300691 Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM): Advanced Method Training for PhD Students (S) (SoSe 2020)

The Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) is an approach to eliciting life narratives that seeks to bring together the ‘acting self’ of a psycho-social subject and its social environment. A psycho-social subject is one ‘whose inner world cannot be understood without knowledge of their experiences in the world, and whose experiences of the world cannot be understood without knowledge of the ways in which their inner worlds allow them to experience the outer world’ (Hollway and Jefferson 2000). It is a defended self whose defences are shaped by localized systems of meanings and whose self-presentation is framed by the assumptions and constructs that are ‘normal’ in a society. BNIM interview and analysis procedures are based on the idea of gestalt, ‘a whole which is more than the sum of its parts, an order or hidden agenda informing each person’s life’ (ibid). The method has been used for varied research questions, ranging from crime and comparative care cultures to social exclusion and citizenship. Research using the method has yielded insightful case studies about individual strategies of coping with changes and their linkages to broader processes of deregulated market, labour mobility, and neo-liberal governance. In the form of a full-day workshop, this block seminar will walk you through the procedures of conducting and analysing BNIM interviews, using your own research as example. The seminar is reserved for PhD students who are conducting ethnographic research in the coming year - please enquire with the convenor before signing up.