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Most offender narrative being studied has been in oral forms, produced in the reciprocal process of researcher-(ex) offender interviews. This chapter offers an introduction to a variation of offender narrative study within the prison and rehabilitation context: the narrative of written autobiography. Since the early 1940s, Chinese reform institutions have required written autobiographies from new admitters, provided with clear presubscripted guidelines of instructions as well as postcensorship. For this chapter, we trace back and analyse this model based on 28 prisoners' autobiographies in mainland China between 2007 and 2009, as well as archive documents in different historical periods. We have found that the mandatory offender autobiographies are highly functional writings with clear requirements that embody the existing power structure. We have also found considerable commonality with findings in Western contexts on the presence and problems of narrative compliance in rehabilitation. We argue that narrative criminology should further engage in understanding the practice of narrative censorship and co-authorship in criminal justice processes, as it takes on different forms in different historical–social contexts.

As more and more people decide to commit their lives to print, autobiographies constitute a significant resource to explore stories of harm, violence and crime. Published autobiography, however, presents a unique form of storytelling, unavoidably entailing the accumulation and (re)telling of a mass of stories; about oneself, others, contexts and cultures. Relatedly, paratexts – or the elements that surround the central text, such as covers, introductions and prologues – demonstrate how these texts are both individually and collectively shaped. Taking the co-constructed nature of all narratives, including self-narratives, as its starting point, this chapter seeks to demonstrate how terrorists who have authored autobiographies understand the world and their actions within it. In doing so, this chapter provides a practical demonstration of how insight derived from literary criticism can profitably be brought to bear in systematically breaking down and analysing an autobiography – that of a notable American jihadist, Omar Hammami – including its paratextual elements. In particular, I argue that considerations of genre, the inclusion of different types of events and stories collected from others all provide valuable strategies for the ‘doing’ of narrative criminology using autobiographies.

For geographers doing qualitative research, autobiographical narratives offer a discrete avenue into life experiences, everyday lived geographies, and intimate connections between places and identities. Yet these valuable sources remain mostly untapped by geographers and largely unconsidered in methodological treatises. This article seeks to elicit the benefits of using autobiographical data, especially with regard to stigmatised sexual minorities in Western societies. Qualitative research among gay men, lesbians and bisexuals (GLB) is sometimes difficult; due to the ongoing marginalisation experienced by sexual minorities in contemporary Western societies, subjects are often difficult to locate and reticent to participate in research. But autobiographical writing has a long history in Western GLB subcultures, and offers an unobtrusive means to explore the interpenetration of stigmatised sexuality and space, of GLB identity and place. A keen awareness of the power of geography of spaces of concealment, resistance, connection, emergence and affirmation underpins the content and form of GLB autobiographical writing. I demonstrate this in part through the example of my own research into gay male spatiality in Australia. At the same time we need to be aware of the generic limitations of autobiographies. Nevertheless, this article calls for wider attention to autobiographical sources, especially for geographical research into marginalised groups.

Arguably, how psychohistorians treat entrepreneur life-writing interiorizes the autobiographer’s self, thereby limiting the extent to which self can be accessed by researchers. By advocating a different approach, based on socio-narratology, this paper provides insight into how entrepreneurs in both the distant and recent past construct narrative identities – the textual corollary of “storied selves” – within their autobiographies.

The object of analysis is the failed entrepreneur autobiography, straddling two sub-genres – “projective” and “confessional” – which both serve to rehabilitate the author.

Narratological analysis of Nick Leeson’s Rogue Trader autobiography reveals how the author deftly draws upon the culturally recognizable trope of the “rogue as trickster” and “rogue as critic” to contextualize his deceptive and illegal activities, before signaling his desire for rehabilitation by exiting banking and futures trading – thereby enacting the “rogue as family man”.

The application of a narratological methodology opens up new avenues for understanding the interplay between Western cultural institutions, entrepreneur selves, and autobiographical writing.

This paper shows that narratology provides a new methodological window through which management historians can view entrepreneur autobiographies.

We examine the extent to which female politicians highlight their status as women by identifying with women as a group and using female roles and experiences to describe themselves. Based on a qualitative content analysis of female members’ congressional web pages, we find that sex-group identification and gender roles are selectively used in discussions of their personal lives, their paths to Congress, and their experiences within Congress. Variation among the female politicians suggests they are responding to a range of normative gender beliefs among the electorate. There is also evidence that some of the women use online forms of communication to change the discourse about women in politics.

This is a two-voice autoethnographic dialogue about Rousseau's Confessions and their relevance for the contemporary autoethnograpy. The paper examines the possibility that Rousseau was not only the creator of modern autobiography but also a forerunner of autoethnography. Many features of the Rousseau's masterpiece are analyzed and systematically compared to our contemporary autoethnographic sensibility: the purposes which brought him to write an outstandingly detailed description of his life; the fact that he acknowledges autobiography as the only source of true knowledge; his obsession for sincerity and his strong will to disclose all the truth about his own life to his readers (included the dreadful things that he did); the authority that he assigned to the readers in deciding about the truthfulness of his tale; his concern for the ethical issues and the care of the others; and the therapeutic value that he recognized to the practice of writing about themselves. In the end, Jean-Jacques was not only extraordinarily able to use his emotions to analyze human nature, but also he was a radical autobiographer at the limits of intransigence. His considerations on the value of autobiography can help us greatly to legitimize contemporary autoethnographic practice.

Leadership theories have moved from viewing leadership as an innate trait, towards models that recognise leadership as a social construction. Alongside this theorisation, gender and leadership remain of considerable interest, particularly given the under-representation of women in leadership positions. Methodological approaches to understanding leadership have begun to embrace innovative methods, such as historical analyses. This paper aims to understand how high profile women leaders construct a gendered leadership identity, with particular reference to authentic leadership.

Thematic analysis of autobiographies, a form of identity work, of four women leaders from business and politics: Sheryl Sandberg, Karren Brady, Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard.

Analyses reveal that these women construct gender and leadership along familiar normative lines; for example, the emphasis on personal and familial values. However, their stories differ in that the normative extends to include close examination of the body and a sense of responsibility to other women. Overall, media representations of these “authentic” leaders conform to social constructions of gender. Thus, in the case of authentic leadership, a theory presented as gender neutral, the authenticity of leadership has to some extent been crafted by the media rather than the leader.

The study reveals that despite attempts to “craft” and control the image of the authentic self for consumption by followers, gendered media representations of individuals and leadership remain. Thus, alternative approaches to crafting an authentic leadership self which extend beyond (mainstream) media is suggested.

The official history of an organization is usually found on the organization’s website and in brochures. The purpose of this paper is to explore the narrative of an institution’s official history, the autobiography, as compared to the biography constructed by researchers.

A case study was conducted on the Organization of Latin American Immigrants in Israel (OLEI), covering the entire history of the organization. Based on a longitudinal, holistic and qualitative perspective, the research methodology combines data collected from interviews, archival and digital sources. The access to these data enables researchers to explore some of the reasons and circumstance behind the construction of the official history.

The analysis of the data revealed a significant gap between the autobiography and the biography in four episodes. The common thread running through them was the creation of a narrative that reinforces and emphasizes the growth and stability of the organization, through the use of strategies such as forgetting, erasing and remythologizing. This narrative was found to have been re-constructed following a period of instability.

The originality of this study relies on the use of the terminology of autobiography and biography for the exploration of the official history of an organization. The innovative research methodology applied in this paper, which compares an organization’s biography with its autobiography, enables the exploration of different dimensions and dynamics, emphasizing the value of understanding autobiography by constructing a biography.

Sociologists are notorious for writing antiseptic and self-serving autobiographies that hide more than they reveal about their authors. As the editor of a volume providing the autobiographies of 10 well-known and still living interactionists, I discuss the reasons for their writing of bland, formulaic autobiographies that allow them to hide behind their professional masks and the difficulties that were encountered in trying to find contributors who would break the academic mold by offering revelations about themselves. Personal revelations are filched by me from my contributors' autobiographies for purposes of illustration. The chief reason given for sociologists writing autobiographies free of personal revelations is their abiding by the convention that “decorum trumps truth” in academic discourse and the fear that its violation would be injurious to their careers. I conclude that the convention “decorum trumps truth” should be changed to “truth trumps decorum” because the former represents a serious impediment to any discipline that has as its goal the advancement of truth.