnamese - to overcome potential disadvantages. Due to a high level of acculturation, they more frequently identify themselves with the Czech majority. At the same time, they derive benefits from the social and cultural capital of being a member of the Vietnamese minority. On the other hand, this advantage can inverse into disadvantage and young Vietnamese could fall into the trap of only occupying work positions that relate to their ethnic origin. For the reasons mentioned above, the Vietnamese in our study seek to acquire the highest possible cultural capital - the highest possible education and position in a prestigious profession, regardless of gender - as their strategy for overcoming potential disadvantage and avoiding the trap of 'migrant' labour-market niches their parents occupied.

Social Problems of Alzheimer Patients and Their Family Members

Alzheimer disease is the most frequently seen and widespread form of dementia. In Georgia, there is no state program that deals with Alzheimer, which means that families of the patients stand alone when dealing with the disease. The study goal was to find out the problems and needs of the Alzheimer patients and their family members. The qualitative approach model was used for the research, which in turn was a biographical-narrative interview. The study has revealed a decreased role of a public sector in the life of people with disease. The families alone have a responsibility to take care of their patients, without any help from the others, which often worsens their already difficult economic situation.

PUPILS' LEARNING EXPERIENCE IN HOMESCHOOLING- BIOGRAPHY ANALYSIS

The article concentrates on learning experience as a factor that shapes people's attitude towards lifelong learning. Literature analysis demonstrated a gap in the understanding the experience of adults going through alternative education. The study analysis, the experience of adults who were educated in Poland at home in times of compulsory education system. The studies are carried out on the basis of biographical analysis using biographical narrative interviews by Schütz. The method falls within the quality methodology and concentrates on exact parts in the respondent's biography.