Rooted in a long and diverse genealogy, biographical approaches have developed from a focus upon a single story, a ‘life story’ and personal documents (e.g. diaries), to encompass (more routinely) autobiographical secondary and archival research and analysis - as well as multi-media, arts based creative multi-sensory methods. Biographical Research and practices as part of human understanding helps people to make sense of what has been and what is happening in their lives, cultures, communities and societies. Advances in Biographical Methods: Creative Applications takes up these themes: theorising, doing and applying current advances in biographical methods. It demonstrates the momentum with which they areas are developing as a field of scholarship, especially in relation to creative innovations and applications, such as in new forms of interview and other practices, and debates on its interlinking with art, performance and digital methods.

Rooted in a long and diverse genealogy, biographical approaches have developed from a focus upon a single story, a ‘life story’ and personal documents (e.g. diaries), to encompass (more routinely) autobiographical secondary and archival research and analysis - as well as multi-media, arts based creative multi-sensory methods. Biographical Research and practices as part of human understanding helps people to make sense of what has been and what is happening in their lives, cultures, communities and societies. Advances in Biographical Methods: Creative Applications takes up these themes: theorising, doing and applying current advances in biographical methods. It demonstrates the momentum with which they areas are developing as a field of scholarship, especially in relation to creative innovations and applications, such as in new forms of interview and other practices, and debates on its interlinking with art, performance and digital methods.

Using Biographical Methods in Social Research provides an informative, comprehensive, accessible and practical guide to the nature and use of biographical methods, combining a consideration of theoretical issues with practical guidance. Barbara Merrill and Linden West consider important questions about what research is for, what makes it valid, to the practical business of interviewing, analyzing and writing up of biographical data. The authors draw on their sociological and psychological orientations to provide a truly interdisciplinary approach to the subject, and provide numerous examples of biographical research across the social sciences.

Biographical research may take a range of forms and may vary in its application and approach but has the unified and coherent aim to give ′voice′ to individuals. The central concern of this collection is to assemble articles (from sociology, social psychology, education, health, criminology, social gerontology, epidemiology, management and organizational research) that illustrate the full range of debates, methods and techniques that can be combined under the heading ′biographical research′. Volume One: Biographical Research: Starting Points, Debates and Approaches explores the different biographical methods currently used while locating these within the history of social science methods. Volume Two: Biographical Interviews, Oral Histories and Life Narratives focuses on the more established, interview-based, biographical research methods and considers the analytical strategies used for interview-based biographical research Volume Three: Forms of Life Writing: Letters, Diaries and Auto/Biography considers the value of ′data′ contained within letters, diaries and auto/biography and illustrates how this data has been analyzed to reveal biographies and their social context. Volume Four: Other Documents of Life: Photographs, Cyber Documents and Ephemera focuses on the ′other′ human documents and objects, like photographs, cyber-documents (emails, blogs, social networking sites, webpages) and other ephemera (such as official documents) that are used extensively in biographical research.

`A comprehensive, balanced and judicious treatment of biographical methods in social research, made all the more useful to students by its careful delineation of the practicalities involved′ - Raymond M Lee, Royal Holloway, University of London Specifically designed for those carrying out biographical, life history or family history research, this concise guide covers the methods and issues involved. The author demonstrates that biographical research is a distinctive way of conceptualizing social activity. The three main approaches to biographical and family history research are covered: - Realist - focused around grounded-theory techniques of interviewing; - Neo-positivist - more structured interview techniques; - Narrative - with emphasis on the active construction of life stories through the interplay between interviewer and interviewee. An invaluable introduction to the field, which contains much that will be of interest to the experienced practitioner, the book will be ideal for researchers in sociology, psychology, political science, social policy or anthropology.

This book considers the methodological and theoretical questions associated with the use of life stories, oral histories, personal narratives, autobiographies, and biographies, as they are incorporated into sociological, ethnographic, and narrative studies. The collection and interpretation of materials, the uses of biographical research, the interview relationship, the construction of the story, memory, and audience are all considered. Roberts teaches sociology at the University of Huddersfield. The book is distributed by Taylor and Francis. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

These essays on the problems and functions of biography - particularly those of writers, thinkers and artists - investigate a subject of enduring importance for those interested in culture.