Accepted Abstract Proposals (in Alphabetic order):
(not yet complete!)
For ESA-Amsterdam 1999:
Stream of ESA research network: "Biographical Perspectives on European
Societies"
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
Double-minding formation and transformation in three generations of after- war Soviet Estonia
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.
Student residence abroad and intercultural competence - a biographical
perspective
Dr. Geof Alred
School of Education
University of Durham, UK
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.
Doina Balahur
"Gh.Asachi"Unibersity in Iasi, Romania
Department of Sociology and Humanities
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,
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. 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.
Abstract
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.
Baby boomers and work
Abstract
Tommi Hoikkala
Dept. of Social Policy
University of Helsinki
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?
THE EXCLUSION OF THE GREEK EX-INDUSTRIAL WORKERS FROM THE LABOUR MARKET
OF 2000- BIOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES
Dr.Elizabeth Ioannidi-Kapolou, Dr.Elizabeth Mestheneos
SEXTANT Company, Social and Economic Research and Consultancy,
Athens, Greece.
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
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
University of Lodz
(kajakaz@krysia.uni.lodz.pl)
What Is the War in Narratives on World War II
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:
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
Biographical Constructions of a Working Woman: The many faces of Alva Myrdal.
E. Stina Lyon, South Bank University, London
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)
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.
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
The Process of Deciding Over Divorce in the Life Stories of Finnish
Women
Vanessa May
Department of Sociology
Abo Akademi University
Gezeliusgatan 2
FIN-20500 Abo
Finland
Email: vmay@abo.fi
Fax: +358-(0)2-215 4808
ABSTRACT
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.
Brian Roberts
'Types of memory and the recollection of events'
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
by Olaf Struck (University of Bremen, Germany)
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.
Anna Temkina
European University at St.Petersburg
SEXUAL SCRIPTS IN WOMEN'S BIOGRAPHIES
This paper is devoted to the analysis of the scripts
of women's sexual behavior in Russian society in the 90-es, 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-es. 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.
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY: A FAMILY STORY ?
Armelle Testenoire
Institutional Affiliation: GRIS-Université de Rouen
Adress: 76821 Mont Saint Aignan cedex France
tel: 02/35/89/98/88
e-mail: testenoi@epeire.univ-rouen.fr
ABSTRACT
Starting from a study of identity understood as a permanent process
of construction of one's own coherence during interactions all along one's
life, this contribution offers a reflexion on the supply of family progress
to the analysis of professionnal socialization. The analysis conducted
from data on intercrossing couple's life stories highlights the importance
of matrimonial interactions in changes of professionnal identities of the
spouses. The biographical aspect allows relationships between sociology
of work and sociology of the family. Identity transformations, then, seem
to be a consequence of both work and family experiences.
***************
L'IDENTITE PROFESSIONNELLE: UNE HISTOIRE DE FAMILLE?
Partant d'une approche de l'identité conçue comme un travail permanent de construction de sa propre cohérence dans les interactions au cours du cycle de vie, cette contribution propose une réflexion sur l'apport des cheminements familiaux à l'analyse de la socialisation professionnelle. L'analyse menée à partir d'un corpus de récits de vie croisés des deux membres de couples d'actifs met en évidence le poids de l'interaction conjugale dans les transformations des identités professionnelles des conjoints. La dimension biographique permet un décloisonnement des sociologies spécialisées du travail et de la famille. Les transformations identitaires apparaissent dès lors issues de l'articulation des expériences professionnelles et familiales.
Women's stories: existential problems
Anele Vosyliute
Lithuanian Institute of Philosophy and Sociology
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
Address: POBox 55, 191002, St.Petersburg-2, Russia
Fax 7 812 321 10 66
E-mail: zdrav@eu.spb.ru
or
zdrav@socres. spb.su
LIFE-STORIES OF HEAVY DRINKING MEN: MENINGS AND CONTEXTS.
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 starts to be 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 biographical method, 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.Peterburg (1997-1998). The research was part of INTAS project.
--
Elena Zdravomyslova | E-mail: zdrav@socres.spb.su
Dr. of Sociology | Tel. +7 812 3211066
Phone: home (812) 351-00-50
work (812) 316-21-62
Home address:
Russia, St.-Petersburg, 199226, Nalichnaja str., b. 36-5, apt. 367.