Time and Temporality in Biographical Life Course Research

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter discusses the topics of time and temporality in biographical research. The Chapter addresses the centrality of Mead’s writings. His notion of the temporal self was of particular relevance for this tradition. A section on historical time discusses the impact of period specific historical events on intergenerational relations and on the individual level. Family time is addressed in Tamara Hareven’s framework as an intermediary temporality between biographical and historical time. Discussions on intergenerational time explore topics such as social mobility and set these in an historical framework that demonstrate how biographical studies can add layers of knowledge about the processes involved that quantitative approaches miss. At the biographical level life course phases are addressed in relation to transitions and variations across cultural and structural contexts. Specific attention is paid to the phase of adulthood since it has largely had a kind of taken-for-granted definition without much attention to variations by gender and social class over historical time. A section on gender and time sets discussions about this theme in its historical context and extends the topic to include temporal aspects of biographical interviews and gendered narratives. In this section empirical examples from my own and other research are used to exemplify the arguments addressed.