CfP The Biographical Method in the Social Sciences. Trends and controversies

The proposed thematic issue of “Culture and Society” called “Biographical Method in the Social Sciences. Trends and Controversies” is a response to the ongoing discussions in the community of researchers dealing with personal documents regarding the understanding of epistemological-ontological bases, theoretical approaches, creative transformations of data collection techniques and analytical tools, but also ethical issues. Particularly with regard to social problems and phenomena related to the experience of war, pandemics, instability in the labor market, psychological problems, involvement in the world of Internet creativity, social activism, but also changes in the way we tell stories about our own lives - these issues need to be consolidated in the form of publication in a major sociological journal. Proposals appearing in various research projects to use both found materials in the form of letters, memoirs, (video)blogs or diaries, as well as evoked materials such as (auto)biographical interviews, including those conducted in the oral history formula, in many cases call for new and creative ways of reading the method and the analytical apparatus behind it. They should be looked at not only with the enthusiasm that accompanies interdisciplinarity: combining different orientations, techniques, or modes of interpretation, but also with serious and in-depth critical reflection. The biographical method, like no other approach, focuses on individual experience and inner feelings. Life histories collected today are increasingly embedded in a dynamic and rapidly changing social, cultural, political and economic context. Polish society, like the rest of the world, is increasingly affected by overlapping and interplaying crises: ecological, pandemic and war crises, as well as, in a special way, humanitarian crises associated with growing migration flows, cyclical crises of the capitalist economy (the financial crisis after 2008 or the current inflationary crisis). The aforementioned phenomena are accompanied by the corrosion of democratic political systems resulting in escalating social tensions, rising support for populist or ultranationalist groups, or a long-standing crisis in the public service sector. In an era of multicrisis, knowledge of how individuals and collectivities cope with the accumulating atmosphere of threat and uncertainty seems particularly important. An equally important research question becomes, to what extent are the problems present in public discourses within the realm of the respondents' experience, and how do biographical materials allow the reconstruction and interpretation of social processes on a macro scale?
We would like to invite authors whose interests include the following areas and themes:

• the status and limits of biographical theory and research;
• methodological aspects of the use of the biographical perspective in the social sciences;
• empirical uses of biographical methods in the social sciences;
• controversies surrounding the use of biographical methods;
• ethical aspects of biographical research;
• biographical methods as a research tool in the era of overlapping social crises;
• critical reflection on the ontological and epistemic status of biographical research.

We invite you to submit texts in both Polish and English. The guidelines for preparing texts for publication in “Culture & Society" are available at: https://czasopisma.isppan.waw.pl/index.php/kis/about/submissions

The guest editors of the issue are Agnieszka Golczyńska-Grondas (agnieszka.grondas@uni.lodz.pl) and Katarzyna Waniek (katarzyna.waniek@uni.lodz.pl) from University of Lodz.

The publication of the issue is planned for March, 2026. We are waiting for your manuscripts until the end of May, 2025. Texts are accepted exclusively via the journal's https://czasopisma.isppan.waw.pl/kis