Biography and Society

The ISA Research Committee 38 “Biography and Society” warmly invites interested researchers to take part in a low-threshold online workshop conceived as a space for open, supportive, and international exchange. The workshop is open to participants at all career stages and levels of qualification, and explicitly welcomes early-stage researchers as well as more established scholars.

The workshop aims to offer RC 38 members and other interested colleagues an opportunity to share and discuss ongoing, recently completed, or planned research projects, and to bring these into conversation with each other across national, institutional, and disciplinary contexts. Its primary goal is to create a collaborative forum in which emerging ideas, as well as conceptual and methodological questions in biographical research, can be explored.

We explicitly encourage a variety of presentation formats. Alongside conventional presentations, proposals for pre-organized or curated sessions are welcome, as are suggestions for roundtables or author-meets-critics formats. We see this workshop as an opportunity to experiment with formats that foster dialogue and mutual feedback.

There are no thematic restrictions beyond the requirement that a clear connection to biography or biographical research be evident in the abstract. Contributions will be brought together in thematically coherent sessions, with careful attention to geographical diversity and to a broad range of career stages. The final program and the allocation of session slots will therefore reflect the diversity of submissions received.

This online format is intended to lower some of the barriers that often hinder participation in ISA Congresses or ISA Forums, including high financial costs, extensive travel, visa constraints, and the challenges of balancing academic participation with family responsibilities or teaching commitments. It also creates space for discussing work that may still be in progress and would not yet meet the expectations of more formal conference settings.

We invite abstracts of approximately 300 words to be submitted by 30 June 2026. Please send your abstract to the RC 38 email address, which is also available for any questions or inquiries: isa-rc38(at)isa-sociology.org.

Instead of a participation fee, presenters who are not yet members are invited to join RC 38.

Membership fees are modest and tiered according to country and qualification status, ranging from USD 10 to USD 40 for a period of 4 years.

Call for Papers (PDF)