Autobiography

History of Autobiographical Work

Autobiographical and life history work has a long genealogy, both generally and within the social sciences. Ken Plummer (2001) traces the rise of the “autobiographical society” and the various shifts that have taken place. He documents the ways in which the telling of lives has become inscribed within texts, with a move from oral to written traditions. He explores the possible origins of the autobiographical form and the rise of the individual “voice.” He also considers the ways in which individual life stories can become part of collective explorations of shared lives and experiences. Liz Stanley (1992) has traced the role of autobiography within social science (particularly sociology) and FEMINIST RESEARCH. She examines the methodological aspects of autobiographical work, highlighting the relationships between feminist praxis and autobiographical practice. Feminism has had a particular influence on the role of autobiographies and personal narratives within contemporary social science, both as a way of “giving voice” and as an approach that places an emphasis on selfreflexivity and personal knowledge. Autobiography, and life history work more generally, can create textual and discursive spaces for otherwise hidden or muted voices, such as marginal or oppressed social groups.

Autobiographical Resources and Narratives

Autobiographical data can be treated as resources by social scientists. General features of lives and experiences can be revealed through individual accounts and life stories. Written autobiographies can be considered as a rich data set of “lives” to be explored and analyzed in their own right, in terms of what they can reveal about a life, setting, organization, culture, event, or momentintime. Hence, stories of lives can be treated as realist accounts of social life. Autobiographical work is also composed and then articulated through written texts. Hence, autobiographies can be considered as research events—the processes through which lives are remembered, reconstructed, and written. There are collective conventions of memory and “ways” of (re)telling a life, marked by key events, places, people, and times. Autobiographical texts thus have particular genres and narrative forms that can be systematically explored. They are stories that draw on a standard set of literary and textual conventions. These can be analyzed for structure and form through, for example, NARRATIVE ANALYSIS.

Autobiography and Method(Ology)

The “methods” of autobiographical work can also be used to gather social science data. Although autobiography is not a social science method in its own right, it does draw on a range of empirical materials or “documents of life” (Plummer, 2001). These include letters, DIARIES and other documentary sources, artifacts and biographical objects, and visual media such as film, video, and photography. Many of these sources of data are relatively underused within social science research, despite their analytical potential. Hence, a consideration of how “lives” are remembered, invoked, constructed, and reproduced can encourage a more eclectic approach to what might be considered as data about the social world.

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