Locating Lives: The Inaugural Conference for the IABA Asia-Pacific Chapter.
Was held: 1st-4th December 2015
Flinders University – City Campus, Adelaide, South Australia
Conference organisers
Associate Professor Kate Douglas (Flinders University) and Dr Kylie Cardell (Flinders University) on behalf of the Flinders University Life Narrative Research Group.
Keynote speakers:
Professor Craig Howes (The University of Hawai’i, Manoa) and
Professor Gillian Whitlock (The University of Queensland).
Benjamin Law – author of The Family Law.
IABA Asia-Pacific emerges from the central disciplinary association for auto/biography scholars—The International Auto/Biography Association (IABA). IABA was founded in 1999 as a multidisciplinary network that aims to deepen the cross-cultural understanding of self, identity and experience, and to carry on global dialogues about life writing/narrative. IABA Asia-Pacific aims to foster new region-specific conversations and to encourage regional participation in the global IABA conference. Our goal is to develop scholarly networks between life narrative scholars and practitioners in the Asia-Pacific region that support the circulation and publication of high-quality life narrative theory, practice, and pedagogy.
The focus of our inaugural conference was “Locating Lives in the Asia-Pacific-Australian Region”. Our theme, broadly envisaged, sought to explore the ways in which people in this region may represent, create, translate, mediate, interpret, record or research lives (theirs or the lives of others) for an intimate or wider public or publics. Are there distinct features of life narrative in Australia and the Asia-Pacific, and what are the common forms and preoccupations? What are the research interests of life narrative scholars in this region?
IABA Asia-Pacific 