RESEARCHING UNIQUENESS: HOW LIFE HISTORY RESEARCH ENTAILS SINGULAR QUESTIONS AND SPECIAL OUTCOMES.
Across a wide range of disciplines, innovative research questions are very often preferentially answered via the life history approach.
Due to the intrinsic richness and complexity of its methodologies and sources, life history research frequently provides original insights and steers unique investigative directions, thus shaping the way knowledge develops in very particular ways.
Researchers working in this field are more likely to encounter and tackle challenging, underexplored or unexpected themes not always present in mainstream narratives or ‘traditional’ sources.
We invited postgraduate or early career researchers to present at this conference their contributions on why it was pivotal to prioritise the life history methodology in answering initial research questions and how this approach subsequently shaped and impacted their research and findings.
We are really looking forward to our conference, which will host a fantastic, interdisciplinary group employing life history research. We have presentations from historians, educators, sociologists, cultural historians and more – including a librettist, cartoonist and a stoolball player.
This conference will feature fast and concise presentations in the PECHA KUCHA style!
Light lunch provided.
Conference Programme
10:00 Registration, tea and coffee, and set up
10:25 Welcome from organisers
10:30-12.00: Session One
- Nicola Streeten: ‘Why comics work for gathering and telling life stories’
- Marika Djolai: ‘Community cooperation in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina: coping strategies and violence’
- Anita Broad: “Let’s Play Stoolball!”
- David Selway: ‘Life History, Collective Memory & the Tonypandy Riots’
- Alexandra Loske: ‘The Obscurity of Women – The challenges of researching 18th and 19th century female artists and writers’
- Angela Campos: ‘Discovering the lived experience of the Portuguese colonial war (1961-1974): what the veterans’ voices reveal to the oral historian’
12.00-1.00: Lunch
1.00-1.45: Simon Thompson (keynote speaker):
“Everyone knows but do they understand?” Distinctive encounters and challenging confrontations with the life histories of UK education.
1.45-3.00: Session Two
- Mark Irwin: ‘Teaching the way we learnt: narratives of informal musical learning’) [tbc]
- Jessica Hammett: ‘Individual Remembering and Group Storytelling at a Reunion of a London World War Two Fire Brigade’
- Eleanor Knight: ‘The Trial of Jean Rhys: Uncovering the unpleasantly authentic voice of a literary icon’
- Gillian Love: ‘Abortion and social class: A narrative study’
3.00-3.15: Break
3.15-4.00: Philippa Lyon (keynote speaker): ‘Drawing, life, story’
4.00: Conference closes
For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us: a.d.c.ferreira-campos@sussex.ac.uk