Auto/biography: projects and other activities

Scholarly peer-reviewed journal for qualitative research in the social sciences (ISSN 1211-5770) - I was its editor-in-chief since it was established in 1994 until 2008; in 2009-2016 I was member of the editorial team.

Currently the journal is published tri-annually in both paper and internet (online) versions (http://www.biograf.org). It features original papers, translations, exchanges, review essays, reports and other minor genres of academic writing.

Collective autobiographical project with participation of Josef Alan, Miroslav Disman (since 1993), Karel Holý, Jiří Kabele (since 1995), Jaroslav Kapr, Eva Stehlíková, Olga Šmídová.

A group research exercise in sociological autobiographies. The project was originally inspired by the preparation of a large-scale multidisciplinary research of the transformation of the social structure in Czechoslovakia that took place in 1991-92. However, it soon took shape of an independent and autonomous research project called SAMISEBE (an awkward translation into English would perhaps be: OURSELVES' SELVES). Within the project, a small group of Czech sociologists had been writing and analysing - step by step and within an interactive cooperative regime - their own autobiographical narratives. On the basis of this common background, each participant had been developing her/his own research topic and her/his own methodology. All the participants were interested, most of all, in various aspects of "ordinary life" under state socialism and after. At the end of 1992, we organized an international workshop on the project. Scholars form Slovakia, United States, Finland, United Kingdom and Hungary participated in the meeting. On the basis of the project, I edited a volume, which exists in both Czech and English versions: Our lives as database (Praha: Charles University Press, 2000) / Otevřená minulost (Praha: Charles University Press, 1999).