B       Biografie

Including individual biographies or excerpts from life stories in the schau.Räume projects aims to make invisible, unheard, concealed, undiscovered stories visible. This opens up a shared space for life stories, including those that do not find a place in everyday discourse. In recent decades, there has been a "shift towards biographical methods", particularly in the social sciences (Chamberlayne/Bornat/Wengraf 2000). However, the birth of biographical work as well as research in the social sciences is already an old approach that began a century ago in Chicago with the work of Thomas and Znaniecki (1920) and questioned marginalisation, exclusion, transitions and has proven to be fruitful and important to this day, as the sociologist and political scientist Ursula Apitzsch points out in an article with Lena Inowlocki:

"[...] Much qualitative interpretative research and biographical analysis in particular do not presuppose social normality, but ask about experiences in times of social change and in moments and times of crisis, and about the need for new social practices in order to prevent further marginalisation or to avoid the complete collapse of individual or social life" (Apitzsch/Inowlocki 2000: 55).

The biography work applied at show.Rooms aims to leave the abstract level and deal with people's experiences. This implies a discussion of memories that reveal personal experiences and attitudes and thus enable access to social realities on a subjective and socio-historical level. This linking of social context and the perspective on non-hegemonic ways of living and loving is of immense importance (Gregor/Ruby 2018, Stauber 2018). Authentic narratives/stories are sought and "own experiences" are shared with others and reconstructed (Reich 2008). This more political approach is fundamentally based on Frigga Haug's model of subject-orientated research (2001).

The way in which biography work is applied here also opens up access to intuitive memory, as it can emerge in a group environment, and provides opportunities for associations and counteracts forgetting. To quote the writer and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison: "Memory (the conscious act of remembering) is a form of intentional creation. It's not about trying to find out what it was really like - that's research. It's about engaging with how it seemed to you and why it seemed to you in that particular way" (2020: 505).

Literature:
Apitzsch, U. /Inowlocki, L. (2000). Biographical analysis A ‘German’ school? In Chamberlayne, P. / Bornat, J./Wengraf, T. (Hg.). The Turn to Biographical Methods in Social Science Comparative issues and examples. London: Routledge.
Chamberlayne, P./Bornat, J./Wengraf, T. (2000). The Turn to Biographical Methods in Social Science Comparative issues and examples. London: Routledge.
Gregor, J. /Ruby, S. (2018). Biografie und Geschlecht. In: Lutz H., Schiebel M., Tuider E. (Hg.) Handbuch Biographieforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Haug, F. (2001). Erinnerungsarbeit. (3. Auflage). Hamburg: Argument Verlag.
Morrison, T. (2020). Selbstachtung. Ausgewählte Essays. Hamburg: Rowohlt.
Reich, K. (2008). Biografiearbeit, Universität Köln. Abgerufen am 02.01.2021 pdf from http:// methodenpool.uni-koeln.de/download/biografiearbeit
Stauber, B. (2018). Taking the Biographical approach seriously – what does it mean for the concept of biographicity in Revista de Sociología de la Educación-RASE, ISSN[1]e 2605-1923, Vol. 11, Nº. 2, 2018 (Ejemplar dedicado a: BIOGRAFICIDAD Y EDUCACIÓN), págs. 216-227.

This article is in:
Rosalia Kopeinig, (2022) Biografie-Workshops schau.Räume. In 10 Jahre schau.Räume Wirkstätte und Werkstädte (2022). Herausgeberin schau.Räume. Klagenfurt/Celovec-Ljubljana/Laibach-Wien/Dunaj: Hermagoras Verlag/Mohorjeva založba.