Paper short abstract:

The purpose is to discuss with a reflexive perspective the intentions behind writing a short biographical article for a museum magazine. I will emphasize the aim of remembering three women who recently have died and expose some tracks from their life stories through this kind of documentary context

Paper long abstract:

It is difficult to retell long life stories of people who have lived more than 80 or 90 years. In a rather short article it is necessary to only pay attention to some tracks for example; what these three women have had in common and what were characteristic for their individual personalities. I will also briefly give the readers the background of how I got to know them. Two of them participated in 'writing workshops' I organized and the third lady was my mum. There is not enough space in the museum magazine to describe all my reflexive thoughts and interpretations from different interactions through; stories told at workshops, my memories of my mother and how I remember her talking about her life. However, in this paper metrological issues will be to focus on the emancipatory potential of 'writing workshops' as well as reflexive aspects of the researcher's analysis and texts. The life stories I have collected have been related to my research interest of memories from 1950's and 1960's. I have also observed workshop participants reconstructing a home, of that time, to a museum setting and listened to their guiding there. In the article I will take ethical consideration, even though they are dead now, but another dilemma bothers me more. The challenge of writing this short biographical text in the concept of popular science with the aim to mediate life experiences to readers of younger generations.