Text, Context and Individual Meaning: Rethinking Life Stories in a Hermeneutic Framework

Abstract

A lively concern for new instruments of knowledge has led sociology, among other disciplines, to collect life stories in order to explore social phenomena. Dialogue and interpersonal communication thus become crucial tools, as well as loci of knowledge. This paper investigates the epistemological suppositions of `the biographical approach': the quest for identity in the narrative, the dialogical relationship between the narrating self and the researcher, the fixation of speech into text and more. The overall effort of the investigation is to reach criteria of analysis which are not simply borrowed from other areas, but are the outcome of reflection upon the constituent features of life stories. This investigation, however, does not widen the gap between `qualitative' and `quantitative' sociology, but rather it contributes to put this division into question.