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Editorial: Biographical Methods in Migration Research
Migration Letters, 2009
During the last decades, qualitative biographical/narrative methods gained a prominent position within the spectrum of social science methodology and research practice, mainly due to a reaction to the positivist-empiricist domi-nance and associated views of social reality. After an ...
Biography, Gender and Migration: Reflexivity and transformation in migratory processes
Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 2019
In the paper, the migration processes and gender work are analysed from the perspective of biographies of migrating women. By a comparative detailed reconstruction of two autobiographical narratives, the purpose of this article is to show the ways gender work is interwoven in migration processes and how gender relations are reflected upon, challenged, negotiated or taken for granted contributing (or not) to biographical metamorphosis and social transformation. It is argued that migration per se is not necessarily empowering but it brings some transformative potential for women's life situation and their biographical development. Migration can be a trigger for undoing gender as a part of biographical metamorphosis but the process of transformation is shaped by the dynamics between structural and cultural conditions as well as the biographical work (Schütze 1992; 2008) of migrants: their reflexive elaboration of their past, present and future, including the reflection on their gender relations, their significant places and the movement between them.
“Doing biographical reflexivity” as a methodological tool in transnational research settings
in: Transnational Social Revue. Vol.2, 2013, pp. 247-261
The transnational approach has broadened the theoretical understanding of complex migration processes and challenged traditional migration research approaches. Researchers are constantly required to adapt and refocus their work in accordance with changing social realities. This poses challenges to methodologies and methods used in qualitative research, and forces researchers to reflect on the possibilities and limitations of applying these methods in transnational research contexts. In the field of biographical research, the transnational perspective requires us to reconsider previously developed premises of biographical research and to reflect on current research practice. In this paper we introduce "biographical reflexivity" as a theoretical and methodological tool to deal with the trap posed by methodological nationalism.
Migrants' lives matter: biographical research, recognition and social participation
Since the beginning of qualitative sociology migrations have been central to the development of biographical research. Migrant communities have interested the founders of the Chicago School, also concerned by questions of isolation and prejudice among ethnic and cultural minorities. Later socio-anthropological research has equally given privilege to the study of biographies of migrants providing a paradigm shift from national understandings of migrations to transnational ones. But the analysis of the mutual effects happening between researchers and participants in such a relational kind of work asks for more attention. Drawing from empirical work conducted in Portugal this paper proposes to deepen such analysis. Focus is brought to the subjective dimensions of the encounter happening between the different subject positions at play. It implies the incorporation of the awareness of structural inequity in the development of methodological tools capable of listening to the truth of each participant. Guided by the search for a theoretical-practical coherence, the essay proposes an analysis of the specific degrees of recognition provided by biographical research among migrants and refugees in dialogue with the contributions of Axel Honneth and Richard Kearney. The empirical scope of this proposition resonates with our public research position defending that Migrants’ Lives Matter.
Exploring Migration Experiences and Gender Dynamics through Biographical Interviews
This paper explores the challenges and advantages in conducting biographical research based on life narratives of 140 Albanian migrants in three host societies, Greece, Switzerland and Germany. This methodological paper is written in the context of the research project investigating the experience of industrial citizenship (IC) of labour migrants coming from the Western Balkans (WB) to the European Union (EU). We reinforce our biographical accounts with semi-structured interviews, visual methods, participant observations, field notes and expert interviews which will provide context to the biographical interview texts. This paper shed light into challenges emerging in the framework of ethnography research field work, addressing the ethnographic issue trust building, hierarchic position, gender, ethical dilemmas, resistance and technical issues as well. Moreover we discuss how self-reflexivity take place during the field work and challenges the professional and personal identity of researchers.
Migration Experiences and Narrative Identities: View- ing Alterity from Biographical Research
This paper addresses the ethical challenge of hosting the stranger that is implicit in the work of biographical research with migrant populations. It analyses the tasks faced by this dialogical and narrative research that is put forward both in social sciences and the Humanities. Drawing from ethnographic work conducted among different groups, the paper presents the method of biographical workshops, in which voluntary participants bring or produce testimonies about their experiences as migrants. Another goal of the paper is to analyse the radical alterity at play in the narratives of migrants and refugees. Hospitality is here understood as an ethical and civic skill that human beings can develop as a response to the hostility characterizing the general tendency of migration policies for exclusion and surveillance. The Ric-oeurian concept of narrative identity is used to examine the plasticity of alterity in the methodological context of biographical research among migrants and refugees.
AGENCY, TEMPORALITY AND BIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS: AN ANALYTICAL MODEL FOR THE STUDY OF MIGRATION PROCESSES (Atena Editora), 2023
El objetivo de este artículo es construir un modelo analítico para vincular el análisis biográfico con el análisis de los procesos migratorios. Para ello se retoman las discusiones acerca de la temporalidad en el análisis sociológico, la capacidad de agencia de los sujetos migrantes y la experiencia como categoría de análisis social. En concreto, se retoma una concepción temporalizada de la agencia y se propone la articulación del análisis de procesos en dos niveles de observación y temporalidades distintas: i) a nivel micro, individual, basado en una temporalidad biográfica; y ii) a nivel macro, estructural, basado en una temporalidad histórica. Con este objetivo, se retoman también conceptos y herramientas del enfoque de curso de vida y la categoría de contextos de recepción. Finalmente, se presenta el modelo analítico desarrollado.
Making the "Structures" Speak: Migrant Biographies along Time
a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 2017
Narrative interviews and biographic data collected during a ten-year period among foreign-trained doctors working in Portugal and exploring issues such as migratory experience, job and career paths, citizenship identification, family structure, social mobility, and aspirations indicate the potential of longitudinal studies in the fields of