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Embodied Biographies, Virtual Bodies

Wednesday, 13 July 2016: 09:00-10:30
Location: Seminarraum Geschichte 1 (Main Building)
RC38 Biography and Society (host committee)

Language: English

Biographical research has not paid much attention to the ways complex forms of border crossing and transnationality shape people’s embodied experiences. Moreover, the introduction and development of new social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) have opened the field to the study of embodied biographies to include the biographical construction of virtual bodies.   
We seek papers that consider connections between bodies and biographical practices from individual accounts to the social structural and historical processes within which these practices take place. We are especially interested in extending the conceptual and empirical reach of the field of biographical research to interrogate how biographies are constructed in ways that attend to the role of both embodiment and transnationality in people’s life stories. Topics of interest include:

  • institutional contexts in which identities are inscribed in/on the body (medicine, prisons); 
  • the embodied traces of homelands, border crossings and remittances in the life stories of refugees and migrants; 
  • the construction of embodied communities (transgender, intersex, body modification) and political movements (FEM, Pussy Riot).
Session Organizers:
Susan BELL, Drexel University, USA and Kathy DAVIS, VU University, Netherlands
Chair:
Susan BELL, Drexel University, USA
Posters:
A Food Environment Photovoice Project in Madrid: A Tool to Gain Empowerment and Reconstruct Neighborhood Biographies
Julia DIEZ, Social and Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Group. Universidad de Alcala, Madrid, Spain, Spain; Paloma CONDE ESPEJO, Social and Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Group. Universidad de Alcala, Madrid, Spain; Maria URTASUN, Social and Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Group. Universidad de Alcala, Madrid, Spain; Marta SASTRE, Villaverde Health Promotion Centre, Madrid City Council, Spain, Spain; Luisa RUIZ, Villaverde Health Promotion Centre, Madrid City Council, Spain, Spain; Maria SANDIN, Social and Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Group. Universidad de Alcala, Madrid, Spain; Manuel FRANCO, Social and Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Group. Universidad de Alcala, Madrid, Spain
Biography of Thing and Thing in a Biography
Lukasz POSLUSZNY, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
Borders and Bodies: Eritrean Asylum Seekers' Biographical Narratives of Their Journey of Escape
Efrat BEN ZEEV, Ruppin Academic Center, Israel; Habtom MEHARI, Hebrew University of Jerusalm, Israel; Nir GAZIT, Ruppin Academic Center, Israel