Stories of swimming and the embodied self in a three-dimensional narrative inquiry of transgender swimming experience

Against a backdrop of narrative inquiry that rarely gives attention to the occasion of storytelling in its third-dimension—its narrative environment or place—this article provides an illustration from a recent narrative inquiry into the swimming experiences of a local transgender community group. I demonstrate how stories are at work sequentially in the narrative environment or place, and shine a light on how the embodied biographies of researcher and participants are in constant dialogue with one another, shaped by and shaping research process, its stories, and associated selves and identities over time. I emphasize the way knowledge is subject to social conditions and place, and researcher and participant’s embodied biographies. In listening and attending to the social organisation of the storying process we can create conditions that allow us to shift experiences and change the larger social, cultural and institutional narratives to live by

Monadic, material and mirroring: Female bodies in track athletics culture

This study explored how female track athletes experience and use their bodies within the contexts (social places) that form part of their everyday routines. Using ethnographic methods (focus groups, observations, self-directed photographic elicitation, and reflexive diary entries) the research focused on a training group of five semi-elite female track athletes based in the UK in which one researcher was a full participant. Arthur Frank’s theory of the body is employed as an analytical lens to explore and illuminate the predominant types of body usage manifest in their embodiments. The findings indicated that the athletes were predominantly mirroring bodies, with focus on appearance central to their experiences. Crucially, these women desired more muscle in the mirroring process. Finally, attention is drawn to Frank’s typology as a useful framework through which to contribute to some of the key issues related to women’s experiences of their bodies in sport

Retelling tales: The (missed?) representation of working class women’s stories of leisure

Reflecting on an undergraduate dissertation, Rhiannon Lord became increasingly dissatisfied with the limitations on understanding and communication imposed by the conventional form of presentation usually expected of undergraduate students. Here we seek to transgress the boundaries of the author-evacuated realist tale form and offer a re-presentation of original data in the form of creative fiction, drawing extensively upon the work of Sparkes (2002). Renewed insights are generated into the lives of young women via two short stories, presented in an effort to further communicate their leisure experiences. Consideration is given to new ways of constructing and presenting understanding at the undergraduate dissertation level and the research process in general

A Fine Balance: The Cultural Biography of an Academic Journal and its Scholars

In this editorial, I reflect upon my position as the new Editor of Auto/Biography Review and its transition from being solely a print journal to an online one. I consider the cultural biography of the journal as it entwines the embodied lives and professional identities of a community of scholars and illuminates some of the historical and economic forces in the academic publishing landscape. In closing, I suggest editors in a complex exchange economy can make publishing model choices that respond to the responsibilities of upholding the scholarly mission and uniting a community of diverse scholars. Following this, I outline the articles in this first online issue and invite future submissions

Cruelty - Free Design

A vegan designer does not incorporate any products, materials, or fabrics that contain, harm, torture, or exploit any conscious living being. Vegan design acknowledges that all living creatures have emotions, feelings, experience pain, and should not be used for the sake of luxury

Synthesis, Phylogenetic Analysis, and Assessment of Climatic Limitations for the Compelling Global Lichen Genus Cladonia (Lichenized Ascomycetes)

Cladonia is a large, globally distributed genus of lichenized fungi that has captured the interest of mycologists for centuries. While there are already nearly 500 species in the genus, new species are constantly being described. Furthermore, there are expansive areas of the world that have not been surveyed for Cladonia species, and assuredly will provide new species and variations for lichenologists that conduct targeted surveys to these regions in the future. Despite being one of the most well researched lichen genera on Earth, there are still gaps in knowledge of Cladonia. One of the reasons Cladonia has remained such a point of interest in lichenology is also the reason it can be confounding to study&mdash;the genus displays extraordinary variety in all aspects, such as morphology, chemistry, ecology, and distribution. In this work, we focus on three overarching aims: 1) synthesizing existing Cladonia research to date to uncover persistent unknowns and contradictions that still stymy progress in Cladonia research. We found that even some problems noted more than one hundred years ago still persist today, and contradictory research is frequent in the genus. We argue that Cladonia is well-suited to be positioned as a model lichen genus towards the goal of focusing collaborative efforts on answering persistent questions in Cladonia that are widely applicable to fungal biology as a whole. 2) We inferred phylogenetic relationships in Cladonia using RADseq (reduced representation) genomic data towards the goal of assessing whether this efficient method of sequencing can be used to recover clades as delimited in a large, long-term phylogenetic study using traditional Sanger sequencing. In comparison, we found that that most clades are recovered, and found support that traditionally problematic clades and taxa still present taxonomic problems requiring focused revision. We support the use of RADseq as a powerful tool for efficiently inferring phylogenetic relationships with more comprehensive taxon sampling and species replicates in the future. 3) We assessed a variety of climate variables for correlations to clades within the genus and to the genus as a whole using a free, global dataset of geolocated Cladonia observations as well as climate data normals over a 30-year timespan. We found that temperature variables tend to be more predictive of clade structure and existence in Cladonia. We also found that aridity&mdash;a measure of water availability to water need, and thought to be the major obstacle to Cladonia existence&mdash;isn&rsquo;t necessarily the defining limitation for the genus, and instead found that potential evaporation specifically represents the barrier to existence.</p