Fighting feeling : re-thinking biographical praxis

This article explores the processes and experiences that inform the making of a biographical text in an attempt to understand the effects of those experiences on research and writing, and the production of biographical knowledge more broadly. It takes as its starting point the idea that ‘doing biography’ is not purely an intellectual endeavour, as some critics would have it, but that it is also a deeply personal and affective one too. Yet, as I go on to argue, the way we turn experiences ‘in the field’ into knowledge on the page remains under-theorised, largely because of ongoing fears associated with stepping outside the contractual obligations of the form. As biographers, we are still unclear about how to turn implicit knowledge into external knowledge made. There is also uncertainty about how we should deal with the issue of ourselves as feeling/experiencing knowledge-makers. I suggest that for biographers interested in grappling with these challenges there is much to be learnt from ethnographic research methodologies, which have the potential to offer new ways of reflecting on the epistemological basis of biographical theory and practice, thereby expanding its field of significance.