Research Group: Life (Hi)Stories

We draw on a wide range of primary sources, from oral data collection techniques such as oral history, language biographies and ethnography, to written narratives in the form of diaries, memoirs and auto-biographies and other modes of life writing.

The aims of the group are to:

• Bring together scholars at the University of Southampton and community-based researchers and to highlight expertise in the study of life stories.

• Provide a forum for sharing work in progress, and the discussion of the methodological and interpretive challenges of analysing life story narratives.

• Further our understanding of the dynamics underlying the relationships between personal experience/memory on the one hand, and language, culture and society on the other, in both past and present contexts.

• Develop and promote an international life story archive at the University of Southampton.

If you would like to receive news of the Life (Hi)Stories seminars please contact Dr Jane Lavery, or Dr Scott Soo for any other matter.