Research Methodologies for Auto/biography Studies

This collection of short essays provides a rigorous, rich, collaborative space in which scholars and practitioners debate the value of different methodological approaches to the study of life narratives and explore a diverse range of interdisciplinary methods. Auto/biography studies has been one of the most vibrant sub-disciplines to emerge in the humanities and social sciences in the past decade, providing significant links between disciplines including literary studies, languages, linguistics, digital humanities, medical humanities, creative writing, history, gender studies, education, sociology, and anthropology.The essays in this collection position auto/biography as a key discipline for modelling interdisciplinary approaches to methodology and ask: what original and important thinking can auto/biography studies bring to discussions of methodology for literary studies and beyond? And how does the diversity of methodological interventions in auto/biography studies build a strong and diverse research discipline? In including some of auto/biography’s leading international scholars alongside emerging scholars, and exploring key subgenres and practices, this collection showcases knowledge about what we do when engaging in auto/biographical research. Research Methodologies for Auto/biography Studies offers a series of case studies that explore the research practices, reflective behaviours, and ethical considerations that inform auto/biographical research.

Ashley Barnwell and Kate Douglas "What we do when we do life writing: Methodologies for auto/biography now." FormsWriting MemoirClaire Lynch Archival Methods for Auto/biographical ResearchMaria Tamboukou ZinesAnna Poletti Objects and ThingsGillian WhitlockSocial, media, life writing: online lives at scale, up close, and in contextAimee Morrison Studying Visual Autobiographies in the Post-Digital EraSarah Brophy BiographyW. Craig Howes Research Methods for Studying Graphic BiographyCandida Rifkind Working with Family HistoriesAshley Barnwell Tracing Emotional Bonds in Family Letters/ A Pursuit of an Epistolary MelodyLeena Kurvet-Kaossar Life Narrative Methods for Working with DiariesKylie Cardell Autoethnographic Life Writing: Reaching Beyond, Crossing OverSally Ann Murray Telling life stories using creative methods in qualitative interviewsSigne Ravn Performing and broadcasting lives: Auto/biographical testimonies in theatre and radioGunn Gudmundsdottir Big Data and Self-Tracking: Research TrajectoriesJulie Rak FrameworksAnother StoryJeanine Leane Reading Digital Lives GenerouslyLaurie McNeill and John Zuern Reading the Life Narratives of Children and YouthKate Douglas Negotiated Truths and Iterative Practice in Action: The Women In Conflict Expressive Life Writing ProjectMeg Jensen and Siobhan Campbell Researching Online Biographical Media and Death Narratives After the Digital TurnPamela GrahamAn Epistemological Approach to Trans* AutobiographySarah Ray RondatGenetics and Auto/biographyPramod K. NayarDoing Disability Autobiography: Introducing Reading Group Methodology as Feminist Disability PraxisAlly DaySanctioning Subjectivity: Navigating low-risk human ethics approvalPhillip Kavanagh and Kate DouglasGirls’ Auto/Biographical Media: The Importance of Audience Reception in Studying Undervalued Life NarrativeEmma MaguireLocating Diasporic Lives: Beyond Textual BoundariesRicia A. ChanskyThe diary as a life story: Working with documents of family and migrationAnne HeimoBetween Forced Confession and Ethnic AutobiographyY-Dang TruongAutobiographical Research with ChildrenMaria da Conceição Passeggi and Ecleide Cunico FurlanettoEcocriticism and Life NarrativeAlfred Hornung AfterwordThe Box in the Attic: Memoir, Methodology and Family ArchivesG. Thomas Couser

Kate Douglas is Professor in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Flinders University. She is the author of Contesting Childhood: Autobiography, Trauma and Memory (Rutgers, 2010) and the co-author of Life Narratives and Youth Culture: Representation, Agency and Participation (Palgrave, 2016; with Anna Poletti). She is the co-editor (with Laurie McNeill) of Teaching Lives: Contemporary Pedagogies of Life Narratives (Routledge 2017); (with Kylie Cardell) of Trauma Tales: Auto/biographies of Childhood and Youth (Routledge 2014); and (with Gillian Whitlock) Trauma Texts (Routledge, 2009).Ashley Barnwell is Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on memory, emotion, and family storytelling. Her work has been published in journals such as Life Writing, a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, Memory Studies, Cultural Sociology, and Emotion, Space & Society. Her co-authored book (with Joseph Cummins), Reckoning with the Past: Family Historiographies in Postcolonial Australian Literature (2019), is published in Routledge’s Memory Studies series.