Realist Biography and European Policy is the first concerted attempt to integrate the separate strands of (critical) realism as a developed philosophy for social science with biographical narrative methods as a concrete methodological approach. The main goal is to demonstrate that the combination of critical realism and biographical methods is not only possible, but it is exceptionally well suited for the exploration of newly emerging research fields within European policy studies. This volume offers new insights to and is an indispensable reference for researchers in search of solid underpinnings for their own empirical research. Foreword by Miriam Kennet, Director of the Green Economics Institute, Founder and Editor of the International Journal of Green Economics. Contributors Tatiana Bajuk Senčar (Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute of Slovenian Ethnology), Bob Carter (University of Leicester, Department of Sociology), Prue Chamberlayne (Open University, Faculty of Health and Social Care), Markieta Domecka (independent researcher), Norbert Kluge (coordinator and adviser for the European Works Council of ThyssenKrupp AG), Lyudmila Nurse (director of Oxford XXI), Elisabetta Perone (University of Naples Federico II), Valeria Pulignano (Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven), Antonella Spanò (University of Naples Federico II), Tom Wengraf (Middlesex University)

The European Union (EU) is at the forefront of engaging in external trade relations outside of the World Trade Organization (WTO) with entire regions and economic powerhouses. Understanding why and how the EU engages in one of the most active fields of external relations is crucial. This book fills a gap in the literature by analysing motives on the modes – bilateralism, inter-regionalism, or multilateralism - of EU external trade relations towards regional organizations in Asia and Latin America outside of the WTO. In particular, it examines why the EU turned from interregional to bilateral external trade relations towards these world regions – a question that is, to date, under-researched. By developing and testing an original approach rooted in realist theorizing coined ‘commercial realism’, it examines systematically the explanatory power of commercial realism against liberal-institutionalist approaches dominant in the literature on EU external relations through five in-depth case studies. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in EU Politics/Studies, EU external relations, inter-regionalism and more broadly to International Relations and International Political Economy.

This book provides an anthropological analysis of the cultural formation, practices and experiences of the first generation of Slovenes working in the institutions of the European Union. On 1 May 2004, Slovenia became a full-fledged member of the European Union and was thus formally incorporated into the processes of European integration redefining the relations among EU member states. European integration processes take place at multiple, interlocking levels — from the level of government bodies to the level of individual social actors. The numerous Slovenes who were successful in attaining the positions available for citizens from new member states now work as Eurocrats at multiple locations across the EU’s institutional network. This work explores European integration from the perspective of Slovene Eurocrats by analyzing how Slovenes plot careers and lives in European terms.To this end, the author examines the experiences of Slovene Eurocrats in Brussels within the broader context of their life experiences and professional formation. As recent EU officials, Slovene Eurocrats provide many insights into European integration as an ongoing social process. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Delo Tatiane Bajuk Senčar Evropska integracija kot kulturna praksa je antropološka analiza kulturnih formacij, praks in izkušenj prve generacije Slovencev, ki delajo v ustanovah Evropske unije. Slovenija je 1. maja 2004 postala njena polnopravna članica in se s tem tudi formalno vključila v procese evropske integracije, ki na novo opredeljujejo razmerja med državami članicami. Procesi integracije potekajo na številnih, med seboj prepletenih ravneh – od ravni vladnih teles do ravni posamičnih družbenih akterjev. Številni Slovenci so se uspešno prijavili za delo v institucijah EU in agencijah, ki se širijo z vsako naslednjo širitvijo EU; zdaj delajo kot evrokrati na različnih lokacijah v institucionalnem omrežju EU. Avtorica raziskuje integracijski proces iz vidika slovenskih evrokratov, pri čemer analizira njihove načrte kariernih poti, samo poklicno socializacijo in življenjske izkušnje, pridobljene v evropskih ustanovah. Raziskava slovenskih evrokratov oziroma evropskih uradnikov nam tako razgrinja številne poglede na nenehni družbeni proces, na evropsko integracijo.

In a neo-liberal era concerned with discourses of responsible individualism and the ‘selfie’, there is an increased interest in personal lives and experiences. In contemporary life, the personal is understood to be political and these ideas cut across both the social sciences and humanities. This handbook is specifically concerned with auto/biography, which sits within the field of narrative, complementing biographical and life history research. Some of the contributors emphasise the place of narrative in the construction of auto/biography, whilst others disrupt the perceived boundaries between the individual and the social, the self and the other. The collection has nine sections: creativity and collaboration; families and relationships; epistolary lives; geography; madness; prison lives; professional lives; ‘race’; and social justice and disability. They illustrate the inter- and multi-disciplinary nature of auto/biography as a field. Each section features an introduction from a section editor, many of whom are established researchers and/or members of the British Sociological Association (BSA) Auto/Biography study group. The handbook provides the reader with cutting-edge research from authors at different stages in their careers, and will appeal to those with an interest in auto/biography, auto-ethnography, epistolary traditions, lived experiences, narrative analysis, the arts, education, politics, philosophy, history, personal life, reflexivity, research in practice and the sociology of the everyday. Chapter 1: A Case for Auto/Biography; Julie Parsons and Anne Chappell. Section One: Creativity and Collaboration; edited by Gayle Letherby. Chapter 2: The Times are a Changing: Culture(s) of Medicine; Theresa Compton. Chapter 3: Seventeen Minutes and Thirty-One Seconds: An Auto/Biographical Account of Collaboratively Witnessing and Representing an Untold Life Story; Kitrina Douglas and David Carless. Chapter 4: Reflections on a Collaborative, Creative 'Working' Relationship; Deborah Davidson and Gayle Letherby. Section Two: Families and Relationships: Auto/Biography and Family, A Natural Affinity?; edited by David Morgan. Chapter 5: Life Story and Narrative Approaches in the Study of Family Lives; Julia Brannen. Chapter 6: The Research Methods for Discovering Housing Inequalities in Socio-Biographical Studies; Elizaveta Polukhina. Chapter 7: Auto/Biographical Research and The Family; Aidan Seery and Karin Bacon. Section Three: Epistolary Lives: Fragments, Sensibility, Assemblages in Auto/Biographical Research; edited by Maria Tamboukou. Chapter 8: Letter-Writing and the Actual Course of Things: Doing the Business, Helping the World Go Round; Liz Stanley. Chapter 9: The Unforeseeable Narrative: Epistolary Lives in Nineteenth Century Iceland; Erla Hulda Halldórsdóttir. Chapter 10: Auto/Pathographies In Situ: 'Dying of Melancholy' in Nineteenth Century Greece; Dimitra Vassiliadou. Section Four: Geography Matters: Spatiality and Auto/Biography; edited by John Barker and Emma Wainwright. Chapter 11: "Trying to Keep Up": Intersections of Identity, Space, Time and Rhythm in Women Student Carer Auto/Biographical Accounts; Fin Cullen, John Barker and Pam Alldred. Chapter 12: Spatiality and Auto/Biographical Narratives of Encounter in Social Housing; Emma Wainwright, Elodie Marandet and Ellen McHugh. Chapter 13: “I Thought... I Saw... I Heard...”: The Ethical and Moral Tensions of Auto/Biographically Opportunistic Research in Public Spaces; Tracy Ann Hayes. Section Five: Madness, Dys-order and Autist/Biography: Auto/Biographical Challenges to Psychiatric Dominance; edited by Kay Inckle. Chapter 14: Autist/Biography; Alyssa Hillary. Chapter 15: Reaching Beyond Auto? A Polyvocal Representation of Recovery From “Eating Dys-order”; Bríd O’Farrell. Chapter 16: [R]evolving Towards Mad: Spinning Away from the Psy/Spy-Complex Through Auto/Biography; Phil Smith. Section Six: Prison Lives; edited by Dennis Smith. Chapter 17: Nelson Mandela: Courage and Conviction – The Making of a Leader; Dennis Smith. Chapter 18: The “Other” Prison of Antonio Gramsci and Giulia Schucht; Jeni Nicholson. Chapter 19: Bobby Sands: Prison and the Formation of a Leader; Denis O’Hearn. - Section Seven: Professional Lives; edited by Jenny Byrne. Chapter 20: Academic Lives in a Period of Transition in Higher Education: Bildung in Educational Auto/Biography; Irene Selway, Jenny Byrne and Anne Chappell. Chapter 21: Narratives of Early Career Teachers in a Changing Professional Landscape; Glenn Stone. Chapter 22: What Does it Mean to be a Young Professional Graduate Working in the Private Sector?; Jenny Byrne. Section Eight: 'Race' and Cultural Difference; edited by Geraldine Brown. Chapter 23: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t! Making Sense of the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Experience of UK Higher Education: One Person’s Story; Gurnam Singh. Chapter 24: Raging Against the Dying of the Light; Paul Grant. Chapter 25: Black Young Men: Problematisation, Humanisation and Effective Engagement; Carver Anderson. Section Nine: Social Justice and Disability: Voices From the Inside; by Chrissie Rogers. Chapter 26: Missing Data and Socio-Political Death: The Sociological Imagination Beyond the Crime; Chrissie Roger. Chapter 27: Co-Constructed Auto/Biographies in Dwarfism Mothering Research: Imagining Opportunities for Social Justice; Kelly-Mae Saville. Chapter 28: An Auto/Biographical Account of Managing Autism and a Hybrid Identity: 'Covering' for Eight Days Straight; Amy Simmons.

This book draws critical connections between teacher education or preparation and the field of comparative and international education (CIE) showing ways in which the two fields can inform and advance one another. The chapters consider how teacher education shapes and is shaped by CIE, particularly in an era of socio-cultural upheavals, politico-economic transformations and climate or health crises affecting the human and natural world. The question at the core of the book is: in what ways can comparative and international education support a rethinking of teacher education in the wake of the social movements for equity, justice and civil liberties with ramifications for educators around the world? It includes contributions from leading academics based in Argentina, Canada, China, Columbia, Finland, Grenada, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Spain, South Africa, Turkey and the USA. The chapters cover topics ranging from equity, social justice, and the sustainable development goals to country case-studies including teacher education in Myanmar and a comparative study of teacher preparation in South Korea and the USA.

This volume focuses on the place of biographical research in shaping social futures and its creative applications in the new unprecedented societal circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Written by experienced and early career biographical researchers, it demonstrates how biographical research responds to the new ‘social architecture’: theoretically, empirically and analytically.

Numerous historical and political processes and dynamics have led to the emergence of ethnic minority groups in Central and Eastern Europe, each with its own long history and identity. The breakdown of the Soviet regime, the establishment of new nation-states, and the Eastern enlargement of the European Union have raised new questions for these ethnic groups, questions regarding their feelings of belonging and the main elements of their identity. In contrast to the common assumption that ethnic identities have become prevalent having been suppressed for a long time, this book provides empirical evidence that ethnic minorities typically relate to both their ethnic identity and to the national identity of their country of residence. The contributions reveal that the development and maintenance of ethnic, national and European identities are linked to the socio-economic situation and possible benefits for individuals, their countries, or their specific ethnic minority group. The book also highlights that national and European politics may contribute to ethnic and European identification, particularly in the fields of minority rights (e.g. language rights, voting rights) and integration policies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Identities journal.