Biographical methods and social policy in European perspective

This chapter considers the relative hospitality of different welfare traditions to biographical approaches, and helps broker supportive European sociological and policy concepts to British researchers and practitioners. It derives from an international conference in 2000, organised jointly with Apitzsch (Frankfurt University), funded by EU 'Accompanying Measures'. Convening biographical, oral history and narrative research from sixteen countries and diverse practitioner contexts, the book explores the capacity of biographical methods to lay bare the dynamics of interactive subjectivity in welfare work, giving detailed accounts of research methods in use. The chapter by Chamberlayne provides a conceptual and contextualising landscape for this diversity

Second-generation transcultural lives

Based on the EU-funded SOSTRIS project (Social Strategies in Risk Society 1996-9), this chapter exemplifies biographical research linking the personal with the social, reconnecting social policy with lived realities and exploring biographical strategies across class, gender and generation. Like the Introduction and Conclusions to the book, co-authored by Chaberlayne, it inverts coparative social policy to start with individual experience, here the precarious negotiations involved in second-generation identities in contrasting social contexts. It appeals for a more relational approach to social policy, taking subjective processes into account. It has been translated into French for a peer reviewed migration studies journal

Emotional retreat and social exclusion: towards biographical methods in professional training

This article argues the relevance of biographical case study methods as a tool for professional practice. The case of Laura, manager of a small hostel for homeless people, shows hidden reserves of emotional understanidng which Laura finds too risky to bring into play. Analysis of the structure of the interview shows the enactment and lowering of Laura's defences in interaction with the interviewer. The article argues for support and supervision to allow professionals to recognise and use their capacities for emotional thinking, and that this kind of 'experiential truth' is key both for users and professionals in tackling social exclusion. Methodological parallels between biographical methods and effective training are also drawn through discussion of responses to a training video based on a fictionalised version of a critical incident from this interview

Narratives of Social Enterprise: From Biography to Practice and Policy critique

Biographical methods are commonly regarded as suitable for the narrative study of individual lives. This article, drawing on a psychosocial case study of narratives in a community development setting, demonstrates their potential to make links between interpersonal, organizational and policy domains. The analysis questions the adequacy of notions of ‘social enterprise’ and ‘active citizenship’ to characterize activism, leadership and engagement in disadvantaged communities. By focusing on the intersection of personal and organizational narratives and the dynamic reflexivity of the interpretive process, the article also points to the capacity of biographical methods to enhance professional skills and understanding, and bring a newly dynamic relationship between research, policy and practice

Cultures of care: Biographies of carers in Britain and the two Germanies

This work compares the experiences of unpaid family carers in three different welfare systems. It is based on narrative interviews in which carers were invited to speak freely about their caring situation, how it unfolded, what support they had, and what caring meant for their lives. The book investigates the inter-relatedness of the personal and the social, how individual lives are shaped by different social systems, and how individual life-paths are forged, even in the most constrained situations. Its purpose is to bring alive and extend abstract models that are used in comparative social policy by: showing how the social relations of caring are structured within and outside the home environment; using separate analyses of "lived" and "told" stories to highlight personal processes of continuity and change in meeting the challenge of caring; and comparing the case links of individual strategies to the structural features of welfare societies

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Abstract: Method: The Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (Prue CHAMBERLAYNE, Joanna BORNAT & Tom WENGRAF, 2000