Individual Biographies Research Articles

Male depression and its symptoms: A qualitative study with Chilean adult men

In Chile, one out of every ten men presents signs or symptoms of depression each year. However, few studies within Chile or other Latin American countries address the qualitative or narrative aspects of depression in men. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the narrative construction of depression and its symptoms in men. This qualitative study was based on interviews with nine Chilean men who had gone through an experience of this nature, which were conducted between June and October 2020. A life history methodology was used to explore depressive processes involved in each individual's biography as well as the symptoms reported in each case. The results show that these men experienced a constellation of symptoms during depression, some of which are atypical as they do not match those described in diagnostic manuals. Three types of narratives were identified, and were termed frustration, breakdown, and insecurity.

Breakers of glass ceilings: the professional careers of women in Finland and the graduates of three girls’ upper secondary schools (1890s–1910s)

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the occupational emancipation of women in Finland and examines the professional careers of women who graduated with a matriculation examination from three upper secondary girls’ schools during the period of the 1890s to the 1910s. One of the schools was for Finnish-speaking girls, and two of the schools were for Swedish-speaking girls. This article asks what kinds of educational paths and professional careers these upper secondary girls’ school graduates had during their lives after graduation. Attention is paid to both the typical professional careers and to those careers that could be characterised as exceptional and atypical. The source material consists of student registers that offered an opportunity to create a prosopography (i.e. set biography). In this article, the prosopography and individual biographies of women with exceptional careers shed light on the horizon of possibilities for Finnish women at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, specifically, their horizon of possibilities to gain education and degrees, as well as posts in the labour market.

Migrant Maths Teachers: Deficit, Translanguaging, and Growing Authority

This article draws from a longitudinal case study of trainee (the term used in official documentation related to Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in England and with some reservations throughout this paper) and early-career teachers (ECT) of mathematics. The sample represents migrant teachers that the Immigration Act of 2020 seeks to attract to the UK to address national shortages identified by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC). The analysis examines how multimodal semiotic repertoires of language, bodies and pedagogical practices are entangled in classroom encounters. It shows how the ideology of Standard English can create an uncomfortable sense of different deficits amongst multilingual professionals and evidences how these can be addressed through a model of authority in which teachers get the right mix of mathematical subject knowledge (epistemic authority), the use of school practices and expectations (practical authority), and individual biography (personal authority). It uses translanguaging spaces to examine how teachers use communicative repertoires to orchestrate semiotic resources and manage their identity positions in ways that promote intercultural competencies during the daily encounters of teachers and their pupils.

Nursing care of patients with duodenal ulcer

Nursing care of patients with duodenal ulcer

“Who’s Who?”: Identifying Cycling Coaches’ Biographies

Consideration of a learners’ biography is deemed to impact on their engagement with formal education and their connection with, and perceived relevance of, educational course content. It is considered equally important to understand coaches who enrol on formal coach learning in sport—their motivations, beliefs, values, existing knowledge, and previous life experiences. This research explored the individual biographies of eight neophyte cycling coaches over an 18-month period following the successful completion of a national governing body coach award. Following 23 formal semistructured interviews and 26 unstructured interviews, deductive thematic narrative analysis revealed three different typologies of coach: the “performance coach”; the “parent-coach”; and the “community coach.” Although the subjective details of the life stories varied according to their idiosyncratic perspective, all participants’ stories broadly followed one of these three identifiable narratives. Identifying different “typologies” of cycling coaches’ answers calls from coach developers to account for the specific backgrounds of coaches’ practices. It is hoped this research will begin the process of developing more personalised approaches to coach education.

Weight-based discrimination in financial reward and punishment decision making: causal evidence using a novel experimental paradigm

Background/ObjectivesCross-sectional research has demonstrated weight-related stigma and discrimination, however experimental research providing causal evidence of financial-based weight discrimination is lacking. The aim of these preregistered experiments was to examine whether a novel paradigm in which participants attributed financial rewards and punishments could be used to detect weight bias.Subjects/MethodsOne-hundred and twenty-one individuals participated in experiment 1 and one-hundred and sixty-six individuals participated in experiment 2. Both studies were conducted online, and participants were provided with biographies of hypothetical individuals in which weight-status was manipulated (normal weight vs. overweight/obesity) before being asked to provide rewards and punishments on their cognitive performance. In experiment 1 (within-participants design) participants observed one individual they believed to be normal weight and one individual they believed to be overweight/have obesity. In experiment 2 (between-participants design) participants observed one individual whilst also being provided with information about food addiction (Food addiction is real + individual with overweight/obesity vs. food addiction is a myth + individual with overweight/obesity vs control + individual with normal weight).ResultsIn experiment 1, participants punished individuals who were described as having overweight/obesity to a greater extent to individuals who were normal weight (Hedge’s g = −0.21 [95% CI: −0.02 to −0.41], p = 0.026), but there was no effect on rewards. They were also less likely to recommend individuals with overweight/obesity to pass the tasks (X2(1) = 10.05, p = 0.002). In experiment 2, participants rewarded individuals whom they believed were overweight/obese to a lesser extent than normal-weight individuals (g = 0.49 [95% CI: 0.16 to 0.83]. There was no effect on punishment, nor any impact of information regarding food addiction as real vs a myth.ConclusionUsing a novel discrimination task, these two experiments demonstrate causal evidence of weight-based discrimination in financial decision making.

Organizations as Spaces for Caring: A Case of an Anti-trafficking Organization in India

Prior research has shown that human trafficking has multiple facets and is deeply enmeshed in societies around the world. Two central challenges for anti-trafficking organizations pertain to confronting systemic injustices and establishing caring organizations for survivors to start the process of healing and restoration. Analyzing the work of an anti-trafficking organization, International Sanctuary (ISanctuary) in Mumbai, we seek to elucidate how a space for caring for trafficking survivors is constructed in a largely non-egalitarian and unjust context. We contribute to discussions on how caring infrastructures are possibly developed so that they do not write off (pre)existing gendered and in-egalitarian social structures and how they shape individual biographies. We also highlight how the specific, situated context—defined by those very structures—shapes and influences the transformative potential of care interventions.

Bourdieu and Sociological Biography: The Case of Vincent van Gogh’s Choice of Profession

Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptual framework offers a productive means of making sense of statistical regularities and correspondences. When it comes to explaining the intricacies of individual biographies, however, including something as seemingly personal as one’s choice of occupation, Bourdieu offers only a starting point in need of elaboration. Above all, there is a need to pay greater attention to the multiplicity of fields in which individuals are situated and the interplay between them in shaping desires and strategies. These include class, family relations and, in some cases, employment-based fields such as art, religion or specific organisations. To demonstrate the argument, this article takes as a case study the trajectory of Vincent van Gogh, highlighting the ongoing interaction between class, family and other fields in generating his eventual decision to become an artist.

Psychoanalyst, Jew, Woman, Wife, Mother, Emigrant

At least seventy-two first- and second-generation women psychoanalysts emigrated to the United States as Nazism came to dominate Europe. There – largely in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich – from the early 1900s to the beginning of the Second World War, they had been at the forefront of the psychoanalytic movement; after emigrating, they were decisive in shaping the development of Freudian theory and practice in the US. Their contributions notwithstanding, today they are neglected and at risk of being marginalised or falling into oblivion. Using both historical materials and personal-history documents, including memoirs, interviews, correspondence and personal communications, this article revives and reconstructs the individual and professional biographies of eight first-generation analysts – Frances Deri, Helene Deutsch, Salomea Gutmann-Isakower, Clara Happel, Karen Horney, Flora Kraus, Mira Oberholzer-Gincburg and Christine Olden – and focuses on their complex multiple identities as professional women (the Jewish New Women of their milieu), pioneers of psychoanalysis, Jews, refugees, German-speaking emigrants, mothers and more.

Editor’s Page

Editor’s Page Daniel J. Burge Historians have long been intrigued by biography. While many historians have written books analyzing wars, revolutions, and the fall of empires, others have sought to understand the past by examining how individuals altered the course of history. Classical historians such as Arrian, Suetonius, and Plutarch helped to establish biography as a reputable genre of historical inquiry and its popularity has only increased with time. In the twenty-first century, bookshelves bend under the weight of the biographies on Jefferson, Lincoln, Douglass, and the Roosevelts. However, as this issue of the Register reminds us, biographers do not have to exclusively deal with the stories of those who became president or who led armies. Oftentimes, we can learn more from the past by examining the lives of less well-known personages. Angelo I. George and Gary A. O’Dell illustrate the possibilities of biography by helping to recover the story of Stephen Bishop. In their article “Stephen Bishop: The Celebrated Guide of Mammoth Cave,” George and O’Dell explore how Bishop, an enslaved man in Kentucky, became one of the most famous Black men in antebellum America. Unlike Frederick Douglass or Henry Box Brown, who became noted leaders of the abolition movement after escaping north, Bishop garnered national exclaim by his subterranean exploits. Enslaved from birth, possibly by his biological father, Bishop was brought to Mammoth Cave after he was purchased by Franklin Gorin, an attorney from Glasgow, Kentucky. It was at Mammoth Cave that Bishop would rise to national fame, as he conducted underground tours, explored new regions, and entertained guests with his oratory and knowledge of cave lore. Yet, for all the tourists that he drew to [End Page 95] Mammoth Cave, Bishop hardly reaped financial rewards. His last enslaver, Dr. John Croghan, died in 1849, stipulating that Bishop and his family would only be freed after seven years. Bishop and his family were emancipated in 1856, but Bishop died a mere year later. Moving ahead several decades, Lynn E. Niedermeyer focuses her attention on the barriers that white women faced during the Gilded Age. In “‘The Board is Blue’: Kentucky Registers a Woman Pharmacist,” Niedermeier recounts the story of Elizabeth “Bessie” Woods White. Born into a prominent family in Clay County, Kentucky, White received a quality education and enrolled at the Michigan School of Pharmacy. Excelling at her studies, White graduated in 1883 with the degree of pharmaceutical chemist. Returning to Kentucky, White attempted to register with the state board of pharmacy but experienced a setback when the board responded that she lacked the requisite three years of professional experience. Recognizing that the board did not want to register a female applicant, White brought a legal case against them, which she won in 1884, when a judge ruled that the board had overstepped its authority. Although White decided to marry and step away from a career as a pharmacist, her actions opened the door for women in Kentucky to enter a profession that had been closed to them. Our third article pivots from an individual biography to a story about a family. In her article, “Medical Mysteries: Identifying Recipes in the Carpenter Family Papers,” KHS digital archivist Alyssa Ollier takes a fresh look at several recipes within the Carpenter family papers, which are housed at the Kentucky Historical Society. Ollier examines a recipe on curing sweeney, a disease that impacted horses. Ollier also analyzes a recipe on opodeldoc, a plant-based medicine used to treat a variety of ailments. Ollier uses these recipes to shed light on traditional southern folk medicine, as practiced by nineteenth-century Kentuckians. All three authors illustrate how the stories of individuals and families can be used to understand a specific era. Examining Stephen [End Page 96] Bishop’s story, for example, provides us with a different perspective of antebellum Kentucky than we could glean by looking at Henry Clay or Abraham Lincoln, who were Bishop’s contemporaries. In a similar manner, Bessie White reminds us of the extraordinary challenges that women faced as they attempted to enter occupations reserved for men, a viewpoint that is often missing from histories of the Gilded Age. By recovering the stories of...

Spillovers from Oil Firms to U.S. Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing: Smudging State–Industry Distinctions and Retelling Conventional Narratives

Histories of semiconductor and computing technology in the United States have emphasized the supporting role of the U.S. state, especially the military, in answer to libertarian denials of state aid that are influential in Silicon Valley today. Somewhat implicit in that historiography, though, is the leading role of actors and organizations that blur any distinction between public and private. Some industries of this sort—telecommunications, aerospace, auto manufacturing—do figure in the historiography, but the class should be expanded further. One such industry—oil—has been exceptionally but almost invisibly influential in the development of computing and semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. Oil firms invested heavily in semiconductors and computing. There was also an “oil spillover” of personnel and technology from oil firms to computing and semiconductor manufacturing. Oil shows up in the biographies of many prominent individuals and organizations in the history of those technologies, from Fairchild Semiconductor to Edsger Dijkstra. These ties potentially hold important implications for the much-needed transition to a more sustainable energy regime.

The Inequality Mirror: Using a Student Survey to Teach Social Stratification

Social inequality is a central theme in sociology study plans (both in research and education), but it is often one of the most difficult topics to teach. This article presents an innovative student-centered strategy for teaching social inequality that uses a survey to collect data on students’ socioeconomic characteristics and perceptions of inequality. To stimulate reflection and discussion on the social mechanisms that reproduce inequality, this information is subsequently presented to them in conjunction with a comparative analysis to general population data. The exercise seeks to make social inequality less abstract for students by involving them in the research process and by using data relative to their own lives and families. Ultimately, the strategy boosts students’ sociological imagination and their capacity for critical thinking by encouraging them to see the connections between individual biographies and broader social forces.

Displacement on the Lancaster West Estate in London before, during, and after the Grenfell fire

This paper draws on ethnographic biographies to reveal the multiple experiences of displacement among three residents on the Lancaster West Estate in London. It is a longitudinal study of before, during, and after the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. Drawing on in-depth, individual ethnographic biographies, I respond to gentrification scholars’ calls for more qualitative methodological approaches to studying the experiences of the displaced. The temporal lens used adds value in showing that residents were being displaced before the fire and that they have continued to experience displacement even when rehomed. The Grenfell literature tends to focus largely on the causes of the fire but here I consider the lived subjective experiences of displacement, slow violence, unhoming and rehoming, among residents on the Estate. Upholding and preserving these voices is crucial for the Grenfell Inquiry and in resisting state-led gentrification.

Opowieść narracyjna w obszarze terapeutycznym

The Presented Article Discusses the Issues of Stories Coming from a Modern Man. The article shows that the effort of telling about oneself and one’s life brings relief, carrying out organizing a biographical timeline of an event. Therefore, a narrative story brings a therapeutic element into a man’s life, becoming a reason to give sense and meaning to the events recorded in an individual biography. In the therapeutic article, the stories are shown in relation to the words of the authors and the scientific evidence and reflections of the author of the text.

Creating a Sense of Glorious Destiny. Mastery of Speech in the Libellus de Situ Civitatis Mediolani (Late 10th-Early 11th Centuries)

In the decades around 1000, an anonymous cleric at Milan Cathedral wrote a booklet on the history of his city which he built as a collection gathering, in chronological order, the Lives of the local bishops. The unfinished work not only testifies to the learning and culture of the author but also to the historical relevance of an ambitious text commissioned to support the political claims and the legitimacy of the Milanese church in its quest for primacy in the kingdom of Italy. This chapter explores the refined style of the author and the ways in which he constructed a coherent and cohesive narrative by sewing together individual biographies. The medieval reception of this biographical collection also shows the ways in which the text was repurposed to fulfil different functions and multiple goals, both within and beyond the city of Milan. Finally, this study analyses the text in the light of two interpretative concepts borrowed from the field of social anthropology. De situ clearly appealed to the literary tastes of the scholars trained in the cathedral school, thus addressing an audience shaped as a specific »community of learning«. More generally, the collection contributed to nourishing the sense of identity of the clergy and the people of Milan, that is a »textual community« which, through the acts of reading and listening to the text, felt it belonged to that glorious history and expected to see its reflection in the present.

Biography and Hierarchy: The Tibetan Ruling House of Phag-mo-gru and the Singular Volume of the Rlangs (Rlangs-kyi-po-ti-bse-ru)

This article details how the Tibetan ruling house of Phag-mo-gru employed biography within a 14th-century genealogical work as well as how its later representatives would reflect on and adapt the work in its reading tradition. Addressing the genealogy’s dating, structure and the various influences at play within its pages, the author argues that the work’s initial composition involved a mash-up of contemporary political and cultural sensibilities, archaic material and also traditions drawn from the ruling house’s ancestral homelands in the eastern region of Khams. A critical look at individual biographies within the work illustrates how these life stories provided a canvas on which respectable ancestry could be painted, with the creator(s) not shying away from including anachronistic and fantastic content. The article concludes with a broader theoretical look at how this work’s biographical collection, and similar compilations in general, may serve to affirm social hierarchies by rephrasing them in a language of long-standing moral relations.

Documents on History of Russian Naval Emigration in Regional Archives of Southern France: Problems of Search and Study

The article deals with the problem of identifying, describing and introducing into scientific circulation documents and materials on the history of the Russian naval officers who lived in the region of southern France in the 1920s—1930s. The relevance and novelty of the research is due to the introduction into scientific circulation of documentary complexes of regional, local and departmental archives containing information about the Russian naval emigration in France. The author draws attention to the specifics of identifying archival documents within the framework of the research topic. Attention is paid to the peculiarities of the collection of funds in the French archives. It is shown how knowledge of this specificity makes it possible to find and identify the required materials in the absence of thematic collections and indexes. The results of a study of archival collections and funds discovered by the author in regional, local and departmental archives containing information about the history of the Russian naval emigration in southern France are presented in the article. Contrary to the ideas of the marginality of this topic that have developed in French historiography, the potential of its development on the basis of the materials identified by the author is demonstrated. A review of the discovered archival funds is carried out from the point of view of the prospects for the reconstruction of collective and individual biographies of Russian naval officers-emigrants. The author’s classification of the identified documentary complexes is proposed.

Rural memoirs of Southern Ukraine of the 20th century : prosopographic approach

The aim : to consider the application of prosopographic approaches in the study of biographies of authors of peasant memoirs in order to identify common features that laid the conditions for the emergence of memoir practices among the peasants of the Southern Ukraine in the 20th century; to analyze the potential of prosopography for researching general processes. The article considers the application of the prosopographic method to the study of biographies of authors of peasant memoirs in order to identify common features that created conditions for the emergence of memoir practices among the peasants of southern Ukraine in the twentieth century. Modern historical science suggests that individuals having their own little life stories are present behind all processes and events. New directions and principles of historical research are becoming increasingly important. The prosopographic method is one of them. Under prosopography we understand the scientific method of studying individual biographies of authors of historical sources in order to create a “collective biography” of a certain social group on their basis. Methods: analytical, historical, comparative, system-structural. The article author uses methods of specific scientific activity, empirical research and general logic. Practical meaning: recommended for use by scholars for historical research; provides opportunities for the use of this issue in theoretical and methodological and source studies. Originality: research, in particular on the choice of research source base and methodology of its analysis. Scientific novelty: creation of a collective portrait of a peasant author of a memoir source. Conclusions: on the basis of the analysis with the involvement of prosopographic research methods we have the opportunity to create a conditional collective portrait of a peasant of the Southern Ukraine of the twentieth century, the author of the memoir. When creating a “biography” of a peasant author, the following features are distinguished: common social origin, primary education, teaching and educational skills, psychological characteristics, propensity for creative activity, external influences. The materials collected by the researchers from the Zaporizhzhia branch of the NASU Institute of Ukrainian Archaeography and Source Studies named after M. S. Hrushevsky and the History Faculty of the Zaporizhzhia National University and published as a part of collections titled “Sources on the History of the Southern Ukraine”, “Antiquities of the Southern Ukraine” and “Ascension Antiquities”, are used as sources in the analysis. The purpose of the current investigation is to identify the causes and conditions that prompted particular peasants of the Southern Ukraine to create their own historical narrative – memoirs. Another goal is to create a “collective portrait” of an average author using prosopographic methods. The article investigates through the analysis of biographies the background of peasant authors, which singled them out from the general mass of peasants. It also highlights an “average author” as a “historical figure” and analyzes his attribution to a particular era, place, social group and culture. The use of prosopographic methods in the study of biographies of Southern Ukrainian peasants, who distinguished themselves by creating their own memoirs, allows to determine those aspects of the era and the position of the little man who chose to create their own historical excursions contrary to general trends and understanding the risks of totalitarian system. The creation of prosopographical (collective biographies) portraits of peasant authors is a very important component of the reproduction of general processes that created the conditions for the emergence of peasant narrative sources. The author tries to highlight the modern era in all its aspects through the prism of individual biographies and works of peasant authors. Type of article: scientific and theoretical.

Strengths-Based Interprofessional Practice and Education: Transforming Care Through Disruption

In December 2020 we began conducting phone interviews with Veterans, and their caregivers, receiving care through the United Sates (US) Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Home Based Primary Care (HBPC) program. Our goal was to describe experiences of Veterans and caregivers managing changes in care delivery related to the COVID-19 pandemic and navigating increased social isolation due to social distancing. We interviewed 38 Veterans (average age 78) and caregivers (average age 62) across seven VA HBPC programs. Findings showed those living in their own homes found increased isolation more manageable than those living in assisted living facilities, which restricted visitors. Caregivers had a harder time managing isolation than Veterans, as Veterans were used to being primarily homebound. Veterans and caregivers relied on increased phone communication with their HBPC teams, with some began participating in virtual visits. Implications include insights into better supporting older, homebound adults and their caregivers during disasters.

Critical Events as Factors Shaping Life Experiences

The article presents the life story of an elderly woman, the sense of the quality of her life, the critical events that shaped her life, and the lessons learned from her experiences. The study adopted a biographical paradigm, which explains the importance of individual biographies in the education process and indicates the need to study the history of life as a source of knowledge about man and his learning. The main aim of the undertaken research was to recognise the meanings that the respondent gives to critical events in shaping the quality of her life. The biographical method was used, and, within it, an autobiographical narrative interview. The most significant events assessed as positive were the births of her children. The negative events were in particular: the deaths of close ones, a failed marriage and an accident. In coping with suffering, the woman was helped by: help from others, faith, strength, optimism, activity, activities for the benefit of others, and her value system. Lessons emerged from the subject’s history, helpful in her life, which can also inspire others. The narrator tried to live in harmony with her conscience and the accepted principles, which gave her satisfaction. Biographical research has an educational function. Life stories can teach what is important in life, what is worth living for, and they can lead to reflections.