The Deconstructive Potential of Collective Biography Writing

Abstract

In this paper, I highlight the deconstructive potential of the collective biography writing (CBW) method, referring both to its selected theoretical assumptions and those elements of its research procedure which particularly favour sensitivity to dominant, normative discourses. Since the effectiveness of the method is determined by analytical practice, an important part of the article is devoted to recalling my own experience with its application. The use of “checkpoints” specific to the CBW method in the course of collective analytical work makes the relativity of dominant discourses more visible to the esearch team and thus also more suitable for examination and understanding. Therefore, a further inherent purpose of the collective writing procedure is to support the development of critical competences in research participants, which results in showing the method presented herein also as a method of learning critical thinking. As a context for investigating the “invisibility” of discourses and the discourse boundaries in which we are enclosed, I choose the phenomenon of cultural obviousness.

Keywords

• collective biography writing
• cultural obviousness
• critical thinking
• deconstruction