Theorising narratives of exile and belonging : the importance of Biography and Ethno-mimesis in “understanding” asylum

The article explores the use and importance of taking a biographical approach to conducting participatory action research (PAR) with asylum seekers and refugees in order to: better understand lived experiences of exile and belonging; contribute to the important field of Biographical Sociology; provide a safe space for stories to be told; and in turn for these stories to feed in to policy and praxis. The authors’ combined work on the asylum-migration nexus, the politics of representation and participatory action research methodology (PAR) as ethno-mimesisi argues for the use of biography to contribute to cultural politics at the level of theory, experience and praxis, and is constitutive of critical theory in praxis. PAR research undertaken with Bosnian refugees in the East Midlands and Afghan refugees in London will be the focus around which our analysis develops. We develop a case for theory building based upon lived experience using biographical materials, both narrative and visual, as critical theory in practice towards a vision of social justice that challenges the dominant knowledge/power axis embedded in current governance and media policy relating to forced migration. The dominant power/knowledge axis related to forced migration is embedded in current (New Labour) governance and re-presented in some media texts as identified below. New Labour governance is symbolised in the competing discourses of a) strong centralised control and b) more open systems, network and partnership based governance (Newman, 2003: 17-23; Clarke, 2004; Lewis, 2000). Open systems are made up of partnerships and networks – “joined up government”, “that transcends the vertical, departmental structures of government itself” (Newman, 2003: 20). to develop or foster a consensual style of governing. Progressive governance is defined by Newman (2003:15) as involving a significant shift from governance through hierarchy and competition to governance through networks and partnerships with an emphasis upon inclusion. Progressive governance involves the production of techniques and strategies of responsibilisation of citizens operationalised through the development of networks, alliances, and partnerships, with a strong focus upon active citizenship. Thus, spreading responsibility for social control to non state agencies and “communities” (Garland, 2001). In relation to forced migration/asylum discourses around the exclusion of the “other” (involving criminalisation, detention and deportation) and the maintenance and control of borders (developing ever more tighter controls on entry and asylum applications) exist in tension with discourses that speak of human rights, responsibilities and possibilities for multi-cultural citizenship especially in the community cohesion literature. There is a conflict at the heart of New Labour’s approach to asylum policy linked to the “alterity” of the asylum seeker that promulgates hegemonic ideologies and discourses around rights to belonging and citizenship, perceived access to resources (redistribution) and misrecognition fostering suspicion of the “stranger”. Alongside discourses of fairness and rights to enter and seek refuge, there exist regressive discourses that water down the vitally important actual and symbolic 1951 UN convention, and foster a split between “bogus” and “genuine” refugees, making it extremely hard to seek asylum in the UK.

Representation across languages: biographical sociology meets translation and interpretation studies

Biographical approaches are increasingly being used with people who speak and write a range of languages. Even when an account is originally spoken, the final version usually ends up written in the language used by the majority of the population. Researchers have shown that adopting a language that is not the one an account was given in may change how someone is perceived. Yet little has been written by sociologists using biographical approaches about the implications of moving accounts across languages. Researchers within translation and interpretation studies are increasingly tackling issues of representation across languages and developing concepts that can usefully be applied in biographical research. They question the assumption that accounts can be unproblematically transferred across languages and argue for strategies and concepts that “foreignise” texts and challenge the baseline of the target, usually for these writers, English language. However, these concepts bring issues of their own. In this article I examine these developments and give an example from my own cross language research that show that these concepts can begin to open up debates about meaning and representation.

Biographies in talk: A narrative-discursive research approach

This paper demonstrates the contribution a synthetic narrativediscursive approach can make to understanding biographical work within a research interview. Our focus is on biographical work as part of the ongoing, interactive process through which identities are taken up. This is of particular interest for people who, for example, are entering a new career and can be seen as “novices” in the sense that they are constructing and claiming a new identity. Following a discussion of the theoretical and methodological background in narrative, discourse analytic and discursive work in social psychology (e.g. Bruner, 1990; Edley, 2001; Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Wetherell, 1998), the paper presents an analysis of biographical talk from an interview study with postgraduate Art and Design students. Our interest is in their identity work, including biographical work, as novices in their fields. The analysis illustrates the approach and the key analytic concepts of, first, shared discursive resources, such as interpretative repertoires (e.g. Edley, 2001) and canonical narratives (e.g. Bruner, 1991), and, secondly, troubled identities (e.g. Wetherell and Edley, 1998; Taylor, 2005a) . It shows how speakers’ biographical accounts are shaped and constrained by the meanings which prevail within the larger society. For our participants, these include established understandings of the nature and origins of an artistic or creative identity, and the biographical trajectory associated with it. The particular focus of our approach is on how, in a speaker’s reflexive work to construct a biographical narrative, the versions produced in previous tellings become a constraint and a source of continuity.

Narrating the Digital Turn: data deluge, technomethodology, and other likely tales

In this paper it is argued that digital technologies will have a transformative effect in the social sciences in general and in the fast developing field of narrative studies in particular. It is argued that the integrative and interdisciplinary nature of narrative approaches are further enhanced by the development of digital technologies and that the collection of digital data will also drive theoretical and methodological developments in narrative studies. Biographical Sociology will also need to take account of lives lived in, and transformed by, the digital domain. How these technologies may influence data collection methods, how they might influence thinking about what constitutes data, and what effects this might have on the remodeling of theoretical approaches are all pressing questions for the development of a Twenty First Century narratology. As Marshall McLuhan once put it “First we shape our tools and then our tools shape us”.

A Biographic Researcher in Pursuit of an Aesthetic: The use of arts-based (re)presentations in “performative” dissemination of life stories

The (re)presentation of biographic narrative research benefits greatly from embracing the art of its craft. This requires a renewed interest in an aesthetic of storytelling. Where do we find an aesthetic in which to base our new “performative” social science? The 20th Century was not kind to 18th Century notions of what truth and beauty mean. The terms need to be re-examined from a local, quotidian vantage point, with concepts such as “aesthetic judgment” located within community. Social Constructionism asks us to participate in alterior systems of belief and value. The principles of Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics offer one possible set of convictions for further exploration. Relational Art is located in human interactions and their social contexts. Central to it are inter-subjectivity, being-together, the encounter and the collective elaboration of meaning, based in models of sociability, meetings, events, collaborations, games, festivals and places of conviviality. Bourriaud believes that Art is made of the same material as social exchanges. If social exchanges are the same as Art, how can we portray them? One place to start is in our (re)presentations of narrative stories, through publications, presentations and performances. Arts-based (re)presentation in knowledge diffusion in the post-modern era is explored as one theoretical grounding for thinking across epistemologies and supporting inter-disciplinary efforts. An example from my own published narrative biography work is described, adding credence to the concept of the research report/presentation as a “dynamic vehicle”, pointing to ways in which biographic sociology can benefit from work outside sociology and, in turn, identifying areas of possible collaboration with the narrator in producing “performances” within published texts themselves.

“Des personnages de si près tenus”, TV Fiction and Moral Consensus

How can we understand the adaptations of literary classics made for French television? We simultaneously analyzed the works and the context in which they were produced in order to relate the moral configurations that emerge in the stories to activities carried out by identifiable members of the production team, in specific, empirically observable circumstances. This empirical approach to the constitution of the moral panorama in which characters evolve rejects the idea of the pure autonomy of ideological contents, suggesting instead a study of the way normative demands and professional ethics are combined in practice, thus combining a sociology of characters and a sociology of professionals and showing how professional priorities influence production choices. This detaches the moral question from the philosophical horizon it is associated with in order to make it an object of empirial study. Adopting this perspective produces unexpected findings. Observation shows that the moral landscape in which characters are located is neither stable, autonomous, transparent, or consensual. It is instead caught up in material logics, constrained by temporal dynamics, and dependent on professional coordination. It is traversed by tensions between professional logics, and logics of regulation.

Staging the Social Drama of Work: Ethnography of a Theater Company as a Means of Analyzing Theater Activity

This paper shows how conducting the ethnographic study of a theater hall and company can help define theater activity. Once the aesthetic of the social organization is set apart from the proper division of labor, theater appears as a collective activity which requires the cooperation of eight groups playing different social roles. The cooperation modes rest on a meshing of direct or indirect services for the actors who carry out the core task of performing. This specific organization of work around a central group is what makes the activity artistic. Simultaneously, the service relation offers the possibility for some categories to bring their relationship with actors closer to a state of symmetry and sometimes reverse asymmetry. As a status enhancing opportunity, service relationship for actors also directly or indirectly provide the grounds for participant commitment and thus guarantee long-lasting operation for the theatrical organization.

American Social “Reminders” of Citizenship after September 11, 2001: Nativisms and the Retractability of American Identity

My discussion considers how crisis dramatically changes social relationships and interaction patterns within a multicultural context. Specifically, I note the inherent social asymmetry of multicultural configurations, thus rendering it vulnerable for the dominant ethnic/racial group, the ethnocracy, to exact symbolically and materialistically punitive measures against minorities during periods of national crisis. I situate my discussion of dramatically changed social interactions in the post- September 11, 2001 period, when the attacks on the World Trade Center towers triggered nativism against Arab Americans, or any group phenotypically similar to the construction of “Arab.” I note how this nativism is not new but is a historical and consistent articulation of the ethnocratic stratum that retracts the American identity and notions of citizenship away from minorities during times of national crisis. The discussion concludes with how American multiculturalism is still full of unresolved ethnic and racial symbolisms that hark back to nineteenth century attempts by the White power structure to idealize, culturally and phenotypically, the constitution of an “ideal” American.

The Centripetal Force of Expression: Drawing Embodied Histories into Glassblowing

Getting at the tacit understandings of an artful practice is critical in coming to understand the processes of creativity. To achieve this, the researcher, specifically the ethnographer, must place herself in the position of the maker, that is she must herself, make and create. This article provides an account of arriving at the methodological imperative of in situ ethnographic research through actual ethnographic research on the relation of maker and material. From an in situ position, it theorizes the modalities of expression in practice, from problem-solving, to personal style, to the intentional drawing in of embodied histories in practice. This incorporation of varying embodied histories into a current practice is then explored as the possibility for affecting what is recognized in the field as ”new” or ”innovative”. We will see, however, that is affect is grounded more in the corporeal revealing of unexpected aspects of the material worked up.