Here is a listing of sessions and abstract
titles. There are five normal sessions and one special session (nr
4) which will be based on the analysis of one text distributed in advance
to the session participants.
All the papers
sent in advance to the session coordinator (Roos) will be placed on the
network page from which they may be copied easily. Note that the papers
are ordinarily not to be quoted without permission from the author.
(30 June 1999)
Aili Aarelaid:Double-minding formation and transformation
in three generations of after-war Soviet Estonia
aarelaid@iiss.ee (Aili Aarelaid)
Anthony M. Abela: Youth discontent in a European
city-island
aabela@arts.um.edu.mt (Anthony Abela)
(Geof Alred: Student residence abroad and intercultural
competence - a biographgical perspective
geof.alred@durham.ac.uk) WILL NOT ATTEND
Vladimir Andrle: The buoyant class: family background
in the self-accounts of Czech post-communist businessmen
va2@mailer.york.ac.uk (Vladimir Andrle)
Doina Balahur: The Socio-Biographical inventory.
dbalahur@tuiasi.ro
Elena Chikadze (see Elena Zdravomyslova)
(Ann Cronin:The Social Production of the Story:
Locating the Researcher
a.cronin@surrey.ac.uk) (WILL NOT ATTEND)
Faith Dasko (see Struck)
Galina Eremitcheva: The coping strategies
of the emerging middle class families
before and after the financial crisis on 1998 (WILL NOT ATTEND)
inso@ego.spb.su
Tommi Hoikkala: Baby boomers and work
tommi.hoikkala@helsinki.fi
Robin Humphrey (and Michael Anderson):
Grandparents and Locality:
Experiences, Meanings and the ‘Qualities' of Grandparenting
robin.humphrey@newcastle.ac.uk
Elizabeth Ioannidi-Kapoulou - Elisabeth Mestheneos:
The exclusion of Greek ex-industrial workers
from the labour market of 2000
sextant@acropolis.net (Elisabeth Mestheneous)
Kaja Kazimierska: What is War in the narratives
on the Second World War
kajakaz@krysia.uni.lodz.pl (Kaja Kazimierska)
Riitta Kyllönen: Dynamic approach, family
patterns and gender division of domestic labour
riitta.kyllonen@mzes.uni-mannheim.de
Liza Logunova: Gender aspects of everyday life
ethos (as studied on material of sex biographies)
ego@mail.nw.ru (Lisa Lagunova)
Stina Lyon: Biographical constructions of a working
woman: the many faces of Alva Myrdal
estina.lyon@sbu.ac.uk (Stina Lyon)
Ausra Maslauskaite: Family life patterns
under construction. Life history approach
egd.ausra@post.omnitel.net (Ausra Maslauskaite) (WILL NOT ATTEND)
Melanie Mauthner: Transitions and change in
sister relationships
m.mauthner@ioe.ac.uk
Vanessa May: Should I stay or should I go? The process
of deciding over divorce in life stories Finnish women
vanessa.may@abo.fi
(Leslie Miller: Discourses of power and moral
reosining in the family firm
lmiller@ucalgary.ca) (WILL NOT ATTEND)
Robert Miller (Schuetze session)
r.miller@queens-belfast.ac.uk
Ann Nilsen: On adulthood and life course changes
in late moderninty
ann.nilsen@sos.uib.no (WILL NOT ATTEND)
Gerhard Riemann: Workshop on Research Procedures
in a Sociological Narrative Analysis (Schuetze session)
gerhard.riemann@sowes.uni-bamberg.de
Brian Roberts: Types of memory and the recollection
of events
b.roberts@hud.ac.uk (Brian Roberts)
Anna Rotkirch: Shame and social mobility in
Russian worker's autobiographies
anna.rotkirch@helsinki.fi
Irena Szlachcic: Identity and social change
- biographical studies on the Polish-German border
szlachcic@ift.uni.wroc.pl
Olaf Struck-Faith Dasko: Stability and change
in biographies under conditions of systemic transformation
ostruck@sfb186.uni-bremen.de (Olaf Struck), faith.dasko@iso-koeln.de
Armelle Testenoire: Subjective relationship
to professional trajectory : methodology and gender difference
testenoi@epeire.univ-rouen.fr (Armelle Testenoire)
Anna Tiomkina: Sexual scripts in women's biographies
temkina@nevsky.net (Anna Tiomkina)
Tone Schou Wetlesen: Women of war and later
prosperity. Life histories of Norwegian women
born 1939-43 and 1949-53
t.s.wetlesen@sociologi.uio.no
Anele Vosyliute: Women's stories: existential
problems
vosylan@ktl.mii.lt (Anele Vosyliute)
Elena Zdravomyslova - Elena Chikadze:
Life stories of heavy drinkers: meanings and contexts
zdrav@socres.spb.su (Elena Zdravomyslova)
Laima Zilinskiene: Biographical memory in
autobiography
"Rasa Alisauskiene" baltic.surveys@post.omnitel.net
Aili Aarelaid-Tart
Institute of International and Social Studies
Tallinn, 10143
Estonia pst 7
e-mail: aarelaid@iiss.ee
phone: 372-6454-498
fax: 372-6454-927
This report is based on the biographical interviews from 1995-1997
with sixty well-known Estonian intellectuals and politicians. Respondents
were arranged into three age-cohorts according to their years of birth.
The first grouping named "republicans" was born before 1930 and grown up
in the independent Estonia before tragical Soviet occupation. The second
named "Stalin's Youth"was born between 1930-1944 and became adults in darkest
days of WWII and following executions, imprisonments and mass-deportations
which left an indelible mark on their young memories. The third generation
of "Khrushchev's thaw" was born in a hard after-war conditions (1944-1956)
and seriously bounded in their opportunities, ideals and aspirations by
Soviet system. Double-minding is understood as socio-psycological mechanism
of personal adaptation to the deep discrepancy between the public and private
life in the totalitarian conditions. For the "republicans" the double-minding
appeared as a vital necessity to balance in their conciousness between
good memories of "Golden Estonian Days" and alien for them new social norms.
For the "Stalin's Youth" it realised as the permanent suppressing of childhood
fears by compensative affiliation of slogans about glorious achievements
of the socialist society. For the first Soviet born and shaped grouping
of "Khrushchev's thaw" it existed as hidden under dull history secrets
and truth they needed to orient in the layers of everyday life inside the
real socialism. Every next generation interpreted the contradiction of
private and public norms and based on it the phenomenon of double-minding
in their own way and according to their early life experience.
Anthony M. Abela
Department of Sociology, University of Malta, Msida, Malta
Tel. no: (356) 3290.2978/ 238867
aabela@arts.um.edu.mt
ABSTRACT
Discontent and deviance in European Malta is examined through an analysis of a national youth survey (N = 1000) and a number of life-histories.
Over the past few years, developments in higher education, a higher purchasing power, new leisure pursuits, an exposure to the media and an interaction with other Europeans has transformed the islands of Malta into an increasing reflexive and urban environment. As in other affluent societies, an observed increase in crime and drug abuse by young people is believed to be a sign of deviance and discontent. Closely related to drug abuse is the new phenomenon of rave parties. There is an association between frequent participation at rave parties and young age. The younger the age the more frequent is participation at rave parties. The new trend amongst the upcoming generation is mass all- night entertainment in rave parties.
In late modernity a shift can be observed from the post-war welfare
state to a consumer society. The hitherto strict traditional morality is
giving way to a more permissive behaviour. Just as in other European countries
young people with social problems engage in illicit and criminal behaviour.
Contrary to expectations, however, there is little difference in the level
of alcohol, drugs and sexual abuse between the younger and older generations
of young people. But there are almost two times as much attempted suicide,
theft, vandalism and attacks on persons by the younger age group (under
18 years old) than for the average young person in general. Such a situation
uncovers the occurrence of greater discomfort and its associated deviance
among the upcoming generation of young people in Malta.
For many years, modern language students have been encouraged or, in most British universities, obliged to spend ‘a Year Abroad' (YA), immersed in a society whose language and literature they are studying. Preliminary findings of research into the long term effects of the YA experience will be presented. Within a European context, the research is the first systematic attempt to develop a long term perspective of an experience normally viewed within the confines of a university degree course.
The focus of the research is the acquisition of intercultural competence. The central aim is to illuminate the long term value of this substantial part of university education for modern language students, as revealed in their biographies. Students interviewed nine years ago (Alred and Byram, 1992), before and after their sojourn abroad as teaching assistants, are being interviewed again.
Intercultural competence is defined as ‘the ability to behave appropriately
in intercultural situations, the affective and cognitive capacity to establish
and maintain intercultural relationships and the ability to stabilise one's
self identity while mediating between cultures.' (Jensen, 1995). Research
questions include:
In what terms do former students give meaning to the experience of
living abroad in a European country nine years earlier? Have they
developed careers or ways of life that draw upon what they learned during
the YA?
How are the effects of the YA manifest in their lives in terms of the
qualities inherent in intercultural competence.
Our research suggests that to understand the educational value of the
YA, in its fullest sense, requires consideration of profound questions
of identity and the relationship between language and selfhood. The
YA, in common with any major episode in a person's life, is only appreciated
fully when located within a life story. The presentation will consider
both theoretical and methodological aspects of the research.
References
Alred, G. and Byram, M. (1992) Residence Abroad and the
Cultural Perceptions ofForeign Language Students in Higher Education.
Report to the Economic and Social Research Council.
Jensen, A. A., Jaeger, K. and Lorentsen, A. (eds.) (1995) Intercultural
Competence: A New Challenge for Language Teachers and Trainers in Europe.
Vol II: The Adult Learner. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press.
Department of Sociology
University of York
Address for correspondence
39 East Mount Road
York
YO24 1BD
E-mail va2@york.ac.uk
Abstract
Life story interviews carried out in the Czech Republic confirm that
the new business élite are dominated by men who had achieved high
managerial positions already in the communist era. More surprisingly, however,
they also reveal a marked overrepresentation within this group of descendants
of the national bourgeoisie that was expropriated when the communists came
to power in 1948. A condensed exemplar life story indicates how the scion
of a first-republic upper-class family was able to enter the communist
state's managerial establishment and find himself in a prime position to
become a major beneficiary of the current capitalist restoration. Analysis
of accounts by the broader middle-class sample of securing entry into selective
schooling throws further light on the way in which communist institutions
were commonly regarded as personalised and negotiable in their practical
processes. In addition, a constructionist reading of the interview transcripts
draws attention to the special problems that life narrators have to resolve,
and the cultural resources they can draw upon, in constructing morally
adequate, continuous selves in the context of ideologically charged institutional
discontinuities. Czech society offers an interesting case in this respect,
in that its culture has been marked by at least one major political change
occurring in the life of every successive twentieth- century generation.
Key words
Life stories. Czech Republic. Business élite. Communism. Post-communism.
Social mobility.
Paul Balahur
"Al.I.Cuza" University in Iasi, Romania
Department of Sociology
The Methodology of Biographical Studies.
The Socio-Biographical Inventory"
The paper outlines the sociological and epistemological significance
of
the revival of the biographical studies and methodologies. The
biographical
approach , point the authors, offers the possibility to draft
the history
of social life preserving both the richness and the meanings
of human
(individual and group) experience.
The paper presents a complex instrument elaborated and validated by
the
authors , the "Socio-Biographical Inventory (SBI)". SBI is a
comprehensive
type of inventory which aims to cover the "the history of personal
life"
joining the varieties of the perspectives on the individual into
a
pluri-disciplinar , explanation.
SBI is a paper-pencil instrument designed to evaluate the social-cultural,
educational economic, etc, factors which influence the creative
production
and its intergenerational impact.
SBI has 7 personal biographical scales (68 items); 2 scales which refer
to
the tradition and the cultural variability in the family environment;
one scale of life events; one scale of the opinions, attitudes
and beliefs
(11 items); one scale of mentorship relation (12 items); one
scale of
personal productivity; one scale of the educational level.
The authors also present the results of some sociological surveys they
have
conducted based on the SBI.
Address
Dr.Doina Balahur
Str.PACURARI NO.10
IASI, 6600/ ROMANIA
tel/fax (0040)-32-11.51.05
e-mail : dbalahur@tuiasi.ro
Ann Cronin, (WILL NOT ATTEND)
School of Human Science, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey,
Guildford, Surrey, England, UK, GU2 5XH.
e-mail: A.Cronin@surrey.ac.uk
The Social Production of the Story: Locating the Researcher
The ‘stories' that people tell about their lives are a fundamental part of sociological inquiry. As sociologists we gather ‘stories' about people's lives and use these to produce our own ‘stories' on issues of concern to us. Here stories are treated as raw data which when subjected to sociological scrutiny will yield further information about people's lives and experiences. Thus attention is paid to assessing the ‘truth' or ‘falsity' of people's stories. Consequently, the story as a sociological subject in itself is often ignored in preference for the information it may yield on a given subject. However, there is a growing body of sociological knowledge that is interested in the production of a ‘story' and what it can tell us about the societies we inhabit.
For example, Plummer's (1995) framework for a sociology of story telling
describes stories as symbolic interactions between tellers, coaxers and
consumers where each group has a specific role to play in the social production
of the story. Developing this framework, this paper examines the
production of sexual identity stories by women who identify as lesbian
or bisexual and the ability of current sexual identity models to adequately
theorise these experiences. Drawing on the insights offered by queer theorists
and those concerned with the issue of reflexivity in research, I suggest
that in order to be able to produce new sexual identity models that
more accurately reflect experience and practise we must examine our own
role in the research process. That is, we need to explore how our own socially
located stories influence the research process.
Reference
K. Plummer (1995) Telling Sexual Stories.
The Coping Strategies of the of Forming Middle Class Families before
& after the
Financial Crisis of August 1998: Biographical Perspective.
Ten St. Petersburg families
were interviewed before and after the financial crisis
of August 1998 & in the period between 1993 and 1995. The
main criteria for the
choice of the families were their involvement in the market economy,
private sector,
specific type of family's budget & life style, self-identification.
The research showed that August crisis strongly influenced our respondents,
because
they were involved in the sphere of middle & small business.
The consequences of the crises for them were : deterioration of level
of life, delay of
business-planning as result of the financial difficulties, shortening
of the orders & the
clients, difficulties in realization of their life plans, the
feeling of loss of control over
situation, growth of distrust of the economic policy of the government
& loss of hope to
rapid improving of the situation in the country. However their positive
experience of life
and work in the market conditions provided psychological resources
of emotional self-
possession & defense from panic sentiments. In the situation
of financial crisis they
developed new coping strategies different from those that they exemplified
previously
(for comparison the results of research carried out before the August
crisis are
presented).
Their contemporary strategies are: job search in the new fields of
employment in the
case of the job loss/ using new information capacities, secondary
jobs, delay in large
investments in business & valued goods-PC, alternative ways
of accumulation &
conservation of financial resources, use of illegal sources of income,
emigration of the
family member as the guaranty of family prosperity.
All these strategies will be compared with the coping strategies and
resources of the
same families in 1993, 1995, and just on the eve of August crisis.
I will consider how
these strategies mobilize not only old but new resources accumulated
during the
transformation period.
Tommi Hoikkala
Dept. of Social Policy
University of Helsinki
Baby boomers and work
The paper discusses socio-cultural change lived by and produced
by the baby boomer generation - born in the period 1945 - 1950 in Finland
- especially focusing on work. Analysis is based on 39 narrative biographical
interviews, and the paper contains four case stories consentrating on work.
The aim is to scrutinize the lived experience of change in those four social
types (cases). The period of youth and entry into adulthood for baby boomers
marked an explosion of formal education. A swift march of the baby boomers
happened through the expanding systems of education into the changing structures
of the labour markets. This meant a severe mobilisation from villages to
cities; and social mobility - the birth of new middle classes took place
here, which meant upward mobility for many - but not for everybody - of
the baby boomers.
Baby boomers have lived changes in family structures, relationships
in authorities, changes in parenting, changes in relations between the
sexes. And changes in work as a process. But the finnish ethos of wok is
shown to be firm amng baby boomers. The experience may be formulated as
a question, too: what traces are left of the age of transition in people
under consideration and how are they going to meet their future ageing,
and what has this to do with work?
Robin Humphrey and Michael Anderson
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Of what does grandparenting consist in terms of qualitative experience
and meaning? Is this experience homogeneous or are there diversities of
experience and meaning? If there are diversities, can these diversities
be explained in terms of specific contextual circumstances and what, if
anything at all, is the relationship between these specificities and the
broader locality in which they occur? This paper will discuss the substantive
issues and the methodological implications of a proposed project into grandparenting,
which will involve building on an already existing qualitative data set
of 60 families, previously researched in a study of inter-generational
communication, by re-interviewing, using the biographical approach, the
53 grandparents in the original sample.
Dr.Elizabeth Ioannidi-Kapolou, Dr.Elizabeth
Mestheneos
SEXTANT Company, Social and Economic Research and Consultancy,
Athens, Greece.
THE EXCLUSION OF THE GREEK EX-INDUSTRIAL WORKERS FROM THE LABOUR MARKET OF 2000- BIOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
In the SOSTRIS (Social Strategies in Risk Societies- TSER ) research
project using biographical methods, one category at risk of social
exclusion arising primarily out of labour market exclusion, was that of
the ex-industrial workers. The life course of this generation of Greek
ex-industrial workers has been greatly determined by the structural and
external socio-political and economic transformation of Greek society.
Life strategies were often limited by the dire poverty of the
families of birth, forcing them into the labour market early. The
expansion of Greek industry during the 1960s gave this generation employment,
not only as unskilled labour but also with opportunities to learn on the
job. However these skills did not protect them against the closures
and restructuring in Greek industry occurring from the mid 1980s
onwards.
The lack of a well developed welfare state offering full unemployment
benefits and social security for older unemployed workers has two consequences.
On the one hand they are exposed to the health impacts of unemployment.
On the other hand knowing that they have to depend entirely on their own
resources, they and their families and friends take on an active
responsibility for finding work of any kind, especially those who
are heads of households. In comparison to Northern European countries,
in Greece this category have over their lifetime developed personal social
networks which can be mobilised as a source of support. This form of support
is mutual and people are not seen as losing prestige by asking for help.
In this sense the older forms of generalised exchanges remain an important
underlying element in Greek social relations..
Unemployment is also dealt with by a willingness to work in the unofficial
labour market. Increasingly they are in competition with migrant labourers,
who also disproportionately work in the unofficial labour market in many
of the same kinds of jobs. The flexibility of the Greek labour market is
evident not in the official labour market where part time working is still
relatively rare, but in the existence of the unofficial labour market in
the black economy as well as the possibility of starting up in self-
employment. Amongst those over 45 years of age approximately 48% are self
employed or employers in the labour. This is evident in the narratives
of those interviewed where reference is made to their efforts to start
new self employment projects at various times in their adult lives, successful
or not. With approximately 20 years ahead of them, this group cannot contemplate
the solution of an early pension since they have not paid adequate levels
of contribution to entitle them, nor were they employed in the favoured
state sector where all kinds of arrangements were made to provide
early retirement schemes.
This category is particularly at risk of social exclusion if they are
unable to re-enter the labour market on a permanent and insured basis.
Employment in temporary and uninsured work leads to the depletion and devaluation
of their capital and personal resources. As they grow older their
position will be increasingly marginalised in relation to the labour market,
with longer term consequences for their pension levels. Poverty
may also marginalise them in relation to their children. Given the process
of ongoing social transformation in Greek society, this generation of ex-industrial
workers are quite likely to confront different attitudes towards the traditional
dependency of old parents on children.
The main themes that emerged from the analysis of their told life stories
were: the role of fate and chance; the implications of social reproduction
in the family and education; job selection and the effects of socio-political
changes on life chances; the role of health in their life course. These
latter issues will be presented in the conference.
John Jackson (will not attend!)
1 Using biographical methods to supplement survey
data. The importance of ancestors in the lives of an Irish sample.
Some of the disadvantages of the small number of biographies that can
be
achieved are overcome if the respondents to an interview sample can
be
asked subsequently to supplement their contribution to the sample
data .
A particular opportunity to do this has arisen in the case of the
recently completed five generational study organised by Ken Prandy
and
Bob Blackburn of the University of Cambridge for which I acted as
collector of the Irish sub-sample. The respondents were members of
genealogical societies with a clear interest in discovering and codifying
information about their relatives and all of whom expressed a
willingness to be contacted again following the survey. I would
propose
to carry out biographical interviews with a number of the Irish
respondents based on their survey data and explore questions regarding
the meaning of their ancestors in their own and their childrens lives
in
contemporary Ireland.
John A. Jackson
Department of Sociology
Trinity College
Dublin,2
IRELAND
2: Thirty five years on: a pilot study of the lives of
members of three cohorts of Irish secondary school leavers aged 20,30
and
40 in 1963.
I have the opportunity to try to trace the present whereabouts of
respondents that were surveyed in 1963 drawn from schools in Skibbereen,
Co. Cork Ireland. I shall use the local paper and contacts in the
locality to attempt the follow-up . Biographical interviews will be
conducted either in person if they are in Ireland or by phone if they
are
abroad to answer questions related to the development of their lives
since the survey data was collected.
John A. Jackson
tel office(353 1) 608-1102
tel home (353-404) 46563
Kaja Kazmierska
Department of Sociology, University of Lodz
Ul Rewolucji 1905r, 41/43, 90-214 Lodz Poland
(kajakaz@krysia.uni.lodz.pl)
What Is the War in the Narratives on the Second World War
On the 60th anniversary of World War II it is worth analyzing
what was/is the impact of this event on individual biographies. How
individuals experienced the war and how this experience is related
to
collective image of this event. In the paper I show different types
of war
stories and explain its roots. I analyze what aspects of war biography
are
presented as the most important and what as marginal.
Finally I present how past experiences may become one of the main frame
of reference when
interpreting actual biography.
Riitta Kyllönen:
Mannheim University
Mannheim Centre for European Social Research
Research Department I
68131 MANNHEIM
Germany
e-mail. riitta.kyllonen@mzes.uni-mannheim.de
How does a shift from cross-sectional to life course perspective
enhance our understanding of family patterns and gender division of domestic
labour? The paper explores these issues through biographical interviews
with 10 working couples living in the city of Modena (Italy). The couples
represent different educational and occupational trajectories and have
minor children living at home.
Three main questions are examined as interrelated from a social constructionist
perspective: 1) How do individuals with different educational and occupational
trajectories produce their life courses between paid employment and family?;
2) how do two partners with similar or different trajectories constitute
a common family life course?; and 3) how do they negotiate the gender division
of domestic labour across the family life course?
The introduction of a dynamic approach, where the focus is on both
spouses and their relationship, not only on women, enables us to grasp
processes through which partners with distinct trajectories in social space
bargain their individual life courses and the family organisation.
The analysis of meanings conveyed to life spheres, and power relations
between spouses with distinct trajectories in social space, allows for
a more differentiated understanding of family patterns and gender division
of domestic labour than what results from cross-sectional settings. The
differences in outcomes can be better accounted for if we study them in
relation to the different processes through which they are constituted
in time.
The potential of a dynamic approach in studies of ‘class effects' on
the domestic division of labour is discussed. Prior studies conducted in
static designs fail to account for the eventual effects of one or both
spouses' social mobility on how they negotiate the issue across the life
course.
Elisabeth Logunova (St Petersburg):
Gender aspects of everyday life ethos (as studied on material of sex biographies)
In both scientific and common understanding of gender problems, there
coexist simultaneously three stages of women's conscience: pre-feminist,
feminist, and post- feminist (though I may exaggerate, so to say, the autonomy
of the two latter ones). The relations of the two genders within professional,
family, sexual, and other spheres of life realized through the several
forms: patriarchal, patriarch-matriarchal, matriarchal, and bi-archal (their
names here are rather metaphors then strict terms). The actually existing
version of interconnection between three types of conscience and four forms
of inter-gender relations are giving rise to the corresponding types of
everyday life gender ethos.
When living under the patriarchal form of inter-gender relations and
being at that in her pre-feminist stage of conscience, the women profess
and follows the of ethos of self-sacrifice; but being in her feminist stage,
she would rather profess and follow the ethos of struggle.
When under patriarch-matriarchal form of relations, the woman who is
in pre-feminist level of conscience, is practicing the ethos of self-sacrifice,
and manipulations; whereas in her feminist stage, caeteris paribus, she
would practice probably the ethos of self-sacrifice and manipulations,
but also struggle , and co- operation.
As to bi-archal form of relations, it can only be realized under the
condition of a post- feminist level of gender conscience and presupposes
the ethos of co- operation.
The matriarchal form can only arise at feminist level of conscience,
in which case the woman profess and follows the ethos of manipulations.
In Self-sacrifice, the woman is assisting to the restriction of her
rights; in manipulation, she herself is the suppresser.
The Institute of Sociology of Russian Academy of Sciences.
Russia , St -Petersburg, 198052, 7 Krasnoarmeyskaya str, 25/14
Fax: (812) 316-29-29
E-mail: ego@sociology.nw.ru
E. Stina Lyon, South Bank University, London
Biographical Constructions of a Working Woman: The many faces of
Alva Myrdal.
Through her writings and in her long professional career as social scientist, educator, social reformer, and diplomat, Alva Myrdal became an important contributor to developing conceptions of the "modern" woman and her dual roles in the public and the private sphere. In partnership with her husband, Gunnar, she drew up "blue prints" for a family and woman friendly welfare state which continue to be of relevance in contemporary debates over issues of women's social, political and economic inclusion. Her contribution has over the last decades, however, been subject to a great deal of retrospective critical evaluation and reevaluation, both intellectually by social theorists in search of the complex origins of European modernity, and personally in various biographical contexts by her own children and others, all of which in various ways address the relationship in her own life between her high professional ambitions and her own domestic performance as wife and mother. She did not write an autobiography, yet in various contexts throughout her life presented her own self-reflections on the dilemmas inherent in "modern" womanhood.
This paper aims to discuss the use of biography as a feminist tool for
the understanding of the social condition of women through a discussion
of the various "constructions" of Alva Myrdal presented in some of this
biographical material. The many different "faces" of Alva Myrdal
given in this literature reflect the problematic nature of the use of biography
as a research tool, and point to the contexted nature of writings about
women, and the importance of the origin and location of such writings
in different intellectual, political, temporal and personal space.
From within a feminist perspective, the paper will attempt to show the
extent to which judgments of the contribution of women continue
to be framed by conceptions of the "duality" of their place
in the public and the private domain as problematic.
Ausra Maslauskaite (Lithuania) (WILL NOT ATTEND)
Family life patterns under construction. Life history approach
The context of biographical trajectories in Lithuania has been radically
transformed by and through the social, political and cultural events of
the past decade. The earlier existent images of family and the relations
between the sexes have been experiencing an invasion of new patterns in
the nowadays post-Soviet Lithuanian society.
The new cultural themes caused by the social transformations are probably
best reflected and conveyed by mass media. To what extent the models of
thinking and understanding communicated by mass media and new social and
cultural context are truly lively and operative in the consciousness of
people, to what extent the understanding of family and the relations between
the sexes is circumscribed by the experience acquired in life history,
how and why the changed context of daily life makes people revise or preserve
these models - these are the questions this paper is dedicated to.
I am pursuing to answer these questions through analyses of life histories
told by the members of young families. It is evident that in the process
of adaptation of new notions a significant role is played by the younger
generation (currently in their 30's), which at the moment is taking sides
in regards to one or the other model of family and the relations between
man and woman. This generation provides an opportunity to explore, how
and under what circumstances the process of creation of new cultural norms
takes place in the radically changed post-Soviet society.
To better grasp the tendencies in newly emerging understanding of family
and the relations between the sexes the analysis of mass media on the subject
will be employed.
Melanie Mauthner
Culture, Communication and Societies
Institute of Education, University of London
email: m.mauthner@ioe.ac.uk
Transitions and change in sister relationships
This paper explores transitions in narratives of sistering over the
life-course. Sister relationships constitute a neglected, socially
invisible and yet widespread personal tie between women. The paper
highlights moments of change in these ties drawing on a feminist
post-structuralist study which used auto/biographical work in sociology
as
a method to collect and analyse sister narratives from a range of British
women from diverse backgrounds in their teens, twenties, thirties and
forties.
These turning-points encompass both chronological change in the
relationships and passing life events. They are marked by the different
phases and types of tie that a single relationship can go through,
for
example from best friendship to companionship and vice-versa. Case
study
material is used to chart these changes and illustrate the move in
opposite
directions from one type of tie to another from girlhood to womanhood.
The
evolution of these relationships charts the passage from growing up
in one
household to leaving home, growing up and apart, forming and leaving
sexual
relationships, and moving and settling in a new location.
The paper documents these transitions through changing and contradictory
positionings and subjectivities. It traces the processes through which
women as sisters imagine other positionings through entering or leaving
one
discourse rather than another and the pleasures and pains that ensue.
The
focus is on critical triggers for change - specific life events such
as
bereavement and divorce which leave their mark. The main focus is how
relationships change, as a result of life events, in the context of
shifting power relations and changing subjectivity. The role of language,
whether sisters talk to each other or not about their emotions and
experiences, and of reflexivity are highlighted. Reflexivity as knowledge,
as a means of transcending power relations, and of acknowledging difference
is also considered.
Dr Melanie Mauthner
Culture, Communication and Societies
Institute of Education
University of London
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL
Tel: 0171 612 6398
Fax: 0171 612 6177
Vanessa May
Department of Sociology
Abo Akademi University
Gezeliusgatan 2
FIN-20500 Abo
Finland
Email: vmay@abo.fi
Fax: +358-(0)2-215 4808
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
The Process of Deciding Over Divorce in the Life Stories of Finnish
Women
This paper looks at the life stories written by women with children
in Finland who say that they at some point in their lives have contemplated
divorce or separation, and focuses on how the decision process is narratively
constructed. The aim is to uncover the explanations used by the writers
to justify their decision either to stay in the relationship or to seek
divorce or separation. The justifications employed by the writers are mostly
of moral nature, and children are key figures in these narratives. Both
the divorced mothers and the mothers who stayed married say that they have
had their children's best interests at heart. This apparent paradox disappears
with a closer examination of the justifications used. The divorced mothers
construct their divorce as an act of protecting their children from a bad
father or an unhappy home, while the married mothers argue that they have
to some extent sacrificed their own happiness so that their children can
grow up in a two-parent family. The writers say that they have divorced
for their children or remained married for their children, in both cases
succeeding to present themselves as "good" mothers, who protect their children
even at the expense of their own happiness.
Leslie Miller: (Will not attend)
This study analyses popular accounts of powerful business
"dynasties" (e.g. the Reichmanns, the Bronfmans), in order to
see how morality and power are constructed at the intersection of
family and corporate worlds. The contemporary family firm is
located
on am important cultural boundary or faultline between public and
private life which makes the highly publicized feuds between family
members a socially threatening and disruptive spectacle. Some accounts
of family firms center on such feuds, and this makes them an
especially fertile site for the examination of power, as well as moral
virtue and transgression.
Neither wholly family nor business, the family firm sits in a
moral vacuum in the social landscape where ethical standards
conventionally associated with these two arenas fail to apply.
Contemporary popular culture assigns sharply different codes of
moral conduct to the family and corporate spheres; the upshot,
for our purposes, is that conduct which is deemed acceptable
among business associates (a "take-no prisoners" approach, for
example) is deemed markedly unacceptable among family members.
Securely lodged in the culture of late capitalism, the family
firm challenges this dualism in a radical way, blurring the
social and moral boundaries which have become clearly established in
popular culture.
In this paper I shall focus primarily on the ways family firms
are storied in several kinds of popular accounts, beginning with
popular biographies of family "empires". I also draw on everyday
accounts of the family business as they appear in the ordinary talk
of
members of such families. These example s of talk are drawn from case
studies, newspaper clippings, and my own interviews.
The paper will focus on the well-publicized feuds that often
emerge to tear these firms and families apart. Popular accounts
provide a glimpse into how people draw on contrasting discourses
of family and corporate life as they try to make sense of such
disruptive events. Noting that the family firm lies on the
boundary between public and private life, the paper suggests how
the rhetorical manipulation of that boundary ("what's family,
what's business") becomes an important resource in power
struggles between feuding family members. More generally, it
considers the array of discursive strategies that are used as
different players lay claim to the moral high ground. The
research intends to shed light on the ways family, business,
gender and morality are linked in the social landscape of late
capitalism.
Leslie Miller,
Associate Professor,
Dept. of Sociology,
University of Calgary,
Calgary, Alberta.
Canada. T2N 1N4
tel: 403-220 6506
Ann Nilsen
Department of Sociology
University of Bergen
Fosswinckels gt. 6
N-5007 Bergen-University
email: ann.nilsen@sos.uib.no
This paper takes as a starting point the current theoretical discussion
on individualisation and fragmentation of the life course. In contemporary
sociological theory it is argued that ‘the choice biography' is the better
conceptualisation for contemporary life course development, compared to
the ‘standard biography'. Institutional changes in society, theorised with
emphasis on ‘risk' and ‘uncertainty', are at the basis of this reasoning.
Young people's thoughts about the future have been explored in a recent
study. Findings from these interviews indicate that a development in line
with what a ‘standard biography' entails, is the main frame of reference
when young people think about their personal lives in the future. The paper
discusses implications of such findings for conceptualisations of the life
course in contemporary society, and in social theory. Special emphasis
is placed on youth, and particularly adulthood, as distinct life course
phases, in a discussion comparing ‘the choice biography' and ‘the standard
biography' as theoretical concepts in general life course research.
Gerhard Riemann, Otto-Friedrich-Universitaet Bamberg, Fachbereich Sozialwesen,
Feldkirchenstr. 21, 96052 Bamberg, Germany;
e-mail: gerhard.riemann@sowes.uni-bamberg.de
The idea of this workshop is to familiarize participants with the
sequence of steps which have developed in the sociological analysis of
autobiographical narrative interviews in Germany. After a short introduction
into the history of this line of research (which has especially been shaped
by Fritz Schuetze) and some of the underlying assumptions of narrative
analysis, the participants will get involved in practicing three analytical
procedures: segmenting the text, structural description, and analytical
abstraction. The basis for the joint work will be the transcript of an
autobiographical narrative interview with an American ex-mental patient,
data which had been collected in a research project of Gerhard Riemann
on the trajectories of psychiatric patients. Copies of this transcrip will
be available at the workshop. (Persons who are interested in participating
can contact Robert Miller or Gerhard Riemann in order to get the transcription
and to read it before the session.) One of the foci of the workshop will
be to explore the analytical relevance of certain formal features of narratives,
particularly so called background constructions which are embedded in narrative
segments. It should become obvious how the sociological work of uncovering
biographical and other social processes on the basis of texts of off the
cuff story-telling can fruitfully use such formal features as powerful
analytical resources.
INTERESTED PARTICIPANTS ARE ASKED TO CONTACT GERHARD RIEMANNS OR ROBERT
MILLER DIRECTLY
This paper begins with an examination of a range of approaches to the
study
of memory, particularly from psychology and social psychology, and
their
implications for the study of 'biography'. Detailed attention will
be given
to the study of 'autobiographical memory' and views of memory in oral
history. A focus will be on any differences in types of recollection
between
memories of 'public' and 'private', and 'social' and 'political' events
and
experiences. The intention of the paper is to explore possible ways
in which
this work on memory may inform sociological and related approaches
to the
study of individual and group biography - and more specifically, the
questions of identity formation and change, recollection and forgetting,
and
the remembrance of different types of events.
Brian Roberts
Human and Health Sciences
The University of Huddersfield
Queensgate
Huddersfield HD1 3DH
England
Fax: +44(0)1484 472794
Dept of Social Policy, POB 18, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
anna.rotkirch@helsinki.fi
ABSTRACT
Research on working class life stories in Western Europe has stressed
how feelings of shame shape the social identity and intertwine with social
mobility. Especially in questions of sexuality and respectability, the
links between private and social selves differ in working and middle class
milieus.
My paper will look at the significance of shame (and pride) in
Russian working class autobiographies. I will use an adaptation of C.S.Peirce's
"triad of experience" to analyse the interaction of feelings, institutional
practices and cultural interpretations in autobiographical texts. I present
four case studies, two men and two women, from two generations (born in
the 1920/30s and 1960s).
In the Soviet and post-Soviet male autobiographies, sexual
promiscuity is a symbol of the obstacles to professional and social success.
The changed economic conditions of the 1990s have intensified the sources
of shame in the lives of men. For women, shame is most of all connected
with marital status. In the women's stories, shame and dissatisfaction
are also overcome by elaborate accounts of physical pain and psychological
suffering.
Dr Irena Szlachcic
Department of Sociology
The University of Wroclaw
szlachcic@ift.uni.wroc.pl
Social and political changes which have been taking place
in Europe in the nineties - first of all the processes of unification of
Germany - generated a new situation at the Polish - German border. New
political conditions initiated a change in a historically perpetuated
negative stereotype of the neighbour. The opening of the border stirred
emotions and mixed reactions on the part of the Polish society. In some
people' s opinion it met the expectations of many Poles, providing them
direct contact with the West, while in others' estimate it caused ethnic
unrest and a sense of danger. The fact of neighbouring of Germans and Poles,
their attitudes to and opinions about each other are an important dimension
of consciousness of the Polish society in general, and inhabitants of the
border territory in particular. Polish-German border territory constitutes
an area of dynamic contact of different cultures, and contrasting
economic living standards, aspirations and expectations, which raises questions
concerning an individual's identity. Identity reveals how an individual
perceives him/herself and others.
Description of the process of new identity formation of persons from
the border territory has been based on empirical research performed through
autobiographical narrative interviews. This method provided life
stories built on events which the narrator considers elements of his/her
own biography. Informants were selected according to the two
criteria: the territorial one (inhabitants of the border
territory); and the generational one (the idea was to analyse three-generation
families: grandparents, parents, children). The study manifested that Poles
living in the border territory made positive evaluation of Germans considerably
more often than prejudice and hostility. Negative evaluations considered
only experience of the war and occupation. Poles constructed an image of
Germans on the basis of their own experience, and talked about Germans
whom they met in their life and about how such acquaintance developed.
Applied biographical research method eliminates simple stereotypes, and
instead allows for grasping various every-day-life ways of thinking, and
everyday-life perception of culturally distinct communities.
The informants' narrations demonstrated the following recurrent
thematic issues:
War experiences:
1) the scheme of harm and suffering;
2) living and work in Germany;
3) the scheme of the common fate in the memories of repatriates
from
the eastern Polish territories;
Strangeness domesticated through spatial and social closeness:
1) work
2) trade
3) intermarriage
Learning about culture:
1) cultural co-operation;
2) learning German language.
by Olaf Struck (University of Bremen, Germany)
and Faith Dasko (ISO, Köln, Germany)
Stability and Change in Biographies under Conditions of Systemic Transformation: An empirical approach to developing a theoretical framework
In Eastern Germany we were faced with a unique situation. An entire
institutional framework was suddenly replaced by a new one. Routines, mentalities
and idiosyncrasies continued of course to exist. This historical process
offers the most opportune time to analyze the time-dependent relationship
between individuals and institutions, their remaining respective autonomy
and their mutual dependencies.
Our investigation examines which biographical dimensions (i.e. aspirations,
frames, occupational or family identities, attitudes and values) have remained
stable or are perceived at least of having remained stable, which have
been subject to change or again have been perceived of having changed.
Available research findings on social change have not been able to
provide conclusive evidence on these issues. Some studies are based on
assumptions of stability in habitus and values, others of changeability.
Questions of stability or change in different biographical dimensions can
for one be answered by ascertaining individual chances of adapting to new
structures of opportunity and risk. Secondly, conclusions on the importance
and acceptance of institutions can be drawn.
The study is based on biographical interviews with 47 East Germans
who have completed a vocational training or a university degree. The narrative
interviews follow a panel study. The methodological and theoretical approach
we use in our study contributes in particular to current research on this
topic: time dependency of the data is taken systematically into account.
It is thereby possible to compare the continuities and discontinuities
of different dimensions of coping behavior at two points in time. It is
thus also possible to develop models of time series and (non-)linearity
of the various dimensions in the analysis.
GRIS - Université de Rouen
76821 Mont Saint Aignan cedex
France
e-mail : testenoi@epeire.univ-rouen.fr
The analysis is based on a corpus of working life stories. It highlights
the different relationship men and women have with their career. The way
one interprets one's life is not the expression of sheer subjectivity,
it reveals different practices. In this respect, gender difference seems
to be a relevant element. Women express a greater sense of contingency.
For them, changes in the career are not viewed as being part of an initial
project but as a result of a capacity to adapt to events. This sense of
contingency reflects the duality of women's projects. From the start, men
define their career line as their priority whereas women's projects include
simultaneously the two spheres of their life (work and family). Men's career
lines seem much more coherent than women's and this phenomenon is all the
more striking when a woman's career is faster than her husband's.
Anna Tiomkina
European University at St.Petersburg
e-mail: temkina@nevsky.net
This paper is devoted to the analysis of the scripts
of women's sexual behavior in Russian society in the 90's, which
are reconstructed on the basis of the biographical interviews with 25 middle-class
women of three generations. Theory of scripts is applied to the research
on sexuality in the Western sociology and psychology from the 70's.
The concept of ‘script' is applied to the analysis of the social construction
of women's sexual biographies on three different levels, including cultural,
personal and interrelational levels. Aggregated personal scripts express
(gender) cultural scripts (instructions that are embedded in the cultural
narratives).
Scripts are considered here as trajectories of sexual life course.
Three main problems are raised in the research of women's sexuality
in contemporary Russia: (1) how scripts of personal sexual life are constructed,
(2) how women interpret their sexual life in interviews, (3) how gender
culture constructs sexuality.
Individual scripts (as presented by informers) are looked upon as the
cases of implementation of cultural instructions. I distinguish the following
scripts of sexual behavior of the Russian middle-class women: 1) family
script: sexual life as reproductive/family life, 2) emotional script:
sexual life as expression of emotions and feeling (first of all love and/or
pleasure), 3) hedonistic script:: sexual life oriented toward sexual pleasure,
4) communication script: sexual life as the mean of informal
(or intellectual, or friendly) communication. These scripts can be found
in the same life-story at the different stages of one's life cycle or in
different cases of sexual life.
Different sexual scripts both express and construct gender culture,
which is presented by respondents in the narratives about appropriate
gender behavior, gender norms, and gender expectations, and about gender
dimension of communication. The process of doing gender in sexual communication
will be also the topic of this analysis.
Tone Schou Wetlesen.
Institute of Sociology. University of Oslo
In the project Women of war and later prosperity, I compare two
cohorts of women, the one born during the war years and the other one
a decade later. The aim of the project is to study how major social
events on the level of society as well as social change processes may
be reflected in the life histories of individuals and their families.
The approach will be qualitative allowing for intensive interview,
well suited for comparisons with parallel samples in other European
countries for instance England, France, and the Netherlands. The
research is still in the planning stage and suggestions as to content
as well as possible co-researchers are most welcome.
Children born during the war years will be the last cohorts that
have any direct experiences with World War II. War as a theme in
the life history of the person will be focused both structurally
as to how the family of the informant lived and fared during the
first formative years of childhood as well as internally with
regard to existential issues such as levels of trust, optimism
and pessimism, health issues and later life orientations
including choices of education and work, family situation etc.
The war cohorts have, like the younger cohorts, lived most of
their lives in rather peaceful and prosperous times. Themes of
affluence and new opportunities for women may on some or many
have had an even stronger impact on individual lives compared to
the hardships of the war years.
e-mail: t.s.wetlesen@sosiologi.uio.no
--------------------------------------------------------------
AneleVosyliute
Lithuanian Institute of Philosophy and Sociology
Women's stories: existential problems
The paper is connected with the analysis of the social situation and
feelings of old women, their social world. The life history approach is
used to reveal how the elders construct meanings about their life course.
This method is realized in sociological investigations as the recognition
of competence of subject. It coincides with changing situation in sociology
where (as R. Stones has noted) in the investigations can be no direct representation
of the real world without the mediation of culture and language; the existence
of a plurality of perspectives and local, contextual studies versus
grand narratives, disorder, flux and opennes are respected. Some meanings
of the women way of life in the past and at present are submitted for consideration.
The data of investigation were gathered in the ethnographic expeditions
of Vilnius Uniwersity "Romuva" club. Many respondents were living in rural
areas as widowed alone in their dwelling houses. Persons are continually
involved in constructing narratives about themselves, others, and the world
around them, in general. Narratives give meaning, connectedness, and directionality
to a series of otherwise isolated events. Life stories also include valuing,
they have a moral dimension too. We can classify all women's life conceptions
in such types: life as shared (when they could not separate their story
lines from those of other family members), when religion is determining
their relationship to the world, when life is seen as a struggle. As the
results of the research reveal, the main core of the old women situation
are health condition (poor or strong), income, household and family status.
Their mode of living consists of everyday routine practices, modest consumption
activities (and poverty), the calmly identity with the traditional model
of the elderly. The author analyses their power and attitudes to the family
members and social relations, threir consumption organization and activity.
The communication of old women is not very intensive: they like quiet life
wich is similar to isolation, but some of them are active participants
of the opinion's formation in their living places. For most women lower
physical mobility is characteristic. The life histories reveal the social
roles of women, the forms of solidarity and representation, their needs
and desires. The elderly are not active agents in the formation of their
children's ways of life, but their life is filled with meanings of anxiety,
worries about children. Some of them receive material support, the majority
suffer from health disorders. Their life histories contain meanings connected
with financial and psychological oppression by of their husband, adult
children. The spiritual activity of old women is related to religious behavior
(through the participation in the holidays, church festivals). In the area
of religion the elderly are more active than other age groups.
The values of the old age as cultural phenomena must be more integrated
in the discourse of society; it is necessary to pay more attention to the
material and psychological demands of old women and their security.
Elena Zdravomyslova, Center for Independent
Social Research, St.Petersburg, Russia
Elena Chikadze, Center for Independent
Social Research, St.Petersburg, Russia
POBox 55, 191002, St.Petersburg-2, Russia
Fax 7 812 321 10 66
E-mail: zdrav@eu.spb.ru
or
zdrav@socres. spb.su
One Russian - a drunkard;
Two Russians - a fight
Three Russians - a vodka waiting line.
(Soviet period anecdote)
The paper contributes to the research on male drinking in contemporary
Russia,
which is becoming fashionable. We focus our research on the rationale
and
justification of excessive alcohol consumption which is often reported
as one of
the indicative feature of the Russian culture. We start with the simple
question: if
alcohol consumption is totally negative then why people use it - are
they insane
or irrational? What are the meanings that are implied in the heavy
drinking
habits of Russian men today? While heavy drinking (and alcoholism)
as a bio-
medical-social phenomenon is a serious and tragic problem in Russian
polity,
heavy drinking as a performative / narrative phenomenon could have
diverse
and conflicting meanings. It can provide "endless possibilities for
elaboration of
ironic resistance to the mundane, practical disciplines of family,
community, and
state" (Ries 1997: 69), it can be deconstructed as practice, celebrating
male
identity or performed as an aspect of crisis of masculinity.
Using the life story approach, we reconstruct contexts
that has been
conducive to different patterns of male drinking behavior from the
life-stories of
Russian drunkards. The methodology of narrative analysis proves to
be efficient
in reconstruction of meanings and contexts of the contemporary Russian
drinking patterns. 15 interviews with heavy drinker men were carried
out in
St.Petersburg (1997-1998). The research was part of INTAS project.
--
Elena Zdravomyslova
E-mail: zdrav@socres.spb.su
Tel. +7 812 3211066
Home address:
Russia, St.-Petersburg, 199226, Nalichnaja str., b. 36-5, apt. 367.
e-mail: "Rasa Alisauskiene" baltic.surveys@post.omnitel.net
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
As Husserl has said, life is that reality in which we act, and this is the base of our experience. Our concrete achievements and reflection are stipulated by the accumulated experience. But the experience is conditioned not only within a context of a concrete political, economic and cultural situation of a society as a certain community. It is more likely the experience and reflection are determined not by community as such, but by a concrete and defined "partial" reality in that community. "Reality" of the experience consists of very concrete elements in both a society comprehended as a community and in life of a person oneself. Therefore, a biography of a person might pretend to presenting a "real" life due to the following:
1. In a life history there are presented concrete facts of life and motivation due to which an answer to the question Why? is possible, all the more, because there is presented not only the history of life of a single person, but information is being collected over several generations. As an example, a genealogical family-tree composed and analysed by D.Bertaux could be presented here.
2. The history of a person also pretends to the category of the description of life. A person's life is an entire process which is being presented in a concrete time and concrete space about the period of time lived through, on the ground of the acquired experience which is altering.
3. The history of a person's life also pretends to the category of life as "a model of an illusion", because life is being discussed only from a certain point of time and quality of life experience available at that time. In the description of life one's attention can be given to those situations which could happen if it were otherwise… than it was in fact. But in this case, too, a person can speak only being guided by his own experience. Reality can "inter-stratify" with an illusion, but the description of life is not just a description of a certain event or situation, it is a chain of events, situations and evaluations, therefore, the description of life cannot be just an illusion. It can be the result of accumulated experience gained during a concrete period of life. It might happen that certain aspects of an illusion cannot be avoided, but it is impossible to "hide" one's life under some mantle either. When discussing a concrete period of time which has been lived through, elements of "an illusion" do not reveal themselves, therefore the history of one's life cannot suffer from that. Elements of "an illusion" in the history of one's life can only strengthen peculiarities of experience and reinforce ways for solving alternative situations. But in this case, too, the weight of "illusions" depends on the experience possessed, which could strengthen or, on the contrary, to suppress a wish to immerse into the world of "illusions". But such a decision is also stipulated by a concrete life experience. That means that "an illusion" is becoming a part of life analysis which bears concrete senses and meaning. Elements of an illusion, perhaps, cannot be avoided, but the history of life cannot be just a set of illusions, because a person who talks about his life speaks and can speak only "within the limits of his own experience" in which concrete facts of his life are included and arranged but not a description of a general situation.
The received stories of life demonstrate that questions asked about the biography of a person include all these aspects which, depending on a period of age, manifest themselves differently or are they are arranged one with another in a different way, but the "reality" of the biography it self does not suffer from that:
1. Representatives of the oldest generation are bent for concentrating upon facts of life and their interpretation in the past. Concrete facts of their life and descriptive elements of social reality interweave in their histories of life. When concrete facts of life and interpretation of the life passed are interwoven into the framework of social reality, the history of life and its analysis do not lose their meaning and just intensify colours of facts of life. Life in the past does not lose its value because it is presented from the stand of the experience possessed. On the other hand, the history of life of those authors of life histories who pay less attention to disclosure of their history of life and provide more attention to description of common economic, political and social reality loses its "reality" and truthfulness. The "negative" aspect of such biographies is more likely to manifest itself in the autobiographical material.
2. In the works of representatives of the middle-age generation elements of all issues discussed can be found: real (the present), descriptive (the past) and "illusory" (the future). Usually, representatives of this generation choose interpretation of facts, actions and a system of values of life, based on experience gained in the past, as a starting point and end with discussing future plans. Facts of life in the present enable to realise starting points in the past and comprehend reality of future plans and their illusions. All these components together do not depreciate biographical material because it is impossible to keep back, "smother" or misinterpret all facts of the past as it is inconceivable to circumvent, "leave aside" the possessed accumulation of experience. "Viability" is characteristic of biographies of representatives of this generation, as the past is idealised at a less degree (except for those cases when the present is very unsuccessful), the present is dynamic in time and space and no less attention is paid to the future.
3. Biographies of representatives of the youngest generation could be "accused as being illusory and descriptive". The main attention is paid to discovering oneself and discussing life in the future. But in this case, as well, "correlation of description and illusion" of the history of life does not depreciate importance of biographical material and its reality, for it bases itself not only on its own, though short, experience but also on the evaluation of life by their parents which has an influence on their future projections. They usually try either to "escape" experience in the family or repeat it.