This volume reveals the potential of biographical research in the production of social theory, in the development of methodological innovation, in giving voice and protagonism to people, and in the understanding of the social unfolding of their lives.
Studying people’s lives requires acknowledging the multiple entanglements between individual singularity and processes of social patterning. This book testifies how challenging and creative the study of these connections can be. It gathers international contributions that show, in imaginative ways, how a person’s life or specific domains of existence can be observed, tackled, and analysed across time.
This volume reveals the potential of biographical research in the production of social theory, in the development of methodological innovation, in giving voice and protagonism to people, and in the understanding of the social unfolding of their lives. It is a testimony of a vibrant and youthful field, with a long tradition in social sciences, and with numerous connections with other study areas, namely the life course approach. The different chapters illustrate how the challenges posed by this type of research focused on the individual level of analysis are particular and what creative responses are required to continue analysing the link between biography and society.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Contemporary Social Science.
Foreword
1. Forever young: creative responses to challenging issues in
biographical research Part 1: The Production of Social Theory Through and
Beyond the Biographys Singularity
2. Sociological biography and
socialisation process: a dispositionalist-contextualist conception
3. Tapping
and assessing the concept of educational regret: methodological techniques
for opening up biographical reflection
4. Subjects analysing subjects in the
biographical approach: a generational study of Chilean musicians Part 2:
Methodological Rivalries, Affairs and Openness
5. Using reflexive lifelines
in biographical interviews to aid the collection, visualisation and analysis
of resilience
6. Self-administered event history calendars: a possibility for
surveys?
7. There is more than one way a study of mixed analytical methods
in biographical narrative research Part 3: Giving the Floor, Sharing Voices,
Creating Harmonies
8. Creative biographical responses to epistemological and
methodological challenges in generating a deaf life story telling instrument
9. Migrants lives matter: biographical research, recognition and social
participation
10. Facilitating the voice of disabled women: the biographic
narrative interpretive method (BNIM) in action Part 4: The Social Unfolding
of Individual Lives
11. Searching for pearls: Doing biographical research
on Pearl Jephcott
12. A moment of biographical analysis under the microscope:
reading Felipes autobiographical narrative
Ana Caetano is Researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-Iscte) and Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Research Methods at Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon. She has been developing biographical research to study personal reflexivity, biographical crises and triangulation.
Magda Nico is Sociologist, Researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-Iscte), and Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Research Methods at Iscte-University Institute of Lisbon. She is interested in life course theory and methods and longitudinal research.
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