Test for MI site

1. Stories of and from solitude: examples
of sociological fiction as a way of
working within, besides and beyond the
academy
Gayle Letherby, Universities of Plymouth and Greenwich

2. Creative
Auto/
Biography
(sociological
fiction)
• I have been writing (sociological)
fiction (and memoir) for just over a
decade now. Following two significant
bereavements:
• Relevant (not least) here are:
- ‘biographical disruption’ (Bury 1982).
- ‘continuing bonds’ (e.g. Neimeyer).
• AND: ‘griefwork’; a social science
concept, where the work of grieving is
shared and negotiated between and
among grieving persons and
supportive others, rather than the
work done alone as in grief work, a
psychological concept (Davidson
2008, Letherby and Davidson 2015).
• My sociology has always been
auto/biographical and political and my
fiction and memoir writing is too:
• The notion of auto/biography is linked to
that of the ‘auto/biographical I’…. The use
of ‘I’ explicitly recognises that …
knowledge is contextual, situational, and
specific, and that it will differ
systematically according to the social
location (as a gendered, raced, classed,
sexualised person) of the particular
knowledge-producer (Stanley 1993: 49).
• When academics write about themselves,
but acknowledge the significance of
others in the story their work could be
labelled auto/biography (what some might
call autoethnography …). When writing
about others but recognising the
subjectivity of the biographer
auto/biography is more appropriate.
Writing and working auto/biographically
recognises the entanglement and
slippage … between self and other.
(Brennan & Letherby (2017: 157)

3. Creative
Auto/
Biography
(sociological
fiction)
• Some of the fiction I write is
explicit sociological fiction
(written specifically to generate
sociological knowledge), all of
it is informed by my
sociological self.
• Written from auto/biographical
data.
• Written as public/political
sociology in response to
perceived inequality and social
injustice.
• Concern for the emotional
wellbeing of others and by self-
care.
• For me this way of working, of
writing, of academic
storytelling, blurs the
boundaries of ‘fact’ and fiction
and moves between the
academic and the personal;
and is in all ways
auto/biographical
performance.
• . . . performance itself is a way
of knowing. This claim,
axiomatic for performers, rests
upon a faith in embodiment, in
the power of giving voice and
physicality to words, in the
body as a site of knowledge . .
. it insists upon a working
artists who engages in
aesthetic performances as a
methodological starting point.
(Pelias 2008:186)

4. Creative Auto/Biography (sociological fiction)
• Sociological fiction has, I believe, implications for the ways in which we
define, and attempt to enact, impact within, besides and beyond the
academy.
Whatever our chosen palette, the practice of understanding the
importance of our own creative engagement is a source of potential
change on its own, and a space where valuable insight can be found
through reflection and sharing. (Blum, 2017: online)
• A sociologist who is writing fiction may, purposefully or not, incorporate
perspectives and insight that are afforded by sociology. These texts may
also be analysed sociologically. Sociological labour may have (and likely
has) gone into the production of the work.
… in sociological fiction – sociology plus arts-based research methods –
… the writing itself is done to generate sociological knowledge. The
writing is not a later ‘writing up’ process but part of the method – an
important, central part of the method that becomes part
of doing sociology. (Watson, 2019: online)

5. Fred and Ginger

6. The woman who cleans in the nude (and
other secrets from Trelawny Lane)

7. References
• Blum, A. (2017) ‘Art and Politics: The Power of Creativity and Activism Across the Globe’, Huffington Post’
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/art-and-politicsthe-power_b_9511384?guccounter=1
• Brennan, M. and Letherby, G. (2017) ‘Auto/Biographical Approaches to Researching Death and Bereavement:
connections, continuums, contrasts’ Morality: Promoting the interdisciplinary study of death and dying, 22(2)
• Bury, M. (1982) ‘Chronic illness as biographical disruption’ Sociology of Health and Illness, 13
• Davidson, D. (2008) ‘A Technology of care: Caregiver response to perinatal loss’ Women’s Studies International Forum,
31(4)
• Letherby, G. (2020) ‘The Gift of Sharing: food provision during the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK’ Solidarity and Care,
The Sociological Review, The Gift of Sharing: Food Provision During the Covid-19 Lockdown in the UK • Solidarity and
Care
• Letherby, G. and Davidson, D. (2015) ‘Embodied Storytelling: loss and bereavement, creative practices and support’
Illness, Crisis and Loss 23:4
• Neimeyer, R. A. Baldwin, S. A. & Gillies, J. (2006). Continuing bonds and reconstructing meaning: Mitigating
complication in bereavement. Death Studies, 30(8)
• Pelias, R. (1999). Writing performance: Poeticizing the researcher’s body. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University
Press.
• Stanley, L. (1993) ‘On auto/biography in sociology’ Sociology 27(1)
• Warson, A. (2019) ‘Some thoughts on sociological fiction’ The Sociological Review Some Thoughts on ‘Sociological
Fiction’ – The Sociological Review