Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Research on the life course encompasses at least two overlapping but analytical distinct conceptual frameworks: A "biographical trajectory" framework that traces individual change over time, and a "social-structural" framework that focuses on the structural conditions regulating experience and opportunity over the life course. Social change has been a prominent theme in work from both of these perspectives. Ironically, however, in both cases social change is largely incidental to understanding the importance of social forces in shaping life course patterns. Therefore, life-course researchers may find conditions of stability as revealing as conditions of change, for understanding and specifying the role of social forces in constituting the life course.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Martin Ramírez (1895-1963) was a Mexican immigrant to the United States, who was committed to a California mental hospital six years after his arrival, in 1931. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, although the diagnosis is questionable for a number of reasons, and spent the rest of his life as a mental patient. He spent most of his time drawing, and much of his work was saved by a psychology professor who visited him regularly because of his interest in how mental illness is expressed in art. That work eventually ended up on the art market in the 1970s, where Ramírez was classified and marketed as an “outsider artist;” his work is now very well-known and his drawings have sold for as much as $150,000. Based on the extensive fieldwork, interviews, and archival research we conducted, we now have much detailed information about most periods of Ramírez’s life. Up until now, very little was known about the facts of Ramírez’s life, and some of what was accepted as true is actually inaccurate. Over time, a kind of mystery, often far-fetched, was built around his biography, and that mystery has been exploited by dealers, collectors, and critics in ways described recently by Gary Fine in his article ‘Crafting Authenticity: The Validation of Identity in Self-taught Art.’ In this paper, we explore how and why the various actors in the field of outsider art have constructed, mythologized, or ignored his biography, based on their particular interests. We then present an argument for using biography to facilitate an understanding of the narrative elements of Ramírez’s work., and present examples of how his life and the sociocultural and historical context in which he lived are reflected in his drawings.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, we analyze how the marital biography is affecting mortality in Germany today (N=12,484). We find support for temporal selection into marriage for both sexes, but the effect is stronger for men. In addition, protection through marriage results from long-term accumulation of survival advantages and from the attenuation of higher mortality risks that occur immediately after a transition in or out of a marriage. Women are more likely to keep survival advantages from previous marriages and to forget about survival disadvantages from divorces and widowhood.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: What tools in its discursive and practical cultural toolkit has the Chinese state used historically to inform its policies and practices towards overseas Chinese? How do contemporary practices of territorial state-deterritorialized society relations fit into the larger scheme of modern Chinese history? To answer these questions, I trace how changes in narrative and continuities in practice from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the present have shaped the Chinese state’s relationship with the overseas Chinese community. The first section of this paper consists of historical research, while the second analyzes current practice as portrayed in Chinese mass media. In this paper, I argue that the state’s current practices towards overseas Chinese are shaped by a discursive and practical repertoire. I find that nationalist narratives are powerful sculptors of practice even beyond their intended domain, exhibiting consequences beyond the borders of the territorial state. Examining enduring practices provides a fruitful supplement to studying narratives, accounting for practices that cannot be explained through narrative alone. Moreover, analysis of contemporary Chinese mass media, which serves as an official mouthpiece for the state, reveals how the state skillfully weaves personal biographies of overseas Chinese into the larger nationalist, public narrative.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In 1989, years after the majority of Israeli city dwellers, the members of Kibbutz Y celebrated the installation of telephones in their apartments. We trace the cultural biography of the telephone in Kibbutz Y, with special emphasis upon the practical and symbolic transition from public to private telephones, in order to discuss the role of deliberation in the adoption of new technologies. The biographical method permits us to discuss parallel developments in the technology, the kibbutz ideology, the society, and the interrelationships between them. The paper argues that even within a community where ideology is transparent such as the Kibbutz, contradictions and dilemmas inform users’ discourse.