1000 voices : an online public collection of life stories

1000 voices is an international web-based platform for gathering and displaying more than 1000 life stories about the lived experience of people with disability. The site contains life stories told by people with disability that are presented in multiple media and formats, including text, audio, video, graphics and visual art...

Cultural Trauma and Life Stories

The purpose of this work is to use the concepts of human time and cultural trauma in a biographical study of the turning points in the recent history of Estonia. This research is primarily based on 148 in-depth biographical interviews conducted in Estonia and Sweden in 1995-2005, supplemented by excerpts from 5 collections and 10 individually published autobiographies. The main body of the thesis consists of six published and of two forthcoming separate refereed articles, summarised in the theoretical introduction, and Appendix of the full texts of three particular life stories. The topic of the first article is the generational composition and the collective action frames of anti-Soviet social mobilisation in Estonia in 1940-1990. The second article details the differentiation of the rites of passage and the calendar traditions as a strategy to adapt to the rapidly changed political realities, comparatively in Soviet Estonia and among the boat-refugees in Sweden. The third article investigates the life stories of the double-minded strategic generation of the Estonian-inclined Communists, who attempted to work within the Soviet system while professing to uphold the ideals of pre-war Estonia. The fourth article is concentrated on the problems of double mental standards as a coping strategy in a contradictory social reality. The fifth article implements the theory of cultural trauma for the social practice of singing nationalism in Estonia. The sixth article bridges the ideas of Russian theoreticians concerning cultural dialogue and the Western paradigm of cultural trauma, with examples from Estonian Russian life stories. The seventh article takes a biographical look at the logic of the unraveling of cultural trauma through four Soviet decades. The eighth article explores the re-shaping of citizen activities as a strategy of coping with the loss of the independent nation state, comparatively in Soviet Estonia and among Swedish Estonians. Cultural trauma is interpreted as the re-ordering of the society s value-normative constellation due to sharp, violent, usually political events. The first one under consideration was caused by the occupations of the Republic of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1940-45. After half a century of suppression the memories of these events resurfaced as different stories describing the long-term, often inter-generational strategies of coping with the value collapse. The second cultural trauma is revealed together with the collapse of the Soviet power and ideology in Estonia in 1991. According to empirical data, the following three trauma discourses have been reconstructed: - the forced adaptation to Soviet order of the homeland Estonians; - the difficulty of preserving Estonian identity in exile (Sweden); - the identity crisis of the Russian population of Estonia. Comparative analyses of these discourses have shown that opposing experiences and worldviews cause conflicting interpretations of the past. Different social and ethnic groups consider coping with cultural trauma as a matter of self-defence and create appropriate usable pasts to identify with. Keywords: human time, cultural trauma, frame analysis, discourse, life stories

‘At First I Saw It as a Toy’: Life Stories, Social Consciousness and Music Ethnography

This article examines the role of life narratives as discursive spaces for the performance of individual resistance. Through the inspection of three interviews with professional musicians in Athens, the essay will illustrate how the recounting of nodal events in their lives and careers facilitates an assertion of their current social ideology and their disillusionment with the popular music industry in which they operate. Ultimately, what follows will suggest a mode of listening to individual utterances and narratives as discursive forms of resistance that need to be appreciated as social acts as opposed to mere ethnographic data.

Experiences with cultural capital in education : exploring the educational life stories of first-generation postsecondary students

This study used a life history research design to explore first-generation university students' educational life stories and experiences with cultural capital. The project sought to examine how 3 first-generation university students experience cultural capital that is privileged in Ontario's education system and how the interactions between capital acquired through experiences within the home and school and capital privileged by the education system affect these students' educational experiences and perceptions. Using Pierre Bourdieu's (1984; 1986) theory of cultural capital as a framework, 3 firstgeneration, first-year university students participated in two 1- to 2-hour interviews. A focus on each participant's experiences with culture, capital, and education revealed themes corresponding to navigating, utilizing, and confronting familial, institutional, economic, and embodied forms of cultural capital. The study highlights the importance of recognizing how cultural capital influences the education system and how firstgeneration students can recreate normative pathways and achieve academic success despite challenges posed by the cultural capital privileged within the education system. Given cultural capital's effect on academic success, understanding first-generation students' educational life stories sheds light on the complex challenges facing students who confront and deal with privileged culture in the education system.

Drug addictions and sexual violence in childhood and adolescence: analyzing life stories

The sexual abuse suffered in childhood and adolescence, in addition to damage to physical and psychological health of the victim, is considered as an important risk factor for alcohol and drugs addiction, development of psychopathology and psychosocial damage in adulthood. In addition to the pain and humiliation that are submitted by the abuse, children and adolescents also experience shame and guilt which require them to adopt coping strategies to endure those feelings. The use of psychoactive substances is a recognized way of dealing with the pains of living. This work, which is of narrative style, analyses and discusses, through five case reports, chemical dependency as a result of sexual abuse suffered in childhood and/or adolescence. The eight subjects in this study are male and have suffered sexual violence in this age period of life. Their ages range from 23 years to 39 years, and all are admitted to a therapeutic community in a city in the interior of Sao Paulo state, in Brazil, for treatment of chemical dependency, being met by the Department of Psychology. The reasons for the choice of the participants for treatment modality for patients are: difficult to stop using drugs, even unwilling to take it, they have easy access to it; the feeling of losing control over their lives; by successive losses as a result of drug use, and for fear that their lives had a tragic ending. With the exception of two participants, the others do not classify that as a child suffered sexual violence. However, all attribute that facilitated their entry into the world of drugs. Seven participants experienced such violence in childhood (between 7 years and 9 years) and adolescence (age 14). The attackers were people closed to the victims—in the case of two victims, their families, with the exception of one participant who was raped by a stranger. Six participants declared themselves as homosexual. Another participant does not claim to be homosexual, but presents difficulties in terms of sexuality. Two participants are HIV positive. The start of psychoactive substances use occurred during adolescence (12 years to 17 years). The participants see drugs as an anesthetic to the pain of the soul, a way to get pleasure, but they get charged expensively, as it increases the feeling of emptiness, guilt, helplessness, worthlessness and hopelessness. Although participants have sought help to deal with addiction, it is noted that throughout the life course the issue of sexual violence was not treated. It was noted that the patients have a double stigma in society: the issue of drugs addiction and the orientation of sexual desire, because the majority of participants are homosexual. The results reinforce the need for effective action geared to accommodate the victims of sexual violence and effective preventive measures to prevent children and adolescents from being abused.

Review of Women Elders' Life Stories of the Omaha Tribe: Macy, Nebraska, 2004-2005

The volume contains two analytical chapters, "Finding the Sacred" and "Language as Landscape"; a fair amount of autobiographical material describing Summers's research process; an Omaha Language Pronunciation Guide; selected historical material; and a mixture of photos, including of the author with other Omaha language students. There are a number of editorial malfunctions, including the analytical chapters' tendency to wander around various topics; moreover, the author's role as editor of the firsthand accounts is never made explicit.

Famous leaders of industry : the life stories of boys who have succeeded /

Mode of access: Internet.

The Pacific islanders, from savages to saints; chapters from the life stories of famous missionaries and native converts,

Mode of access: Internet.

Lincoln's life, stories, and speeches.

Mode of access: Internet.

Life Stories, Cultural Metissage, and Personal Identities

This article encompasses an underlying notion of personal identities and processes of interaction, which distinguish essentialist identity from relational identity in contexts involving subjects, fields of possibilities, and cultural metamorphosis. It addresses the idea of the individual and her/his transformations: “I am who I want to be if I can be that person.” Any one of us could hypothetically have been someone else. The question of the reconstruction of individual identities is a vital aspect in the relationship between objective social conditions and what each person subjectively does with them, in terms of auto-construction. The complexity of this question reflects the idea of a cultural kaleidoscope, in which similar social conditions experienced by different individuals can produce differentiated identities. The title and structure of this text also seek to encompass the idea that in a personal life story, the subject lives between various spheres and sociocultural contexts, with a composite, mestizo, and superimposed or displaced identity, in each context. This occurs as the result of a cultural metamorphosis, which is constructed both by the individual as well as by heterogeneous influences between the context of the starting and finishing points at a given moment. This complex process of cultural metamorphosis—the fruit of interweaving subjective and objective forces—reveals a new dimension: the truly composite nature of personal identities.

Tornar-se professor de história: um estudo das experiências de professores iniciantes com a formação e o trabalho docente

A presente dissertação se situa no debate que envolve os saberes, as práticas, os processos formativos e o trabalho docente. Os referencias teóricos elencados propõem um debate teórico amplo sobre a realidade atual que perpassa a formação institucionalizada de professores, bem como a educação escolar pública. Assim, evidencia-se na atualidade um campo de forças na educação, que ora revela um sistema educacional marcado pela perversidade, ora aponta para a possibilidade de movimentos transformadores capazes de romper com as mazelas instituídas na educação escolar. Algumas questões orientam a discussão, tais como: Como o sujeito se torna professor? Qual o papel da formação inicial no processo na preparação dos professores? Como é ser um professor iniciante de História na realidade atual do ensino público? Como os professores experenciam o choque de realidade ao ingressarem profissionalmente em sala de aula? Quais os maiores desafios e possibilidades no início de carreira? Neste sentido, o trabalho tem como propósito central compreender o processo de tornar-se professor, dialogando com as experiências formativas e profissionais de dois professores iniciantes de História, egressos da Faculdade de Formação de Professores FFP-UERJ e atuantes na rede estadual de ensino do Rio de Janeiro. A pesquisa é embasada nas contribuições de Arroyo, Frigotto, Gatti e Barretto, Guarnieri, Monteiro, Nóvoa, Tardif, e, notadamente, nas experiências narradas pelos docentes. A investigação é de cunho qualitativo e sobre/com os sujeitos do cotidiano escolar, lançando mão da abordagem teórico-metodológica das histórias de vida com recorte temático. Como procedimento metodológico, utiliza-se as entrevistas/conversas a fim de se ter uma escuta sensível, além de um entrosamento maior e mais profundo com as narrativas dos participantes. A dissertação dialoga com temáticas forjadas no debate entre a literatura na área e as experiências docentes, tais como: trajetória e escolha profissional, formação inicial na FFP-UERJ, desafios do início de carreira, dentre outros. A partir dos achados da pesquisa e das reflexões feitas juntamente com os professores de História, aponta-se para a necessidade de (re)pensarmos elementos que perpassam as instituições formadoras de professores, assim como a cultura escolar e as políticas públicas educacionais. A pesquisa tenciona, assim, lançar luz e contribuir no debate sobre a formação inicial institucionalizada e o trabalho docente, os processos formativos, saberes e práticas de professores.

Por uma outra Epistemologia de Formação: Conversas sobre um Projeto de Formação de Professoras no Município de Queimados

Esta tese origina-se da pesquisa de doutoramento realizada por meio do projeto de extensão Conversas entre professores: a prática como ponto de encontro, outra forma de pensar a formação e os currículos praticados no município de Queimados/RJ com professoras da rede municipal. Seu objetivo é pensar uma Epistemologia de Formação Contínua fundamentada no trabalho em sala de aula, na troca de experiências, nas histórias de vida e nos saberes experienciais enredados na vida cotidiana apontando/desinvisibilizando a complexidade que faz parte da vida e do processo de formação que é contínuo assim como os usos e a importância das narrativas nesse processo. Desenvolve-se a partir de uma metodologiapolítica que envolve os cotidianos das salas de aula, as rodas de conversa com narrativas de experiências e de histórias de vida. Defende que a formação se dá continuamente, ou seja, é um processo que começa com o nascimento e se tece por toda a vida dos sujeitos. Para isso, discute tanto a importância das memórias de vida como dispositivo de autoformação, pensando por que o exercício de autoconhecimento é tão importante nessa trajetória quanto a importância que o compartilhamento de experiências, por meio das narrativas, tem na formação contínua. Considera a ideia de que as políticas oficiais de educação se tecem a partir dos embates cotidianos entre diferentes grupos, ou seja, não há uma política separada da prática, há políticaspráticas, o que significa que todas as ações desenvolvidas pelos praticantes das escolas são também fruto de decisões e convicções políticas e expressam valores e objetivos também políticos. Traz ainda discussão acerca do que vem sendo dito em textos oficiais de políticas públicas para a formação continuada no Brasil e de que forma esses textos vêm sendo lidos e usados no município de Queimados. Pretende se apresentar como uma políticaprática contra-hegemônica, que desinvisibliza os cotidianos escolares mostrando que o que parece posto como política de formação contínua é um processo de embates que se tece coletivamente e cotidianamente. Pratica um exercício da suspeita que tem mostrado que há outras maneiras de produzir políticaspráticas de formação que estão enredadas às histórias de vidas das professoras