Biographical methods in migration research
Biographical methods in migration research

Author(s): Deborah Sporton, Theodoros Iosifides
Subject(s): Sociology, Methodology and research technology, Evaluation research, Migration Studies
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: methodology; biographical methods; migration studies; qualitative methods;
Summary/Abstract: 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 dominance and associated views of social reality. After an initial interest to biographical methods, which followed the edition of ‘The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1919-1921)’ by Thomas and Znaniecki (1958), biographical and generally qualitative research methods gave way to empiricist-quantitative approaches and only since the end of 1960 the positivist domination begun to be unsettled (Halfacree and Boyle 1993; Findlay and Li 1997; Tsiolis 2006).

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