Sociological biographical research in the interpretive tradition

Miriam Schäfer and Johannes Becker

Chapter 14 in Handbook of Interpretive Research Methods in the Social Sciences, 2025, pp 211-225 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter provides a general survey of biographical research as a sociological field that is firmly rooted in the interpretive tradition and strongly represented in German-speaking countries. We begin by giving a short overview of the history of biographical research and by introducing its underlying theoretical frameworks. The central part of our chapter offers a discussion of various methods utilized in biographical research for data collection (e.g. narrative interviews) and data analysis (e.g. biographical case reconstructions). Lastly, we discuss important issues and topics that sociological biographical research has tackled so far and reflect on its current and future challenges as an interpretive method and topic of study.

Keywords: Biography; Life history; Narrative interviews; Case reconstruction; Individual experiences; Social structures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803926384
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