Auto/biographical writing and Greek-Australian historiography

Abstract

This paper outlines a methodology for 'auto/biographical' life-history writing and argues for its merits based on a particular case study. In the present context 'auto/ biographical life writing' refers to life writing that is produced collaboratively by the participants, the researchers and research subjects, who are respectively positioned as writers/editors and narrators. We will propose an account of the dialogical structure that informs this inter-subjective interaction as developed in our collaboration with one Greek-Australian political activist. In our collaboration with George Gotsis on his auto/biography we have been taking what we call an ontological approach, in the sense of addressing the conditions of being in a collaborative researcher–researched relationship. We present the main features of this approach and discuss its merits and connection with our Greek-Australian historiography more broadly.