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Volume I

Series Editor" Marcin Kafar

Scientific Committee of the Series

Arthur P. Bochner (Univeristy of South Florida)Carolyn Ellis (UniversiĘ of South Florida)

Marcin Kafar (Univeristy of Ł dź), )acek Piekarski (UniversiĘ of ŁÓdź)Danuta Urbaniak-Zając (UniversiĘ of Ł dź)

Andrzej P. Wejland pniversiĘ of Ł dź)

*

The 'Biographical Perspectives' book series is a meeting place forrepresentatives of the humanities and social sciences who situate their researchpractices in the auto/biographical paradigm horizon in its various guises.

The subsequent volumes will cover considerations on the theoretical,methodological and empirical aspects of auto/biographical research, as well as

systematic studies devoted to an issue little explored so far, namely scientificautofbiographies. The latter research area in particular shows a huge heuristicpotential. Located on the fringes of classic trends in the history and philosophy ofscience, sociology of knowledge and anthropology, it points to the weighty,though usually ignored or strongly marginalized personal, cultural, social, moraland axiological issues underlying the construction of the given domains ofknowledge.

The publishing initiative of 'Biographical Perspectives' is also conceived asa project aimed at supporting the broader idea of the'humanization' of science,which-in the belief of its originators-will contribute to consolidating thethought-social platform focused on creating the dialogic and autoformative space.

SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHIESBETWEEN THE'PROFESSIONAL' AND'NON-PROFESSIONAL'DIMENSIONS OF HUMAMSTIC EXPERIENCES

EDITED BY MARCIN KAFAR

ŁÓDŹ-KRAKÓW 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Marcin KAFAR, ArotLnd'Biographical Perspectiue{: An rntrotructiott ..:.......... ?

Chapter One: Andrzej Paweł WEJLAND, Horizon_Cona ersion_N arrrltion :

ldentity and otherness in the ScientificWorld of the Hun.Lcłnists .....'..''.'...... 21

Chapter Two: Marcin KAFAR, Biographical Epiplunies in the context ofLaying the Foundations of the Qualitatiue Tłtought Collectiue ...................... 43

Chapter Three: Michał WROBLEWSKI, Liuing in Relatiotts:Biograpliles ofScientists in the Context of the Actor Netruo* Theory ..........................,....... 75

Chap'ter Four: Ma gdalena MATYSEK-IMIELIŃ SKA, Tlilnkht g-Commitment-Assitnilation: Biographical Themes in the S ociology ofZygmunt Baumąn ....'.' 103

Chapter Five: Marcin KAFAR, Mictlel Foucąult ąs ą Heterotopia ......''..'.'....'..121

Chapter Six; Marcin M. BOGUSŁAWSKI, Monika MODRZEJEWSKA-SWIGULSKA,'D o' Professionąl' and' N on-P rofessionąl, D imensiot Ls ofBiography Really Exist? Deliberątions Based upon The AutobiograplricalNovel by Michał Głowiilski: AReflectiottWrittenfor Two Voiceś ,.,.'..,.',,'.''..'..tzs

Chapter seven: Marta SONGIN-MOKRZAN, Ethnographic Experience nndthe Politics of Situatedness ................, ,.........,......1165

Chapter Eight: Aneta OSTASZEWSKA, Froru tlrc point of Vieru ofąWomrłn:AutobiographicaIContextofFeministStudies

Chapter Nine: Łukasz M. DoMINIAK, Biographical Selfłnonitoringąs ą Condition of Reflexiue Sociology and Antltopology:.TotuardsbrącticąlEpisten'Lology of Social Sciences ......197

Notes on Contributors ................... ..... 20S

AROUND' BIOGRAPHICAL PERSPECTIVES'

AN INTRODUCTION

by Marcin Kafar

Institutional Background of the Project

Scientific Biographies: Betr.ueen tlrc'Professional' and'Non-professional' Dinen-sions of Humanistic Experiences is the first book in the series 'BiographicalPerspectives' developed for the Englishłanguage release. We wish thisseries to be treated as a global forum for the exchange of ideas meant forresearchers who are willing to assign themselves to the auto/biographicalthought collective in its various forms. 'Biographical perspectives' is notonly a publishing venture in the strict sense, but also and perhaps aboveall, a socio-scientific initiative aimed at promoting the widely understoodconcept of science 'humanization'with the intention of creating an auto-formative and dialogical space.

Such was the assumption underlying the organization, in October2009, of the first'biographical encounter.'It was made,possible by a pro-ject Centrum Upowszechniania Innowacji w Edukacjil (CUIwE), imple-mented at that time by the Department of Educational Studies-one ofthe units constituting the Faculty of Educationai Sciences (University ofŁ dŹ). The main theme of the said biographical colloquium (held in Ł dŹ,at the university campus) became scienti{ic biographies seen through theprism of the experiences of young academics rising from disciplines suchas pedagogy, history, cultural anthropology, sociology, theater studies,

1 Center for Dissemination of Innovation in Education

Marcin KAFAR

and philosophy. Importantly, our biographical seminar resulted in a col-lection of texts t|tled W obliczu nowych rłyzwa : Dylematy mtodej kadry aka-demickiej (In the Face of New Challenges: Dilemmcts of the Young Faculty (Kafar& Kulesza,2010)).

Eighteen months later, in the same place, again appeared an interdisci-plinary group of researchers. This time we discussed an important issue ofthe relationship between the 'professional' and 'non-professional' sphereof the practice of the humanities. As the thought keystone we chose multi-dimensional associations emerging at the border of biographical personalexperience and academic experience. The tangible effect of this confer-ence was Volume I of the series'Perspektywy Biograficzne' published inPolish' BiogrĘie nąukowe: Perspektywa transdyscyplinarna (Scientific Biogra-phies: ATransdisciplinary Perspectizte) (Kafar,2011). We decided to treat thismonograph, since it was highly appreciated in official reviews and thefeedback of the academic circles, as a base to develop a publication in-tended for the supralocal recipients. This task was successfully finalizedtwo years later by completing the work on the book presented here.

The year 2012 brought another significant event in the form of a con-ference'Autobiography-Biography-Narration: Biographical Perspectivesin Research Practice.' The preparation of the content o{ the conferencewas participated by the representatives of the University of Ł dź (includ-ing Jacek Piekarski and Danuta Urbariak-Zając (from the Department ofEducational Studies) and Andrzej P. Wejland (lnsitute of Ethnology andCultural Anthropology)) as well as globally recognizable scholars, such asCarolyn Ellis and Arthur P. Bochner, both affiliated at the Department ofCommunication (University of South Florida)-a leading academic centerin the United States, fuliy focused on qualitative research.2 The participantsof the conference (over 100 persons) explored two main areas, which makeessential reference planes for building up theories, drafting methodologicalfields, conducting analyses, making interpretations, and-last but not least-composing stories taking their origin in auto/biographical motifs. The firstof these areas comprised the space of research practices applied under thehumanities and social sciences, and more specifically those territories withinthem, which a) are distinguished by the narrated or written auto/biogra-phies of the Other; b) concern*increasingly exposed in recent times andfound especially in the layer of methodological research practices-the auto/reflexivity theme, in the extreme form manifested by a researcher referringto himself/herself as the study area (today researcher became a subject,

2 Department of Communication is the only institution in the United States implement-ing a curriculum entirely subordinated to the qualitative paradigm (source: Autoetltnog-rnpĘ courseled by Carolyn Ellis, academic year 20L0-20L1).

Around' Bio graphical P erspectiu es'

as we would say paraphrasing a passage from a well-known manifesto (cf.Ellis & Bochner, 2000)). To characterize the second of these areas, the mostappropriate expression seems to be'scientific auto/biographies.' This littleexplored issue (excluding the paths of popular science and those relatedto them) shows a huge heuristic potential. Located on the fringes of clas-sic trends in the history of science, sociology of knowledge, anthropologyand philosophy it points to the weighty, though usually ignored or stronglymarginalized personal, cultural, social, moral and axiological issues under-lying the construction of the given domains of knowledge.

(ź'Biographical Perspectives,' in the opinion expressed fuom the position ofthe initiator of this project, had a chance to appear and then develop into itspresent form thanks to several circumstances that combine bipartite syner-gistic values. These are, on the one hand, specific biographical experiences(both 'professional' and 'non-professional') of a certain group of researchers,and on the other hand, a particular institutional climate, favorable for mani-festing these experiences in the formula provided for in academic practice.'lA/hat I mean here is fairly well illushated by the situation in which I foundmyself some time ago in Kazimierz upon the Vistula River, where a na-tionwide Transdisciplinary Qualitative Research Seminar was held. It wasthere that one of my newly met colleagues made an observation that theUniversity of Ł dź is, in his view, the Mecca of qualitative research'3 Forsomeone who, Iike me, has led his whole academic li{e at the Universitvof Łodź such observation was inh'igutng. It reminded me of tlre old an_thropological truth-translated into the reality of scientific worlds and wellexposed by Robert K. Merton (1972)-stating that an "outsider" sees morethan an "insider." Perhaps, I wondered, a colleague working on a daily ba-sis at another academic center noticed something.I, remaining in the eye ofthe 'cyclone' of qualitative way of practicing science, was not in a pojitionto see? Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the distinguishing featueof the UniversiĘ of Ł dź, and more precisely_several departments of thisinstitution cooperating in the interpersonal dimension-is in fact its open-ness to theoretical and methodological qualitative solutions. In this case,the faculty potential assisted by properly selected organizational tools leadsto the emergence of a number of initiatives that-taken together-make forexternal observers a clear, multidisciplinary/transdisciplinary design. Forexample, at the Faculty of Economics and Sociology there is a very active

3 Th" remark was made by Sławomir Krzychała, assistant professol at the University ofLower Silesia in Wrocław. The Transdisciplinary Qualitative Research Seminar washeld in June 2012.

11,10 Mmcin KAFAR

$oup of young researchers (including Piotlk Chomczyriski, DominikaByczkowska, Anna Kacperczyk, Łukasz T. Marcjniak, Jakub Niedbalski'Iźabela Slęzak-Niedbalsta and Magdalena Wojciechowska), who, thanksto continuous enthusiasm and sustained determination enhanced by the

stuong support of their mentor, professor Ktzysztof Konecki, were abie tocreate in a relatively short time, a renowned bilingual magazine with aninternationai reach, Przegląd Socjologii |akościowej/Qualitatiae Sociology Re-

aiew. The same group of people organized The First Qualitative ResearchSymposium (Ł dż,10-12 June 2013). PSJ/QSR is also closely related to the

Faculty of Educational Sciences, whose representatives (including DanutaUrbaniak-Zając, Marcin Kafar) sit on the Board of Reviewers of the journaiand provide reciprocal conceptual help in the implementation of individualprojects. The qualitative dimension of the activities undertaken within the

Department of Educational sciences comprises as well the first handbook ofqualitative research in the field of Polish pedagogy prepared by Jacek Pie-karski ancl Danuta Urbaniak-Zając (cf. Piekarski & Urbaniak-Zając,2003).

Qualitative research falls also within the domain of the Facuity of Philoso-phy and History of the Univers|ty ofŁ dź, and especially of the Institute ofEthnology and Cultural Anthropology. Since the early nineties of the lastcentury (the period of implementation of recent trends in the current anthro-pology and ethnology into syllabi valid in Poland), this facility has beenfocusing on research referring only to a small extent to classic (positivist)theoretical and methodological approaches, which is clearly revealed evenin the undergraduate, graduate and cloctoral theses of its graduates.

(źA kind of 'social glue' essential for scientific communlties to last are definedbiographical and institutional traits. They can be distinguished also in rela-tion to the project'Biographical Perspectives.' Among such traits I wouldenumerate intergenerational and interdisciplinary continuiĘ, which in thiscontext seems extraordinary as it is lined with interdepartmental 'excur-sions' of the researchers cultivating long-term relationships. Exemplifica-tions of mechanisms of similar provenance emerge from the biographicalbackground of Andrzej P. Wejland and Jacek Piekarski, in corurection withmy own scientific biography. Fate had it that when in 2008 I completed myPh.D. work at the Faculty of Philosophy and History I was offered a job

at the Faculty of Educational Sciences. The institution that wanted to hirea cuitural anthropologist (my Ph.D. thesis was rooted in that field), wasthe Department of Educational Studies-a unit managed by professor JacekPiekarski, a widely known in Poland methodologist and theorist of socialpedagogy" in my scientific portfolio, in addition to the standard in{ormation

Ar o ułt d' B io gr aphic aI P er sp e c tia es'

presenting my persoĄ I included a certain text, which, coincidentally, wasdevoted to the topic of scientific biography. The article O przeton e autoetno-grĘicznynt w humanistyce (on Autoethnograhic Shift in the Humanifies) (Kafar,20L0) arouse such vivid interest in my future boss that he stated during thejob interview that, to use the direct quote, "he actually could give footnotesto it." As it turned out, Jacek Piekarski, which I previously had not knownabout, breaking the patterns of traditional thinking about the research pro-cess, wrote a piece close also to my intuitions entitled (sicl) O drugoplnnozoychwąrunkach poprawt1ości badawczej w pedagogice: Perspektywa biografii (otl theBackground Conditions ofResearch Correctness in Pedagogy: Biograph'Ll Perspec-floe) (Piekarski,2006). \Ąhat is more, it also appeared that professor Piekar-ski many years before had been a student of my intellectual mentor, profes-sor Andrzej P. Wejland. Both formerly expiored the ins and outs of 'hard'sociology, to then go, respectively, toward the critical mainstream of anthro-pology of knowledge (Piekarski) and antfuopology marked by 'humanistic'traits (anthropology putting rnan in the spotlight-Wejland). The standpointof 'Perspektywy Biograficzne/ gave us all a chance of {ruitful cooperationwithin the same field, in the space'between' (separate departments, disci-plines, currents of thought, etc.).

Auto/Biographical Sources of the Project

Trying to determine the initial point of my biographical interests, I cast mymind back to mid-1990s. At that time, earning my first stripes in Ethnologyand Anthropology (preparing to obtain a Master's clegree), I came across(somewhat accidentally) Victor Turner's theory of liminality. This conceptwas then almost entirely unknown in Poland. It had been n'rentioned bya few anthropological theoreticians (cf. Burszta.& Buchowski, 1992), selec-tively used by folklorists and ethnologists receptive to innovative interpre-tive solutions (cf. Wasilewski, 1989; Sulima, 1995), and only sporadicallyrecognized by sociologists (cf . Czyżewskl, 199Ą. The focus was predomi_nantly put on the content of the works considered classic: The Ritual Process:Structure and Anti-Structure (1969) and, Dranlas, Fielrls, anLd Mcta7iltors: Sytłt-bolic Action in Hunnn Society (1978).In my case, the dialogue r,r,ith Turnertook on a slightly different form. Indeed, the eruclite and conceptually catchydiscoveries of the Scottish thinker were very useful for scientific writingabout marginalization of people suf{ering from AIDS, about Polish naivepainter Nikifor Krynicki as a cultural outsider, ot Techno Culture-tnarkedby 'tlrreshold' attributes (l dedicated my Master's thesis, entitled Tematy,kt rych mi nie odrądzano: szkice z antropologii rłsp tczesności (Tlte Topics I wnsnot Discouraged from: Sketches from Current Antfuopology (Ł dź, 1997)), to

1,2 Marcin KAFAR

the above-mentioned topics), but at the same time those discoveries weresomething more. Looking back, I would use phrases iike the'retrospectivemethod,' 'treating the researcher as an object of a study,' 'observing one-self and tooking at one's reflection in oneself,' 'I-the anthropologist as TheOther,' etc., to describe what I attempted to do. In short, as a maturing an-thropologist, I undertook an arduous and precarious task of introducinginto academic discourse a strongly subjective content, revealed at differentlevels of experience (both pre- and intratextual). The aim of this effort wasto unveil the previously hidden'anthropological'a dimension of antfuopol-ogy; in other words, I desired to restore a human face to the science concern-ing man. In rzy anthropology, I strived to deai with mechanisms underlyingthe functioning of social worlds, but I wanted even more to use this scienceto reach people of 'flesh and blood.'

Anthropology with a human face (I was strongly encouraged by -ysupervisor-professor Andrzej P. Wejland to practice this kind of reflection)seemed to me oqually alluring and tricky. Without conceptual models athand, I was forced to act to a large extent intuitively. I was guided by fore-bodings and seized every opportunity to confirm their accuracy. I experi-enced one of my enlightenments while reading the Foreword to the AidineEdition of The RituąI Process. Prepared by Roger D. Abrahams it pointed out,inter alia, Turner's acting skills. Abrahams (1995,p. v) calls the creator of thetheory of liminality a " star performer," who during his lectures impeison-ated with equal ease a sage, a master of ceremonies or a clown: "Espousingideas that made newcomers expect a charismatic presentation, [Turner] in-sistently played the joker or the clown when he felt that his self-presentationwas being taken too seriously. An academic showmarl then-but one whohad the ability to draw strong friendship from equaily complicated peoplewithout insisting on being treated as a prophet or a star. He was so enter-tained, himself, by ideas arising from the actualities of group experiences,that he would rather play as master of the revels than as guru." The sameauthor seeks the origin-and this is the key issue here-of the unique person-ality of the founder of symbolic anthropology in the creative atmosphere ofTurner's family home. This iliuminating observation5 kiggered in my mind

The words'antfuopological' and 'humanistic' in the discourse created by me gain iden-tical tone; both-originating from Greek (anthropos) and Latin (homo)_poinŁ to the liv-ing man who cast into the world is lorced to find himself in the midst of things andother humans.

Interestingly, this observation is confirmed by the opinion of Turner himsel{, who, inthe Introduction Ło From Ritual to Theatre, pub1ished posthumously, distinctly pointsto Ć1ose coru1ections between his scientific discoveries arrd his childhood experience.These connections are well-illustrated by the autobiographical passages devoted to,

A roun d' B iographi tal Pe rspec tiues

a chain of associations worth noticing here. I realized that Turner fascinatedby theatre, Turner taking the role of a self-appointed actor, Turner dealingwith exegesis of rituals, Turner involved in social dramas, and Turner de-scribing those dramas in a scientific manner make up the same, inwardlyindir:isible figure. The experienced epiphany of 'life as a unity'6 gained con-siderable importance. It allowed me to extract from Turner's thought thetone that greatly explains the choice of peculiar research paths followed byVictor Witter, but it also became a valuabie impulse to address the problemof the place of a personal 'I' in science; the 'l' that manilests itself and ispossible to be grasped in the variety of forms of biographism and autobi-ographism.

Scientific Auto/Biographies as an Emerging Field of Interest

"Why are we talking? Is it because a thinking being has something to say?But why would it utter that? Why is it not enough for it to think what itthinks? Does it not say what it thinks just because it goes beyond what isenough for this being and because language carries this profound move-ment?" reasonably asks Emmauel L vinas (2008, p. 252). Undoubtediy,the discourses begin to germinate and proliferate in times of our gainingthe awareness about the'lack' of something. Auto/biographical discourse

13

e.g. the birth of the anthropological imagination (reportedly awakened by a magnifi-cent view of the sea and sharpened by the smell of pine trees in New Forest) or tothe source of specific approach to social dramas (set in emotional substraturn-handeddown to victor by his mother (acknowledged actress and a founder of the NationalTheake of Scotland), and analytical substratum-instilled by his father (an engineer byprofession). In The Human Seriousness of Play Turner (198Ż, p' 9) writes, ',My trainingfor the fieldwork roused the scientist in me-the paternal heritage. My field experiencerevitalized the maternal gift of theatre. I compromis d by inventing a unit of descrip-tion and analysis which 1 called 'social drama.' [. ..] For the scientist in me, such socialdramas revealed the'taxonomic'relations among actors (their kinship ties, structuralpositions, social class, political status, and so forth), and their contemporary bonds andoppositions of interest and friendship, their personal network ties, and in{ormal rela-tionships. For the artist in me, the drama revealed individual character, personal style,rhetorical skill, moral and aesthetic differences, and choices proffered and made." Fur-ther on he_says, "Perhaps if I had not had early exposure to theatre-my first clearmemory of performance was Sir Frank Benson's version of The Tentpest when I wasfive years old-I would not have been alerted to the 'theatrical' poteniial of social lile,especially in such coherent communities as African villages. But no one could fail tonote the analogy, indeed the homology, between those sequences of supposedly,spon-taneous' events which macle {u1ly eviderrt the tension existing in those villug"'' o'-'ł th"characteristic'processual form' of Western drama, from Aristotle onwards, or Westernepic and saga, albeit on limited or miniature scale" (ibid.).

6 To paruphrase the rł,ording used by Anclrzej P. Wejtand (cf. Kafar, 2011, p' 202).

1.4 Marcin KAFAR

in the proposed Scenario is then1er ąnąlo4iaffi to other emerging dis-courses-an effect of feeling the lack of something. But the lack of what?

Tracking auto/biographical themes in Turner and commentators of hisworks (cf. Deflem, 1991,;E. Turner, 1985) gradually affirmed me in the con-viction that the correlations between the experience of an indiz:iduąl and the

plane of Imowledge construction ate relevant. At the same time, what I foundpuzzlingwasthe persistent tendency of ignoring or belittling the role of suchrelationships in cases where they appeared to be all too clear. In Turner'swork it is possible to extract both the text fields of open looking for thesources of his own cognitive exploration and passages in which he se-cretly smuggled personally important themes into the official scientisticworks.T Presumably, therefore, the author of Structure and Anti-Structureshould say what he thought (in the Lćvinas-like sense), but for some reasonit did not happen. Just like it did not happen in Michel Foucauit (he didnot manage to realize the project "hermeneutics of the subject," the core ofwhich was to be the idea of caring for oneself derived from Plato),8 ClaudeL vi-Strauss (who wrote The 5ąd Tropics in a moment of abandoning thepursuit of an academic career),e Emile Durkheim (treating his flagship workSuicide: A Study in Sociology in terms of an additional autobiographical

8

9

The singularity of Turner as a researcher cultivating a kind of a'crypto-autobio!1aphy'has been linked to his conversion to Catholicism. Viewed tfuough the prism of thebiography, the essays such as Rellgiołs Paradigm and Political Action: Thomas Becket atthe Cotmcil of Northampton (Turner, 1978), ot Experience and Performance: Towards a NewProcessual Anthropology (Y.Tutner, 1985), can lead to as much surprising as radical pro-posals. A good example of the latter are the following conclusions drawn by MathewDeflem (1991, p. 19): "It seems that for Turner, as a pious Catholic, communitas inhis later works became more a matter of faith than fact, and that he wanted to seecornmunitas and religion everywhere leading to the day when, as Turner's former col-laborator Richard Schechner explained, 'each individuai will love his/her neighbor ashim/herself, and when abused, will be able to turn the other cheek.' Turner's own re-ligious experiences even led him to search for psychological basis of communitas andreligion in the structure of the human brain. Thus, there was a shift in Tumer's workfrom anthropological analysis serrcu stricto to philosophical belief, to an attempt to lookfor a new synthesis'not mainly between two scientific viewpoints [anthropology andphysiology], but between science and faith."'

Cf. Eribon (2005, p. 399).

Reading Tlrc SadTropics with a biographical sense was attempted by a Polish anthro-pologist, Waldemar Kuligowski. He writes, among other things, "The apostasy of thework of L vi-Strauss, its'truth,' is distinctly marked by the shallows of the biography.They gave the ultimate tone to his literary heresy, they clothed the rebellion in the robesof an escape from the positivist models to wide horizons of the possibiliĘ to choosestyle and find the formula that will be most suitable for one's own intentions" (Kuli-gowski, 2001, pp. 39-40)"

A r oun d' B io g r apl'tical P er sp e ctizt e s 15

utterance)1o and Bronisław Malinowski (rightly feeling on the oppositesides of the diaries (!) that ar autobiography can be transformed intoa validmethod of ethnographic research),1l to name just a few of the iong list ofresearchers'encrypting' themselves in their scientific output.

- Thus,'Biographical Perspectives'face a very challenging task of arous-ing previously'muted'voices; by the interpreiation of the past events wewant to explore the subcutaneous meanings of texts and to strive to showthat science is not płacticed by beings abstłacted from the world, but liv-ing persona-people situated culturally and socially. within such horizon,we will try to implement an integrated program for extracting the,in-depthstream' of thought, the thought that can be most adequately merged bya metaphor of the rhizonte. This metaphor probably capiures"best tlie seedstatus of the idea "to be hollowed," " tobe deepened,', tto

be tested,,, whileailowing us escape from the tyranny of geneial passwords, flattening thetraditional scientific discourse (which was convincingly suggested by"ca-brielMarcel (1952) inhis Metaphysical|ournal;cf. also,Ł vini",19av,p.t+1'

The first attempt we make is tied around the phrase,*professional> and.non-professional" dimensions of humanistic experiences., The wording'professional' and 'non-professional' is taken from the theory and method*-ology of social pedagogy coined by Jacek piekarski (2009). As the editorof the volume, I have decided to make them cent.al to our discussion ofconcepts, since they reflect well the weighty aspect of the tension appearingat the junction of the private sphere of our life ind the scientific on". tttut".olg:pjt pro-vo.ke us to pose questions about the relationships between sci-enti{ic knowledge and the worldview of a specific researchei, the system ofvalu-es professed by him/her, the field of individual experiences or personalpredispositions. Personal experience of each of us ('non-professional'partof .our-biography) continuously-<onsciously or unconsciously-gets im_printed in everything that is located in the area of'professional'"actions;fuom the choice of research areas to the ways of their theoretical and method-ological conceptualization. The process oi drawing from the 'professional'experience (scientific, research) affects the 'exha-professional; life, and sowe often deal with a sort of inverse feedback sitłation transforming me-researcher as a human being with all the resulting consequences.

Speaking from the position of the socio1ogist of knowledge, Łukasz Dorniniak (2008)presents an excellent analysis of suicide from the perspective of Durkheim's auto/biography.

The theme of Malinowski creating the foundations of autobiography as etl'rographycan be found in the monumental work of Michael w. young Lialiiouski: otlyssTy if ahAnthrop.ologist,'1'884-1920 (2004; cf. particularly Melbot'Lrne tłlaladies). To reaj *o." o,.the analysis of the Trobriand diaries in terrns of a clialogue between the public ,I, withthe private'I' cf. Kafar (2010).

11

1.6 Marcin KAFAR

From the pages of the presented book we learn how complex, difficultto predict, and simply interesting can be the fate of thoughts, entangledactivities and people'involved' in them.

(źThe way to read a work is influenced by various factors. Our texts pre-pared for their publication in English have undergone a gradual metamor-phosis, slowly gaining the color they did not have in the original Polishversion. The translation process always poses a considerable riski transla-tion may weil'upli{t' a text or'choke' it. The texts that make up ScientificBiograplies, in my opinion, belong to the first o{ these categories. In spite ofthe changes that have been introduced into them, they still remain faith{ulto the authors who see them as their ownwords, despite the fact that theseare the words uttered in a language'foreign' to them.

An English-speaking reader, sooner or later, will probably realize thatthe work has been translated. This can be seen for instance in the bibliog-raphy, in which there have been preserved titles of works in the originallanguage editions (mainly Polistu but also, in some cases, French, Russianand German). The same literature items appearing in the main parts o{ each

chapter have been translated where it seemed necessary. Thjs has beendone on purpose in order to maintain the transparency of the argument. Atthe same time-assuming the specific competencies of potential readers ofthe book-we have tried to stick to the consistent use of EnglishJanguagesources of citations and regular bibliographic references' The whole bookhas been standardized also in terms of inverted conunas; we have usedtwo types of quotation marks, single one for words and phrases that do notcome directly from other authors, double one-in all other cases.

(ts

This monograph wouid probably have not come into being without thesupport I have received from many people. Firstly, it seems appropriateto thank the Authors who yielded to my persuasions and spent their pre-cious time working on their input into this publication even in momentsof my, sometimes maybe a bit exaggerated, editorial scrupulosity. Specialthanks go to Michał Rydlewski for his friendly support and many hoursof discussions about'science' and 'life.' My deep gratitude dating backfor more than a decade goes to Professor Andrzej P. Wejland who hascontinued to approach my scientific-biographical ideas with patience andacademic professionalism. I would also like to thank Professor Jacek Pie-karski for his thorough understanding of my autobiographical texts andstrong institutlonal support I enjoy working at the Department o{ Edu-cational Studies of the University of Ł dź. My gratitude in this matter

Around' Biographical Per spectiaes

also goes to Professor Danuta Urbaniak-Zając, the present Dean of tl'reFaculty of Educational Sciences, for her trust in me during the phase oftransforming this project into a supralocal undertaking. I would also liketo thank Professor Crzegorz Michalski, the former Dean of the Faculty ofEducational Sciences, whose supportive attitude has made it possible forthe initial effects of the research on biographical perspectives to be suc-cessfully translated into the reality of the text. I thank Professors CarolynEllis and Arthur P. Bochner for profound talks and gestures expandingmy auto/biographical self-awareness as well as intellectual and organiza-tionai commitment to our project. The rnornentum taken on by the Englishedition of Scientific Biographies has also been greatly facilitated by TomaszWłodarczyk (the Director of the University of ŁÓdŹ Press whose visionaryidea enabled this monograph to exist abroad), Magdalena Machcinska-Szczepaniak (translating the Polish texts with great language expertiseand poetic sensitivity), and also Agnieszka Oktiriska (taking care, withbrilliant artistic touch, of the graphic design of the publication); these per-sons deserve special praise for their work, whose quality goes far beyondour formal commitment. Finally, special thanks go to Marta Kozłowskafor her intellectual contribution in refining my scientific thoughts and forher'forbearing understanding' that she has granted me as the one mostintensely experiencing on a daily basis what it means to deal with some-one who constantly travels between'professional' and'non-professional,dimension of the humanities.

Wodzimierz r.u -Polanlca / Ł dźOctober 201.3

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