I am a Sociologist of the Unheard, advocating for people whose experiences are misunderstood, misrepresented, overlooked or silenced. I ask: what happens when people’s stories do not fit the usual scripts and expectations? Focusing on the unheard reveals what occurs when people are not recognised or listened to. It brings together my longstanding work on absence, loss and different ways of being; my current work on the micro‑politics of everyday encounters; and my commitment to ethical attention, relational understanding and emotionally honest scholarship. Working auto/biographically I connect personal experience with sociological concerns of wellbeing, value and relational ethics to trace how otherhood accumulates across a life, and highlight too complexity of experience, through revealing both the harm and the transformative potential therein.
In 1959 the American sociologist Charles Wright Mills’ (1959: 204) argued that: ‘The social scientist is not some autonomous being standing outside society, the question is where he (sic) stands within it. . .’ I agree with this and that we should:
. . . learn to use [our] life experience in your intellectual work: continually to examine it and interpret it. In this sense craftsmanship (sic) is the centre of yourself and you are personally involved in every intellectual product upon which you work (Mills, 1959: 216).
I believe that an explicit auto/biographical approach not only illuminates the social location of the writer, thus making clear the author’s role in constructing rather than discovering the knowledge produced (Stanley, 1993; Letherby, 2020, 2022), but also encourages reflection on power relationships within research and scholarship (Letherby, 2020). Furthermore, auto/biographical sociological study, either focusing on one, several or many lives, highlights the need to liberate the individual from individualism; to demonstrate how individuals are social selves always in relation to others (highlighted by the / in auto/biography) (Ribbens 1993; Morgan,1998; Letherby, 2018, 2022).
Laurel Richardson (2001: 34) calls for academics to ‘get personal’ by ‘writing-stories that situate . . . [our] work in sociopolitical, familial, and academic climates’. For Richardson ‘[w]riting is a method of discovery, a way of finding out about yourself and your world’ (ibid). I take this further and increasingly believe that writing is, for me at least, part of a ‘politics of belonging’ (Yuval-Davis 2006, Monbiot 2017) – who I am, what I value, where I stand, how I want to be viewed by others.
A few years ago in a paper focusing specifically on personal experiences of bereavement and loss (Letherby, 2015) I wrote about (amongst other things): how a personal loss resulted in me finding Sociology and in turn how Sociology has affected the way I understand and experience loss. My concern was with how my own experiences motivated and influenced my personal research journey AND in turn how said research has impacted on my life. Auto/Biographical work, I argue, including creative auto/biographical storytelling enables meaningful reflection of one story, many stories, unique stories and collective stories. Such work highlights differences and encourages us to make connections. It challenges traditional practices and dominant discourses, it affirms and celebrates the real-world life experience of individuals and groups. It is a powerful tool for telling academic stories in different ways and is valuable because along with other creative practices it; ‘harnesses our emotions and captures the imagination, and so helps us to see the world through a different lens, or to reimagine it in a different way (Blackie, 2022: 148).
In a 2025 conference paper entitled ‘Living to Write or Writing to Live?’ (Letherby, 2025) I spoke about my own motivation for, commitment to, and experience of, writing. I spoke of how much of my writing is strongly connected to personal issues of loss, love and legacy and, with reference to the broader political concerns, my aim is to raise attention to experiences and identities that are often misunderstood, misrepresented, silenced. In reflecting further on my writing experiences I drew on the Japanese concept of ikigai. On first (and second….) reading ikigai seemed appropriate to my philosophy of life and work. Ikigai is often depicted, as the intersection of four elements; that is:
What you love
What you are good at
What you can be paid for
What the world needs
Imagine my distress when I discovered that this version of the concept is actually cultural appropriation. In the West ikigai is most commonly understood as a model of, and for, ‘purpose’. Popularised in blogs and through TED talks it is linked to career success, monetisation, and productivity. It is even possible to train to be an Ikigai coach so that one can help others achieve success. The book Ikigai ni Tsuite (1966) – translated as that which makes life worth living - written by Meiko Kamiya, oft called the ‘mother of ikigai’, remains largely untranslated. For Kamiya ikigai is modest, shifting and situational and can be found in relationships, hobbies, rituals, and in small and transient pleasures. Here ikigai refers to the small joys and reasons for living found in daily life; enjoying morning sunlight, sharing meals, drinking tea, feeling connected to others. In its original conception ikigai is a state of mind or a way of being rather than a grand mission; appreciating one’s own existence, rather than chasing a singular life purpose for external, measurable, validation.
My initial disappointment that the concept was not what I though, was quickly followed by feelings of foolishness and guilt that I’d been seduced by a seemingly attractive and affirming self-goal, which is in fact a neoliberal reframing of a kinder, more powerfully centring, philosophy of life. Yet, there is a tension. In my writing I attempt to raise the voices of those who are less represented, less heard. I believe that the work, which includes but is not limited to the writing, I do, is of value. The feedback I receive suggests that others think so too. It is certainly of worth to me in helping me to think through feelings and theories, to work out what I know and do not know, where I stand, what I believe I and others can do to, in at least some small ways, make the world a better place. There is great fulfilment and pleasure in all of this. And yet I know that not everyone has the resources to express themselves the way I have, and continue to do. Nor does everyone feel the need to share their story as I have and do. My choices are not better than anyone else’s. What they are though is situational and contextual, shaped by circumstance and environment, and rooted, as I expressed earlier, in personal loss, love and legacy.
I accept the contradictions I feel. I admit to still being drawn in part to the Western idea of ikigai, whilst at the same time resisting the pressure it engenders. I value the original focus on ‘what makes life worth living’ (Kamiya 1966). For me writing is one such thing.
On reading further I find myself drawn not only to ikigai but also to wabi-sabi and kokoro. Wabi-sabi refers to an aesthetic and ethical sensibility that values impermanence, modesty, and imperfection while kokoro refers to the heart‑mind: the emotional, moral, and relational core through which we acknowledge and respond to the world. Put simply kokoro gestures towards a life well-lived.
When read together, wabi-sabi and kokoro offer a way of understanding how perception and feeling are essential to meaning making; a central concept with Sociology. Read alongside wabi-sabi and kokoro, ma adds another dimension. Ma resists a neoliberal ideology by honouring the interval, the unfilled, unproductive pause, the silence, where perception slows and relational meaning becomes possible. Together these concepts suggest an ethic of attending gently, responding sincerely, and allowing the world’s imperfections to meet an equally imperfect but receptive self. This way of thinking helps me with my long‑standing commitment to the unheard. Wabi‑sabi teaches me to value the cracks and fractures in the stories people are told not to tell. Kokoro reminds me that listening to the unheard requires emotional presence as much as analytical skill. Ma shows me that silence, so often imposed on marginalised lives, can also be reclaimed as a space of recognition and becoming. And ikigai helps me understand why I return, again and again, to writing with, and for, those whose experiences are dismissed, diminished, or denied. I am learning that these concepts do not replace my sociological commitments; they deepen them. They offer language, texture, and ethical grounding for the work I have always done; attending to experiences and the lives that dominant frameworks overlook, and insisting that they matter.
I am enjoying this engagement with alternative epistemologies although I recognise my analysis as ‘basic’ and aim to learn more. I understand that Japanese culture is not monolithic, not inevitably more harmonious or anti‑neoliberal. My aim is to approach these ideas with cultural appreciation while remaining attentive to the risks of cultural appropriation
Beth Kempton, a British Japanologist, has written about both wabi-sabi and kokoro. For Kempton:
Writing, just like any other creative act, is an instrument of the kokoro (2024: 148).
In a book entitled The Way of the Fearless Writer (Kempton, 2022) she suggests:
We tend to put writing into categories, but writing is about so much more than putting words on paper in a certain format or with a particular purpose. It’s about listening. It’s about opening. And it’s about accessing what lives below the surface so that the ink spills beauty, insights, stories and truth….
Writing can be medicine for our modern ills. It can be a tool to help us excavate our lives and begin to understand ourselves and others. It can help us grapple with desire, navigate change, cope with stress, celebrate, offer thanks, grieve, heal, and inspire others…. (p6-7).
And:
We just have to keep showing up with courage, humility and grace as we cross the threshold between the mundane and the sacred every single time we choose to write, never quite knowing what will happen next (p221).
I have been told that my writing is brave, that I am brave. I have also been told, by some academic colleagues, that my writing is untheoretical, self‑indulgent, even self‑promotional. These more negative views I challenge across all of my work. I argue, insist even, that we need more auto/biographical stories of misunderstood and misrepresented statuses and experiences, not fewer. As indicated here my recent research and reading is helping me to reflect even further on why this matters, why this is so. Wabi‑sabi reminds me that imperfection is not a flaw but a meaningful part of lived experience, a unique beauty that has its own and equal value. Kokoro affirms that acknowledging the emotional within the intellectual is not a methodological weakness but an ethical stance. Ma legitimises the pauses, hesitations, and silences that shape my work and ikigai helps me to articulate that my writing is not a performance of bravery but rather something I am drawn to; something ‘I can’t not do… like drawing breath.’
References
Blackie, S. (2022) Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of lLfe London: September Publishing.
Kamiya, M. (1966) Ikigai ni Tsuite, Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo.
Kempton, B. (2022) The Way of the Fearless Writer London: Piatkus.
Kempton, B. (2024) Kokoro: Japanese Wisdom for a Life Well Lived London: Piatkus.
Letherby, G. (2015) ‘Bathwater, babies and other losses: a personal and academic story’ Mortality: Promoting the Interdisciplinary Study of Death and Dying 20(2):128–144.
Letherby, G. (2018) The Sociological Imagination and Feminist Auto/Biographical Approaches’ in Matthews, C, Edgington, U. Channon, A. (eds.) Tales of Teaching with Sociological Imagination Singapore: Springer Press pp153-169.
Letherby, G. (2020) ‘Gendered-Sensitive Method/ologies’ in Robinson, C. and Richardson, D. (eds.) Introducing Gender and Women’s Studies (5th edition) London: Palgrave, pp58-75.
Letherby, G. (2022) ‘Thirty Years and Counting: An-other auto/biographical story’ Auto/Biography Review 3(1): 13–31.
Letherby, G. (2025) ‘Living to Write or Writing to Live?’ The Contemporary Women's Writing Association (CWWA), Annual Conference (Falmouth University, June).
Mills, C. W. (1959) The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Monbiot, G. (2017) Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis London: Verso Books.
Morgan, D. (1998) 'Sociological Imagination and Imagining Sociologies: bodies, auto/biographies and other mysteries' Sociology 32(4): 647-663.ociological Imaginations and
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Ribbens, J. (1993) ‘Facts or Fiction?: aspects of the use of autobiographical writing in undergraduate sociology’ Sociology 27(1): 81-92.
Richardson, L. (1994) ‘Writing: a method of inquiry’ in N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (eds.) A Handbook of Qualitative Research (1st Edition) Thousand Oaks: Sage pp516-529.
Stanley, L. (1993) ‘On Auto/Biography in Sociology’ Sociology 27(1): 41-52.
Yuval-Davis, N. (2006) ‘Belonging and the politics of belonging’ Patterns of Prejudice 40(3): 195-214.
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