Biographical Analysis
as an Interdisciplinary
Research Perspective
in the Field of Migration Studies
Ursula Apitzsch and Irini Siouti
Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität
Frankfurt am Main
April 2007
2
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
1. The history and establishment of the biographical research approach in the social
sciences ..........................................................................................................................3
1.1 The origin of biographical methods in the Chicago School of Sociology...........3
1.2 The development of biographical research in the social sciences in West
Germany.....................................................................................................................4
1.3 The theoretical concept of ‘biography’................................................................4
1.4 The institutionalisation of biographical research as an interdisciplinary field ....5
2. The methodological use of narratives: The biographical narrative interview ...........7
2.1 The biographical narrative interview as a central method of data production.....8
2.2. Key principles of biographical analysis............................................................10
3. The biographical research perspective in the field of migration studies .................11
4. The transnational turn in migration studies and its impact on biographical migration
research ........................................................................................................................15
4.1 Transmigration as a new type of migration .......................................................16
4.2 The combination of the transnationalism approach and biographical research
perspectives in empirical studies .............................................................................16
4.3 The category of the transnational social space ..................................................18
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................19
Bibliography ................................................................................................................20
3
Introduction
The use of biographical analysis as a method derived from and developed through
different disciplines. It has proven to be an excellent way of making theoretical sense
of social phenomena. Especially in the interdisciplinary field of migration studies, the
biographical approach is well suited to empirical investigations of migration processes
because it offers us a way of empirically capturing the diversity, complexity, and
transformational character of migration phenomena and of reconstructing them
through biographical analysis.
In this chapter we present our understanding of the biographical approach as an
approach to research in the interdisciplinary field of migration studies, treating it as a
perspective revolving around a reconstructive research logic. We explain biography
as a theoretical concept, as a historical-empirical object, and as a complex
methodological strategy.
We start with a brief history of the biographical research perspective and how it
became established in the social sciences, especially in the context of migration and
gender studies. Secondly, we set out the basic principles of reconstructive case
analysis as an interdisciplinary field of methods, focusing especially on the
methodical use of narratives in transnational migration research. Finally, we discuss
the biographical migration research perspective in combination with the
transnationalism approach, considering the paradigmatic shift and methodological
challenge that these concepts entail for the field of migration studies.
1. The history and establishment of the biographical
research approach in the social sciences
1.1 The origin of biographical methods in the Chicago School of
Sociology
The biographical approach originated in the tradition of the interpretative paradigm
developed by the Chicago School of Sociology. William Isaac Thomas and Florian
Znaniecki, two sociologists belonging to the Chicago School, were the pioneers of
biographical research in the discipline of sociology. In their well-known study, The
Polish Peasant in Europe and America, the research for which was conducted during
World War One and which was published in the USA in 1918, biographical research
was developed as an innovative method in the social sciences in order to explain
complex migration-specific social phenomena as qualitatively new in terms of the
originating and the receiving society (Apitzsch 2006a).
Thomas and Znaniecki’s methodology, distinguished by the fact that biographical
material was used as sociological data to gain insight into the principles constructing
the lives of migrants, inspired the empirical research tradition of the Chicago School
from the 1920s onwards. It was here that the use of biographical material for
sociological investigations, particularly in deviance research, was continued and
systematised as a biographical method during the 1930s. This was achieved in
particular by means of Clifford R. Shaw’s The Jack Roller (1930), which was the
second significant study in the development of biographical research. Shaw used
4
biographical material not only for the purpose of illustration, but also - together with
other sources - for case studies (Fuchs 2000: 91).
While quantitative research subsequently replaced the biographical method in
American sociology and caused an interruption in its development, the method was
readopted by European, and particularly German, sociologists during the 1970s.
1.2 The development of biographical research in the social sciences in
West Germany
In Germany the field of biographical research developed in connection with the
adoption of symbolic interactionism, pragmatism and hermeneutics in the context of
controversial paradigm discussions around scientific theory and methodology.
However, the label ‘biographical research’ in the German social sciences today
involves complex methodological and theoretical approaches and is not just a single
research method.1
Although biographical research is particularly common in the German-speaking social
sciences, it should be stressed that it was initially developed in an international
context and has been influenced by various European and transatlantic traditions
(Apitzsch and Inowlocki 2000: 54). It is important to note that biographical research
in Germany is not derived from a subjective hermeneutic approach in the tradition of
idealist philosophy, but on the contrary from an awareness of wider theoretical and
methodological sources such as the Chicago School, pragmatism, symbolic
interactionism, ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, sociolinguistics and not
least the French tradition of phenomenology, especially Paul Ricoeur’s (1983-1985)
and Daniel Bertaux’s (1986 and 1997) concept of ‘récits de vie’.
In the initial development of biographical research, the practical use of biographical
material was the main point of interest. The methodological development of
biographical research in Germany was initially driven by the sociologist Fritz
Schütze, who belonged to the Bielefeld Sociologists’ Working Group (1973)
(Arbeitsgruppe Bielefelder Soziologen). In the 1970s, Schütze developed a model for
an open narrative form of interviewing and a procedure for analysing narrative texts
within the area of sociolinguistic theory (Schütze 1977). By the 1990s, Schütze’s
model had been developed into the central interpretative research approach in
biographical analysis. Furthermore, empirically founded concepts of biography theory
have been developed in biographical research in the German-speaking world. In these
concepts biography is becoming a focus as a theoretical and social construct in socialscientific
research.2
1.3 The theoretical concept of ‘biography’
The development of the theoretical debate primarily entailed the recognition that
biography, as an instrument of social regulation (Kohli 1985) and as a design template
for subjective self-representation and self-authentication, is bound up with the
1
An overview of the diverse approaches in the field of biographical research is provided in Bettina
Völter, Bettina Dausien, Helma Lutz and Gabriele Rosental, Biographieforschung im Diskurs (2005).
2
There are a number of different theoretical schools of thought in the theoretical debate in biographical
research. For an overview of the social-constructive, structural, and system-theoretical positions, see
Alheit and Dausien 2000.
5
development of modern society and has been transformed in this process (Alheit
1994). Since the 1990s biographical research has been based on the acceptance that
biography is a social construct (Fischer-Rosenthal and Rosenthal 1997, Alheit and
Dausien 2000).
In this way biography is conceived as a ‘social creation/construction’, which
‘constitutes both social reality and the subjects’ worlds of knowledge and experience,
and which is constantly affirmed and transformed within the dialectical relationship
between life history knowledge and experiences and patterns presented by society’
(Fischer-Rosenthal and Rosenthal 1997: 138).
The main questions of interest to biography-theoretical research are how people
‘produce’ a biography in different cultural contexts and social situations, and which
conditions, rules, and patterns of construction can be observed in this process. The
concepts of ‘biographical work’ and of ‘biographicity’ (Biographizität) are significant
in relation to these questions (Alheit 2000).3
For theoretical and empirical reasons, in the context of biographical research the
concept of ‘biography’ or ‘biographical construction’ is often used instead of the term
‘identity’ (Fischer-Rosenthal 1999). The aspect of ‘identity’ is conceptualised in
biographical research/ biography theory as the accomplishment of building and
maintaining continuity and coherence through changing situations. Developing an
identity in the context of biographical analytical studies is understood as biographical
work. Biographical research is interested in the process-related and constructive
nature of life histories, and it distances itself from identity models which regard
identity as something static and rigid.
The concept of biographicity was introduced into the sociological debate by Martin
Kohli. Kohli defines it as a `code of personal development and emergence` (Code von
personaler Entwicklung und Emergenz). Peter Alheit continued the theoretical
conceptualisation of the concept in social science research, and especially in the
educational sciences, in a detailed analysis of Bourdieu’s critique of biographical
research (Alheit 1995). At the centre of the theoretical concept of ‘biographicity’ is
the synthesis of structure and individuality. According to Alheit, ‘biographicity’ is the
intuitively available genetic structure of a biography. It is the ability of the individual
to shape that which is social ‘self-referentially’, and to place oneself in relation to
society. Biographicity means
that individuals can continually reinterpret their life in the contexts in which they
experience it, and that they themselves experience these contexts as ‘mouldable’ and
‘shapeable’ (Alheit ebd.).
1.4 The institutionalisation of biographical research as an
interdisciplinary field
Although biographical research was cross-disciplinary from the beginning, it has been
established more strongly as an interdisciplinary field in recent years as a result of
3
The concepts briefly outlined here are the basic assumptions on which biographical research in
general and biographical migration research in particular are based. We cannot deal here with all the
theoretical positions relating to the concept of biography which have been developed during the course
of biographical research. It is, however, important to note briefly that alongside the empirically based
concepts there is an abstract theoretical discussion which regards biography as a construction of a selfreferential
consciousness and which is based on systems theory (Nassehi and Weber 1990, Schimank
1988) and cognitive theory (Maturana and Varela 1987).
6
increased interdisciplinary and international networking. This is essentially a
consequence of the subject of biographical research, namely the concept of biography.
Biography is an object of theoretical thought which is not construed according to the
logic of scientific disciplines, but is modelled on a complex social and cultural
phenomenon (Dausien 2002b: 118). The power of the biographical approach to extend
across disciplines can be explained by social individualisation and its accompanying
biographisation. Moreover, the principles of the methods and methodology of
biographical research are extremely well suited to a range of disciplinary and
interdisciplinary fields of research. Nevertheless, the institutionalisation of
biographical research as an interdisciplinary field of research was essentially
promoted by the founding of research groups, institutions, and interdisciplinary and
international networks. Many of these scholars have an interdisciplinary educational
background themselves, and many of them have established research groups and even
research institutes in their main areas of research.
In recent years there has been an identifiable trend towards building interdisciplinary
working groups and networks. Among others, the Interuniversity Network for
Biographical and Life World Research (INBL) has been established, involving the
Institute for Applied Biography and Life History Research (IBL) in Bremen, the
research group Biography and Cultural Analysis (Fobika) at the University of
Bielefeld, and the Focus Research Area on Biography and Life History Research
(ABL) at the University of Göttingen. In addition, the Transdisciplinary Research
Group for Migration and Biography Research at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe
University in Frankfurt is active in the specific field of migration research.
However, biographical research has expanded beyond the disciplinary boundaries of
sociology (Apitzsch 1990, 2003a) and educational science (Krüger and Marotzki
1999) into other social and human science disciplines. It has also extended into
psychology (Straub 1993, Jüttemann and Thomae 1987) and history, especially oral
history (e.g. Passerini 1992). Important debates on narration and biography have also
taken place in literary studies.4
Biographical approaches are also used in the medical
and health sciences, theology, social work, gender studies (Kraul 1999, Dausien
1996), and migration research. In the context of gender research, the theme of
migration also represents an increasingly significant field in which biographical
approaches are used (see for example Apitzsch and Jansen 2003, Dausien, Calloni,
and Friese 2000, Gutiérrez Rodriguez 1999, Lutz 2000a, 2004; Lutz and Davis 2006).
In connection with transnational migration research, ‘transnational social spaces’ have
primarily been investigated through ‘multi-sited ethnography’ (Clifford 1992)
approaches. The multi-sited ethnography approach calls for research in the receiving
and originating countries of migrants, in order to connect social changes in both
countries and to decode transnational networks (Apitzsch 2006). In order to
understand and reconstruct transnational migration phenomena today, biographical
narrative interviews can be considered as a main research component in researching
‘transnationalism from below’.
4
On this point, see Lukic and Jakab 2007.
7
2. The methodological use of narratives: The biographical
narrative interview
The biographical narrative interview is nowadays a central concept in interpretative
social research and especially in biographical migration research. It is particularly
suited to the analysis of social phenomena as identifiable processes, and is therefore
also appropriate for use in transnational biographical migration research. This is
because it is a ‘process-analytical procedure’ which provides an idea of the genesis of
the course of social events and records social reality from the perspective of acting
and suffering subjects (Schütze 1983).
The methodological terms of reference of the narrative interview are characterised
above all by theoretical traditions of interpretative sociology. It incorporates elements
from sociolinguistic theory, the phenomenological sociology of Alfred Schütz, and
the sociology of the Chicago School, especially symbolic interactionism and
ethnomethodology (Schütze 1977, Bohnsack 1991). In addition, biographical
methodology has included essential elements of Grounded Theory, the concepts of
theoretical sampling, contrastive comparison and theoretical saturation, in the
methodological framework for empirical biographical studies (see Strauss and Corbin
1990).
In the 1970s and 80s, Fritz Schütze developed a systematic method for the
hermeneutic textual interpretation of biographical interviews, which aims to reveal
structures of personal and social processes of action and suffering as well as possible
resources for coping and change.
Schütze's methodological terms of reference are shaped in particular by
phenomenological sociology (Alfred Schütz) and by the sociology of the Chicago
School, especially symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology .
The focus of biographical analysis is not only the reconstruction of intentionality,
which is represented as an individual´s life course, but the embeddedness of the
biographical account in social macro structures. For the biographical analysis of
narrative interviews through the key concepts of cognitive figures and process
structures, Schütze (1983) made the suggestion of a sequential single case analysis,
which consists of a combination of three steps. The first step is the formal textual
analysis, where the transcribed interview has to be segmented into its thematic
segments as well as its narrative, argumentative and descriptive parts. The second step
is the structural description of these segments. The purpose of the structural
description consists of explicating the substantive biographical structural processes:
trajectories of suffering, biographical action schemes, and other social processes
which are represented in the narrative. The structural description proceeds
sequentially and regards the textual structures as indicators of the narrator’s
sedimentation of experiences. It takes into account how the narrator is taken over and
influenced by them (see Riemann 2003).
The aim of the structural description is to describe and analyse the interview in its
structure and to reconstruct in a detailed line by line analysis the manifest and latent
meaning of the text. It is important to stay at the level of the text and start off from the
narrator´s own categories, making use of the whole array of formal features of the
text. In the next step of the analysis, the analytical abstraction, the entire form/Gestalt
of the interview has to be revealed in order to arrive at more abstract theoretical
8
categories. Finally, the single case analyses are compared and contrasted with each
other, to generate a theoretical model (see Schütze 1983).
In the methodological development of biographical analysis there have been
modifications and additions to Schütze’s position, for example the method of
‘hermeneutic case reconstruction’ (Gabriele Rosenthal 1987, 1990; Fischer-Rosenthal
and Rosenthal 1997).5
Gabriele Rosenthal has developed a method of narration
analysis, which is partly based on Schütze’s procedure but also utilises the analytical
resources of objective hermeneutics6
and focuses on the structural difference between
lived and narrated life history (erlebter und erzählter Lebensgeschichte).
Her methodological suggestion can be seen as a response to the critique of Schütze’s
model of narration analysis, which was formulated by Heinz Bude (1985) as what he
called a ‘homology critique/assumption of homology’. In her model of ‘hermeneutic
case reconstruction’, Rosenthal distinguishes explicitly two levels for the analysis of
narrated life stories, the analysis of the ‘lived life’ through the experienced life history
(genetical analysis) and the analysis of the narrated life story (Rosenthal 1993).
‘The purpose of the genetical analysis is the reconstruction of the biographical
meaning of experiences at the time they happened and the reconstruction of the
chronological sequence of experiences in which they occurred. The purpose of the
analysis of the narrated life story is the reconstruction of the present meanings of
experiences and the reconstruction of the temporal order of the life story in the present
time of narrating or writing.’ (Rosenthal 1993: 61) For the analysis of biographical
narrative interviews, she suggests five steps: (a) analysis of biographical data, (b)
thematic field analysis (reconstruction of the life story), (c) reconstruction of the life
history, (d) microanalysis of individual text segments, and (e) contrastive comparison
of the life history and life story (Fischer–Rosenthal and Rosenthal 1997: 152).
Both methods can be combined for biographical analysis applied to transnational
migration research. However, we would argue that, especially in gender and migration
studies, it is important to follow an open methodological perspective, which is guided
primarily by key principles and allows combinations of different methodological
perspectives. As Bettina Dausien (2002b) argues in her reflexive-reconstructive
model of interpretation, three main contexts (Kontexte) should be reflected in the
interpretation process: the biography, the interaction process in which a biographical
narration comes into being, and the cultural patterns and social rules which guide the
biographical narrations.
2.1 The biographical narrative interview as a central method of data
production
As a ‘procedure for a social science survey, prompting the informant to give a
comprehensive and detailed impromptu narrative of personal involvement in events
and corresponding experiences in the given theme field’ (Schütze 1986: 49), the
objective of the biographical narrative interview is to allow the individual to relate
5
See Fischer-Rosenthal 1997 and Rosenthal 1990, 1993, 1995. An detailed presentation of the
method can be found in Gabriele Rosenthal’s habilitation thesis (1993), which was published in 1995
under the title Erzählte und Erlebte Lebensgeschichte.
6
Rosenthal adapted the steps of micro analysis and analysis of the biographical data from the method
of objective hermeneutics suggested by Ulrich Oevermann.
9
how he or she has experienced certain life history processes and his or her own life
history.
Thus, the main idea of the biographical-narrative interview is to generate a
spontaneous autobiographical narration which is not structured by questions posed by
the interviewer but by the narrator’s structures of relevance.7
During an interview the
person concerned, the so-called biographer, is firstly requested to tell his or her own
life history. While the life history is being narrated to the interviewer (who plays the
role of the interested and empathetic listener), the latter does not interrupt the main
narrative but encourages the biographer by means of non-verbal and paralinguistic
expressions of interest and attention. The interviewer waits until the narrator breaks
off the story of his or her own accord, and only then asks questions in the second part
of the interview. The interviewer first asks narrative questions on topics and
biographical themes already mentioned. In addition, in the last part of the interview or
in a second interview the interviewer asks about issues that have not been addressed
by the biographer (Rosenthal 1993: 60).
A very important aspect, which has to be taken into account not only as a context but
also as part of the method, is the working alliance between researcher and
interviewee. The social relationship between them, their specific interests and
perspectives, and the social setting within which they meet and which they themselves
produce during the interview, have to be reflected and are always part of the analysis
of biographical narrative interviews (Riemann 2003). However, theoretically the
interview technique8
is based on the assumption that biographical self-presentations
are most convincingly rendered using narrative as a text form to communicate events
experienced by the self (Fischer-Rosenthal and Rosenthal 1997: 136). Schütze’s thesis
means that the narrative acts as a trigger in the interview situation, which is an
interaction situation, but that it is not primarily controlled by the situation. It is
controlled by the content and experience structure of the person who has experienced
the events. Seen linguistically, the necessary elements are triggered by means of the
narrative flow. Schütze differentiates three necessary elements of the narrative: the
law of closing, the law of relevance and condensation, and the law of detail (Schütze
1982: 572, Alheit 1993).9
In guiding and organising the description during the
impromptu narrative, four principles of narration are at work. Schütze calls these
principles cognitive figures. The cognitive figures are not artificial constructs, but
elementary schemata which are used quite naturally during the narration of personal
experiences and cannot be circumvented (Dausien 1996: 113). Schütze distinguishes
four cognitive figures: (1) biography and event holders, (2) frames of events and
experiences, (3) social structures: situations, life milieus and social worlds, and (4) the
entire shape of the life history (Schütze 1984). Besides the cognitive figures, four
kinds of process structures were identified by Schütze (1984) in his studies of
biographical accounts. These empirically based concepts are: (a) the process
structures of action schemes, in which planning, initiative and action are dominant,
7
Fisher-Rosenthal and Rosenthal suggest as a very open formulated question to prompt an
autobiographical narration, the question: ‘I´d like to ask you to tell me your life story, all experiences
and events you remember. You can take as much time as you want to. I will not interrupt you, I will
ask my questions at the end …’ (Fisher-Rosenthal and Rosenthal 1997: 4). In the first phase of a
narrative interview, the interviewer should avoid any kind of ‘why’ questions, because they hinder or
destroy a narrative scheme and generate explanation, argumentation and a legitimation position. For an
introduction to the interview technique, see Rosenthal 1997 and Riemann 2003.
8
On the narrative interview technique, see Schütze 1977, Fischer-Rosenthal and Rosenthal 1997.
9
For detailed discussions of the necessary elements of the narrative, see especially Schütze 1984 and
Alheit 1993.
10
(b) the process structures in which institutional expectations are in the foreground, (c)
the process structures of trajectory, which indicate a potential loss of control over the
life because of extraneous conditions, and (d) process structures which suggest an
unexpected or unaccountable turn towards a creative transformation in the biography.
The process structures correspond to experiences and are represented in distinctive
ways in the course of biographical accounts.
The idea of reconstruction of factual courses from biographical narratives is a main
critical point in discussions of Schütze’s theoretical model. The arguments against the
biographical research perspective still insist on the main methodological premises: on
the one hand, the specific focus on narrative material, and on the other hand the
research logic of generalising from the biographical analysis of a single case. Among
others, in the German context Heinz Bude’s `homology critique` criticises the
acceptance of the homology of experience and narration which he sees in Schütze’s
model. According to Bude, Schütze’s model includes the premise that the
autobiographical unprepared extempore narrative is seen as a truly reproductive
recapitulation of past experience (Bude 1985: 331). Gabriele Rosenthal repudiates
Bude’s critique, pointing out that Schütze in no way, as Bude implies, bases his
approach on a homology, but rather on the structure of biographical narration as ‘the
structure of remembered life history experience building’ (Rosenthal 1993: 132).
2.2. Key principles of biographical analysis
In biographical research, there is not only one single method bound to a particular
theoretical position but different ways of doing biographical analysis. Most of the
empirical studies in biographical migration research are rooted in the tradition of
phenomenological narration analysis and objective hermeneutics10
(e.g. Apitzsch
1990, Gültekin 2003, Ricker 2000, Dabagzi 2004, Lanfranchi 1993, Schröter 1997).
In recent years the method of ‘hermeneutic/biographical case reconstruction’
(following Fischer-Rosenthal and Rosenthal 1997) has also been used in the field of
Migration Studies (e.g. Breckner 2005, Juhasz and Mey 2003). This is partly based on
the methods of narration analysis and objective hermeneutics, combined with Aaron
Gurwitch’s theory of ‘Gestalt’ (Gestalttheorie).
Despite the theoretical differences, phenomenological narration analysis, objective
hermeneutics, and the method of hermeneutic case reconstruction have in common the
fact that they are case reconstructive procedures which make it possible to analyse the
interconnections between individual and institutional aspects of social reality in the
context of biography and action (see Wohlrab-Sahr 2000).
10
The method of objective hermeneutics, as such, is in its self-understanding not exclusively an
analytical procedure for biographical-narrative interviews but a strictly analytical, objective method of
the unbroken development and reconstruction of objective sense and meaning structures (Oevermann et
al. 1979). The methodology of objective hermeneutics is based on different theoretical concepts. In
addition to French structuralism, especially that of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ulrich Oevermann has
integrated the pragmatist-naturalist approach of George Herbert Meads, Jean Piaget’s interactive
constructivism, Charles S. Peirce’s pragmatism, Freudian psychoanalysis, Karl Popper’s falsification
theory , Noam Chomsky’s theory of grammar, and John R. Searle’s and John Austin’s speech act
theory into the concept. At the same time central concepts from Adorno’s methodological position of
‘dialectic-hermeneutic social research’ are contained within objective hermeneutics. We cannot here
address the complex theoretical framework of objective hermeneutics. However, it seems to us to be
important to stress that Oevermann integrates central concepts from Adorno’s thought into the
sequence analysis procedure (on this point, see especially Wagner 2001).
11
Biographical analyses are based on case reconstructive procedures. These procedures
follow specific basic assumptions. In general, these are the key principles of (1)
reconstruction, (2) abduction, and (3) sequentiality (Corbin and Hildenbrand 2000:
159, Kraimer 2000) and (4) reflexivity. Furthermore, they concentrate on the detailed
analysis of a single case and refer to it as a basis for generalising.
In contrast to the logic of subsumtion (Subsumtionslogik), the logic of reconstruction
follows Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of abduction. Abduction is a specific form of
syllogism for starting an argument, different from deductive and inductive reasoning.
Abductive reasoning means that the researcher puts forward a methodologically
controlled hypothesis. Unlike deductive reasoning, abductive reasoning belongs to
`the logic of discovery`. According to Peirce, the necessary logical circle within
abductive reasoning is not a circulus vitiosus, but a circulus fructuosus (Apitzsch
2004: 53n). Thus, Peirce methodologically rectifies what in hermeneutics is called a
circle of synthesis of understanding. Case reconstructive methods always follow an
abductive logic and proceed in a methodological way that avoids confronting the
empirical material with predefined systems and variables and classifications. In
practice, this means that in biographical research first of all the abductive and
innovative aspect is unfolded during the research process by following the research
strategies of Grounded Theory as a methodological framework concept, in order to
anchor a theory (in Robert Merton’s sense, as a middle range theory) in the empirical
material. In detail, biographical researchers adapt the methodological steps of the
integration of the processes of collecting and analysing data through the development
of contrastive comparisons and the concept of theoretical saturation (see Glaser and
Strauss 1967, Strauss and Corbin 1990).
A difference to classical studies in the tradition of Grounded Theory is the use of the
sequential single case analysis, in contrast to open coding, for the analysis of the
biographical narrative interviews following the key principle of sequentiality.
‘The principle of sequentiality makes allowance for the process aspect of social
activity. It starts from the assumption that every action represents a choice between
the alternatives potentially available in a certain situation. Action sequences that are
manifested in texts as reported activities are thus processes of selection that,
independently of the narrator´s perspective, result in certain subsequent actions while
at the same time eliminating certain other possibilities` (Rosenthal 1993: 66).
3. The biographical research perspective in the field of
migration studies
The biographical dimension of migration processes became a specific subject of
research in German-language migration studies only at the beginning of the 1990s,
with the inclusion of biographical approaches (Apitzsch 1990, Lutz 1991).
Previously, the discourse of German-language migration research had been dominated
by quantitative approaches and policy reports (Breckner 2005: 22). In the 1970s these
approaches were established as ‘research into guest-workers (Gastarbeiter) and
foreign children’. The focus was primarily on the social conditions and problems
experienced by migrants during their integration into the receiving society, and the
theoretical discourse was determined by approaches to acculturation, assimilation, and
enculturation, as well as concepts of integration. The gender aspect was mostly
ignored and the migration of women only received attention in the field of Women’s
Studies (see Morokvasić 1984).
12
At the level of migration theory, the dominant way of looking at migration
phenomena in Germany was to subsume the whole process under the concepts of
migration and ‘re’-migration, since classical theories of migration treated it as a onedirectional
move from the region of origin to the region of settlement (Pries 2001).
Thus, German-language migration research concentrated mainly on the process of
becoming settled and on the problems encountered by the immigrants in the receiving
society. The dominant theoretical conceptual approaches were Hoffmann-Novotny’s
‘structural migration model’ (1970, 1973), Esser’s action theoretical model (1980,
1990), and the ethnic community approach of Friedrich Heckmann (1981).
The first biographical investigations were predominantly concerned with aspects of
work migration, for example difficulties experienced in school by children of Italian
migrant workers (Apitzsch 1990, Lanfranchi 1993) and the migration and remigration
of women from former recruiting countries (Steinhilber 1997, Philipper 1999).
The first case-based reconstruction using biographical material in a rigorous way for
the analysis of life processes among the second generation of migrants in Germany,
and thus initiating a biographically-oriented perspective in empirical migration
research, was the study ‘Migration and Biography’ (Apitzsch 1990). This study was
based on the interpretation of biographical-narrative interviews with young Italian
migrants (Breckner 2005: 55). In contrast to the mainstream enculturation theory,
which argued that migrant youth were inwardly torn between several cultures and thus
striving more or less ’naturally’ for deviant careers, the study was able to show
empirically that these young people generally develop an intercultural disposition that
may lead to upward mobility in the receiving country and thus a contrast with their
class position (see Apitzsch 1990). In this context migration is regarded as an
ecological transition beyond the borders of the macrosystem (Apitzsch 1990: 115).
Therefore, this study explicitly and systematically takes up the problem of the
marginality and creativity of migrant culture presented by Thomas and Znaniecki in
The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (Apitzsch 1990: 60, 72). A theoretical
term of reference which consolidates the sociological concept of transformation in
terms of biographical theory is the concept of trajectory.
The concept of ‘trajectory’11
is a central concept in biography theory. It was
developed by Fritz Schütze with reference to Anselm Strauss in an analysis of the
‘temporally ordered reciprocal permeation of social and subjective processes’
(Schütze 1981: 94; see also above, section 2). The concept of ‘trajectory’ is a concept
of social reality which refers both to situations which are objectively threatening and
to the interactive production and reproduction of threat, marginalisation, and
exclusion (Apitzsch and Inowlocki 2000: 59). The process of turning intentional
actions upside down in a phase of intense suffering and apparent passivity,
overpowered by external forces, pushed by destiny and becoming alienated oneself, is
of particular relevance and interest for migration studies. On the one hand, migration
seems to be social action ’par excellence’. A person or rather a couple or a whole
family who want to emigrate have to plan and organise and to make decisions with
11
Schütze uses the German word Verlaufskurve. He takes this concept from the English term
trajectory, which comes from Anselm Strauss and Barney Glaser. They used the term to define phases
of the course of an illness, in which subjects can no longer act intentionally but are processed and dealt
with in overpowering institutional courses of events, so to speak as ‘being lived’ or ‘being processed’
(Apitzsch 2000: 103).
13
lasting consequences. Thus, migration seems to be bound to the principle of a
biographical action scheme. On the other hand, the reasons for migration mostly refer
to collective fate: poverty, unemployment, political instability or even persecution of
parts of a population. As a collective fate, migration seems to be quite the opposite of
social action and rational choice; paradoxically, its sequences are structured more like
the laws of nature than according to social planning.12
Evidently, most migration processes are structured by both principles: by action
schemes and at the same time by phenomena which Anselm Strauss called ’collective
trajectories’. Also, if the single departure of an isolated person seems to be the
consequence of a very individual decision, the migration process will typically show
up later on as characterised by phases of loss of control and collective exposure to
social disorder and profound suffering. Intentional action with the aim of integration
in the country of destiny, which at the beginning seemed to be strong enough to
generate plans for the next generation as well, will be halted or altered by new
experiences, false expectations, the hostility of neighbours and the discovery that
strangeness may increase instead of disappearing as time goes by. ’Biographical
work’ in migration processes means the special connection between both of these
experiences within the logic of life construction and life constitution (Apitzsch 1999).
The biographical research perspective in migration studies uses biographical analysis
to provide a methodological way of looking at problems and conflicts, but also of
examining the subjective action competencies available to the subjects as ways of
coping with crises in migration situations (Apitzsch 1990: 90). In this context, the
concept of biographical resources (Hoerning 1989) is at the centre of the analysis. It
integrates biographical experiences and the knowledge constructed from these into
experience, sense, and action resources. A further characteristic and advantage of the
biographical research perspective in migration studies is that the biographical
approach helps to avoid reductionist concepts of social types, the latter using
essentialist cultural mechanisms of investigation. Biographical reconstructive research
proceeds from the characterisation of biographies as ‘radical documents of the
sociality of the individual’ (Apitzsch 1990). In this way, processes of change and the
mingling of individual and societal positionings and identity constructions can be
investigated. Thus, biographical research perspectives offer a potential
methodological tool within the framework of women’s and gender studies (see
Diezinger et al. 1994). In Women’s Studies, scholars have discovered that the
perspective of mainstream disciplinary migration research was based on the model of
the ‘normal’ biography as well as the ‘male bread winner model’. In recent years in
feminist biographical research, the concept of biography has been understood as an
aspect of the reconstruction of gender (Dausien 1994, 1996, 2002). Especially
interesting in the context of historical development and establishment of the
12
In their article on ’Trajectory as a Basic Theoretical Concept’, Riemann and Schütze argue that
’trajectory might be seen as the conceptually generalized natural history of disorder and suffering in
social processes’. They refer to Robert Park’s observation concerning ’conditional relevance as a basic
relationship between the progressively deteriorating stages of natural history processes of social
disorder’ (see Gerhard Riemann and Fritz Schütze 1991, p. 352f.). Riemann and Schütze, however,
have remarked that the term ’conditional relevance’ itself ’is not Park’s, but was coined by the late
Harvey Sacks during the study of the sequential organization of conversation (cf. Sacks 1967/1972). It
might appear strange to use it in this context, but it is exactly Park’s and Sack’s interest in sequential
organization that provides for an interesting similarity – their totally different substantive interests and
methodological procedures nonwithstanding’. (Riemann and Schütze ibid., p.355, n.5)
14
biographical research perspective in German migration studies is the fact that many
biographical researchers in the field of migration are female social scientists. Their
positioning mirrors the double ’not normal’ biography in terms of being women and
mostly also being migrants themselves.
Even though the biographical research perspective is not the dominant or mainstream
approach in German migration studies, it is obvious that the biographical research
perspective has developed further since the 1990s alongside historically-oriented
migration research and research focused on migration processes in global contexts.
The range of biographically-orientated research on migration phenomena has
expanded steadily since the end of the 1990s13
(see Apitzsch and Kontos 2003,
Breckner 2005, Guitierrez Rodriguez 1999, Gültekin 2003, Hummrich 2002,
Inowlocki 1995, 2002, Juhasz and Mey 2003, Ofner 2003, Ricker 2000, and Jimenez
Laux 2001, 2002). However, biographical research methods have expanded not only
in Germany, but also across Europe in different interdisciplinary fields of research.14
Especially, Daniel Bertaux’s and Paul Thompsons edited book ‘Between generations.
Familiy models, myths and memories’ became very important for the research about
the transmission of family memory in contexts of radical social change such as
displacement, slavery and migration (1993). Lena Inowlocki’s contribution about
‘Grandmothers, mothers, and daughters: intergenerational transmission in displaced
families in three Jewish communities’ introduced the term of ‘generational work’ into
the debate on biographical methods. Moreover, her theoretical reflection showed how
important the gender aspect becomes when traditionality is involved in ‘biographical
work’ (Inowlocki 1993). Catherine Delcroix in her book ‘Ombres et lumières de la
famille Nour’ (2001) showed in a rigorous analysis of the internal communication
processes of one immigrant family from the Maghreb how gender relations work in a
very unexpected way in order to make achievements possible by accumulating
‘capital d’expérience biographique’.
Biographical studies in the field of migration cover different types of migration, from
intra-European to transatlantic and circular migration phenomena. Gender has
recently become an important aspect of research in this context of new migration
processes. Since the 1990s, we have been able to observe a development of new
migratory patterns and behaviour which we call transnational circulation. Mostly,
women exercise agency as they draw on a range of biographical resources, e.g. care
13
A broad range of biographical analytical investigations are summarised in, among others, the
following publications: Ursula Apitzsch (ed.), Migration und Traditionsbildung (1999); Bettina
Dausien, Marina Calloni, and Marianne Friese, Migrationsgeschichten von Frauen. Beiträge und
Perspektiven aus der Biographieforschung (2000); Wolf Dietrich Bukow, Markus Ottersbach,
Elisabeth Tuider, and Erol Yildiz (eds), Biographische Konstruktionen im multikulturellen
Bildungsprozess. Individuelle Standortsicherung im globalisierten Alltag (2006).
14
An indication of this expansion are a number of international research projects which have been
funded by the European Commission during recent years and have used biographical research
methods. Among them are the projects: ‘Self- employment and activities concerning women and
minorities’ (1997-2000) coordinated by Ursula Apitzsch; ‘Social strategies in risk society’ (1996-1999)
coordinated by Michael Rustin and Prue Chamberlyne; ‘Between integration and exclusion: A
comparative study on local dynamics of precarity and resistance to exclusion in urban contextes’
(1998-2000) coordinated by Daniel Bertaux in cooperation with Thomas Boje and Susan MyIntosh;
‘The chances of the second generation in families of ethnic entrepreneurs: intergenerational and gender
aspects of quality of life processes’ (2002-2005) coordinated by Ursula Apitzsch; and the ongoing
project ‘Integration of Female Immigrants in Labour Market and Society. Policy Assesment and Policy
Recommendations’ coordinated by Maria Kontos.
15
giving. Here, community-building follows paths different from the communitybuilding
of gender balanced migrations (Harzig 2003). The monadising structure of
domestic work and the permanent mobility that is implied in commuting by new
female migrants decouples them from wider ethnic communities and binds them
instead within transnational networks (Morokvasic-Müller 2003). There emerges a
‘chain of marginality’ in these networks, with less marginalised members of the group
helping more marginalised ones (ibid.). At the same time, there emerge local and
national networks of collective self-help of migrant women in which approaches to
improving policy and laws for female migrants may develop (Anderson 2001,
Apitzsch 2006). Networking with other female migrants from their own national or
linguistic group becomes a major strategy for regaining the ability for action in the
social arena (Lenz and Schwenken 2002). These networks are the main resource of
migrant women, as this form of social capital enables social agency (Campani 1993,
2000, Jiménez Laux 2001, Kontos 2003). Only by using biographical research it is
possible to investigate these informal networks.
4. The transnational turn in migration studies and its impact
on biographical migration research
Since end of the 1990s, the transnationalism approach has also been receiving
attention in German migration research.15
In migration studies, the ideas of
transnationalism and transmigration - developed in American social anthropological
research (see Glick Schiller et al. 1992) - were introduced with some delay at the end
of the 1990s (see Pries 1996, 1997, Faist 2000a) and entailed a paradigm shift.
While classical migration research analysis in Germany traditionally concentrated on
examining integration and assimilation within the paradigm of the nation state, the
focus of transnationalist perspectives has underlined the intersections of the local and
the global by looking at forms of interconnectedness that transcend nation state
borders. The transnational approach does not question the existence and fundamental
impact of the nation state perspective, but it underlines its character as an ‘imagined
community’ (Anderson), as a political construction that is based both on inclusion and
on exclusion and which is concretised in territorial borders (Ruokonen-Engler and
Siouti 2006). The transnationalism approach is strongly connected with the
globalisation debate. While globalisation focuses primarily on economic
developments, the concept of transnationalism focuses on the level of the social and
the actors who are actively engaged in migration processes (see Ong 1997).
The transnationalism approach opens up new and challenging ways of understanding
more profoundly the dynamics of migration processes without subsuming migrants
immediately in the assimilative logics of the nation state paradigm (cf. Lutz 2004:
210). It involves a different set of questions and factors than those traditionally taken
into account by classical migration research (see Apitzsch and Siouti 2007).
15
We are focusing in this section primarily on the debate in German migration research. Among the
numerous publications on the transnationalism approach, see Cohen 1997, Gerber 2000, Levitt 2001,
Ong 1997, Portes, Guarnizo et al. 1999, Vertovec and Cohen 1999, Vertovec 2001, Smith and
Guarnizo 1998.
16
4.1 Transmigration as a new type of migration
Unlike classical approaches, which focused on ‘traditional’ forms of international
emigration and immigration (see Pries 2001: 8), the transnational migration approach
treats transmigration as a form of migration which lies at a tangent to both the region
of origin and the region of settlement, and constitutes a form of existence in its own
right (Pries 2001a: 14). The sociologist Ludger Pries was among those who
introduced the discussion on transmigration into the German context,16
basing his
work on the analytical framework of the anthropologists Linda Basch, Nina Glick
Schiller, and Christina Blanc-Szanton. Glick Schiller et al. (1992) defined
transnationalism as the process in which immigrants create social fields linking their
country of origin with the country where they have settled (Glick Schiller, Basch et al
1997: 81).
This process, rooted in the everyday life activities and the social relations of migrants,
is indissolubly linked with the development of global capitalism and leads to the
coming into being of social fields located between the everyday practices of the
migrants and hegemonic contexts. Glick Schiller et al. call these ‘new’ social fields
transnational social spaces, which cross the borders of nation-states and create new
specific forms of consciousness (Glick Schiller, Basch et al, 1997: 85ff).
Transmigration phenomena are not completely new, as they could also be observed in
earlier waves of migration. However, new technologies in communication and
transportation constitute the intensity and depth of links in transnational life-models in
the era of globalisation (Faist 2000, Lutz 2006).
4.2 The combination of the transnationalism approach and
biographical research perspectives in empirical studies
In recent biographical migration research, scholars have started to pay attention to the
theoretical discourses of transnationalism.17
It is argued that empirical migration
research needs to conceptualise more clearly different types of transmigration
phenomena subsumed under the heading of transnational social spaces and
transmigration, and especially pay attention to the gender-specific aspects (RuokonenEngler
and Siouti 2006). Feminist scholars have studied the phenomenon of domestic
work in different disciplinary fields, using the transnationalism approach as their
theoretical background (see Hess and Lenz 2001, Lutz 2004, Shinozaki 2004) and
examined how gender, class, ethnicity and ‘race’ intersect with one another.
In her study ‘Negotiating Citizenship in Transnational Migration: The Case of
Filipina and Filipino Migrant Domestic Workers in Germany’ (2004), Kyoko
Shinozaki examines the identity formation and subjectivity of Filipina and Filipino
irregular domestic workers. Her empirical study is based on biographical interviews
and ethnographic fieldwork. The theoretical background lies in the transnationalism
16
The empirical basis of Pries’s theoretical conception of transmigration was Mexican migration to the
United States; see Pries 1996, 1997.
17
Apart from the biographical-analytical studies linked with transnationalism approach which are
mentioned in this section, there are also a number of empirical studies which are based on the
transnationalism approach but do not use biographical research explicitly. See, for example, for Italian
migration to Germany Martini (2001) and for Turkish migration Can (2006).
17
and citizenship approaches. Shinozaki looks into the negotiation strategies of care
workers with family members left behind via the gendered norms inscribed into
Filipino citizenship. She also investigates patterns of the migrants' everyday
negotiation strategies in relation to working conditions negotiated with their
employers. The analysis reveals migrant domestics' agency, severely constrained by
Filipino citizenship norms as well as their irregular immigration status in the racially
and ethnically segmented German labour market. This delicate and yet dynamic
negotiation shapes their citizenship in the process of transnational migration (see
Shinozaki 2004).
Minna-Kristiina Ruokonen-Engler combines a transnational perspective with
biographical analysis in her empirical study of migration processes and subject
constructions of Finnish migrant women in Germany (2007). By reconstructing
biographical processes and subject positions, she indicates how agency gets
constructed along transnational belonging as a result of individual biographical
resources and structural constraints at the interplay of a range of locations and
dislocations in relation to gender, ethnicity, class and racialisation.
The integration of the transnational perspective into the analysis of second generation
immigrants in Germany has recently started (see Fürstenau 2004, Siouti 2003, 2007).
In the German-language migration research literature, the transmigration approach
and the transmigrant as a prototype of migration have been dealt with predominantly
in the context of working migration and the first generation (see Martini 2001). In
connection with the second generation, transmigration was treated at the beginning of
the debate – at least at a theoretical level - as something cosmopolitan, an elite
phenomenon, and was ruled out as a possible form of life for children of the classical
working migrants, the so-called ‘guest workers’ (‘Gastarbeiter’) (Kürşat- Ahlers/
Waldhoff 2001: 58).
Biographical research on migration processes among second generation immigrants
has shown, though, that cross-border movements are shaping biographical
reconstructions, being perceived as positive opportunities. This makes it necessary to
discuss transmigration as a specific form of migration among the second generation in
Europe (Fürstenau 2004, Siouti 2003, 2007). One important finding of empirical
research among the second generation of Greek immigrants (Siouti 2003, 2007) is that
the hypothesis which dominates the literature, to the effect that the ‘commuting
phenomenon’ leads to poor school results and failed educational careers in the second
generation (Damanakis 1982, Diehl 2002, Auernheimer 2006), cannot be confirmed.
Biographical experiences in two societies and cultures, along with the experience of
‘commuter migration’ during childhood and schooldays, do not necessarily lead to
failure at school. Having the opportunity to cross borders and to attend school in two
different systems may also be conceptualised as a biographical resource for the
second generation which can be mobilised in order to achieve success at school and in
other social environments. The ‘transnational commuting migration’ schemes (Siouti
2007), defined as a sort of transmigration phenomena, can be interpreted as
unintended consequences of strategies that are structurally determined by migration
policies. The transnational treaties between Germany and Greece, the setting up of the
Greeks’ own binational education system in Germany, and the possibility of moving
freely within the EU make it possible for Greek migrants to establish a biographical
action scheme that is based on geographical mobility. However, not only structural
18
factors influence the development of transmigration phenomena; it is more the
interplay between the structural factors and biographical (work) processes that leads
to the development of transnational biographies (Siouti ibid.).
4.3 The category of the transnational social space
The theoretical core of the transmigration approach is the assumption that
geographical and social space have become decoupled from each other. Now, the
discovery of the decoupling of social from geographical space is not altogether new,
since this is the main concern of the whole field of diaspora research. However, the
diaspora approach focuses on the mechanisms which serve to maintain the difference
between country of origin and country of settlement, and assumes that the diaspora is
socially, or at least culturally, closed in relation to the society of settlement. The
transnational space approach, on the other hand, proceeds on the basis of the
assumption that in transnational social spaces, new sociocultural models and forms of
society-formation come into being which ‘include elements of both the society of
settlement and the society of origin, and which simultaneously give both of these, by
mingling the elements together and mixing them up, a qualitatively different hybrid
content’ (Pries 2000: 418). A consequence is the constitution of hybrid and multiple
identity formations (see Mecheril 2003).
Cross-border interactions and movements in transmigration processes do not just
function as links between two national societies, but are genuinely transformed into a
kind of ‘new cross–border social texture’ (Pries 2003).
At a theoretical level, the concept of ‘transnational social space’ has been introduced
as a central category in migration research.18
The questions that arise out of this
phenomenon, about the relationship between social spaces as life contexts of the
everyday world and geographical-physical spaces, are discussed in the social sciences
with reference to various concepts of space, especially Simmel’s ‘sociology of space’
(see Pries 1997, 2000) and Bourdieu’s conceptualisation of social spaces (see Faist
2000a, Fürstenau 2004).
Transnational social spaces are defined from a political science perspective by
Thomas Faist (2000a) as combinations of social and symbiotic ties, positions in
networks and organisations that can be found in at least two geographically and
internationally distinct places (Faist 2000a: 10) Faist distinguishes three types of
transnational social spaces: kinship groups, transnational circuits and transnational
communities (Faist 2000a: 20-22). In his theoretical model, space refers not only to
physical features, but also to larger opportunity structures, the social life and the
subjective images, values, and meanings that the specific and limited place represents
to migrants. According to Faist, ‘space is thus different from place in that it
encompasses or spans various territorial locations. It includes two or more places.
Space has a social meaning that extends beyond simple territoriality; only with
concrete social or symbolic ties does it gain meaning for potential migrants’ (Faist
2000b). Ludger Pries (1997) follows Norbert Elias and defines the transnational social
spaces as ‘contexts of social integration.....relatively permanent, dense configurations
of everyday social practices, and systems of symbols, which are distributed across
18
Other terms such as transnational social fields or transnational social formations are often used
synonymously in the social sciences (see Siouti 2003).
19
several locations or spread between a number of spaces, and which are neither
delocalized nor deterritorialized’ (Pries 2001: 53). They emerge within the setting of
transnational migration systems.
Empirical studies which combine the biographical research perspective with the
paradigm of transnationalism are based on these theoretical definitions of
transnational social spaces. However, they are trying to extend them through a
biographical perspective by focusing on the question of how transnational social
spaces are constituted through migration processes (Apitzsch 2006, Lutz 2004) and
how transnational biographies can be theoretically defined.
It is argued that the transnational social space is ‘overformated’ by hegemonic
relations and is simultaneously produced by the migration subjects’ biographical work
and concretised in the structure of the migration biography (Apitzsch 2003, 2006). A
‘transnational biography’ is seen in this conceptualisations as a ‘site’ for the
biographical accumulation of experience and knowledge (Apitzsch 2006) as well as
an articulation of ‘narrative negotiations of biographical experiences’ (Lutz 2004,19
Ruokonen-Engler and Siouti 2006: 10).
From a phenomenological perspective, it has been argued that the metaphor of
transnational social space is equated with the phenomenon of biographical knowledge
(Biographisches Wissen) (Alheit and Hoerning 1989) of subjects, which is
accumulated and symbolised in life courses of individuals and groups (Apitzsch
2003, 2006). A transnational biography is thus not only a product of subjectivity (Lutz
2004) (Produkt von Subjektivität) but also a methodological way of accessing
invisible objective structures of transnational migration spaces.
Conclusion
About ten years ago the famous Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the
Social Sciences (1996) predicted that, if social scientists could not find a revised
intellectual perception of a useful interdisciplinary collaboration between them, taking
into account the perspectives of gender, race, class, and linguistic culture, it would be
no doubt be done for them by administrators of the institutions of knowledge.
Biographical research is a good example of what the Gulbenkian Comission observed
as a new and promising development which has crossed traditional disciplinary
boundaries. Biographical research offers ways of engaging interdisciplinary fields of
research and biography theory in a theoretical framework for investigating processes
of change and the mingling of individual and societal positionings and identity
constructions in migration processes. The embeddedness of gender and migration as
well as generational relations become visible through the biographical perspective.
The biographical research perspective offers a promising way of responding to the
methodological challenge that the notion of transnationalism brings into the field of
19
Helma Lutz (2004, 2006) argues from a discourse theoretical position. Referring to Stanley (1992: 7),
she understands articulation as ‘narrative negotiations of biographical experiences’ (erzählte
Verhandlungen biographischer Erfahrungen; Lutz 2004: 212).
20
qualitative empirical migration research. Through the methodological use of
narratives and case reconstructive procedures, it is providing methodological tools to
overcome the nation state perspective as ‘natural unit of the analysis’ and the
‘methodological nationalism’ (Wimmer, Glick Schiller 2003) of migration research.
However, it remains a challenge for the methodological debate in biographical
research to reflect upon the intercultural aspect of the way in which methods are
proceeded. We need to develop a whole set of concepts that respond to the fact that
not only forms of migration but also the contexts of research have changed.
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