Abstract
Yorgos Tsiolis
University of Crete
Theoretical and methodological controversies in biographical sociological research
The paper will initially focus on the transition from the "biographical method", in which the biographical narratives are perceived primarily as "sources" that reveal the "subjective perspective" on social phenomena, to "biographical research" where biographies are understood as social constructions, as a result of special efforts made by individuals in order to construct actively their social experiences and also to generate personal coherence. Then we will refer to the criticism faced by this approach, (a) from a radical constructivist point of view, which argues that biographical narrative must be seen only as an "instantaneous text", and (b) from a postmodernist perspective, which argues that the interpretative case-reconstructive biographical research reproduces necessarily an essentialist perception of a coherent and stable self identity. Finally, we will discuss how biographical researchers answer these criticisms.
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