Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

452

Transnational Migrations and Biographical Narratives

RC38 Biography and Society (host committee)

Language: English

The concept of transnational social spaces is a way of grasping the phenomenon of the biographical knowledge of subjects who are continually crossing borders and interacting with one another. This knowledge is accumulated and symbolised in the course of individual lives and of the lives of groups. On the basis of past, continuing and necessary future separations and border crossings, this knowledge constitutes different and partly overlapping social spaces understood as coordinates of orientation for individual and group action.
This biographical knowledge introduces the time axis into the constitution of social spaces, in the sense that accumulated experience represents the dimension of the past, and biographical planning represents the anticipated future. The structures and effects of such border crossings and of the ways in which people cope with them in their biographies are linked to one another and interact with one another.
Family members involved in a migration process experience this process in different ways depending on their age, gender, whether they have older or younger siblings, etc. 
Papers understanding the biographical approach as an approach to research in the sociological field of migration studies are welcome. The presentation of empirical case studies should focus especially on the methodical use of narratives in transnational migration research, treating it as a perspective revolving around a reconstructive research logic. Posters: