Giving a three dimensional form to biography

The intervention deals with a broader approach to research using qualitative methods. The argumentation is based on examples from the experience of PhD field research on challenges in intermarriages with a partner coming from an Arab country. The PhD project was conceived of using a pure biographical approach : collecting life stories of family members. However, I realized just a few months after the very beginning of my field that I was doing ethnography too. So I have tried to sharpen my methodology using “reflexive ethnography” [Burawoy, 2003 & 1998]   (taking the context and the situation as a starting point) and “multi-site ethnography” [Marcus, 1995] (participating in different spaces and domains of the social life).

To well understand the phenomena that we could generally define as a “total social fact”, a more articulate method is profitable. Moreover, the “biographical work” [Inowlocki & Lutz, 2000] calls for competences in different disciplines.  In addition to interdisciplinarity, this work demands that the researcher  moves from “micro-sociological” level to “meso” and “macro” ones, passing through interactions and transitions. To achieve a complete comprehension of the interviewees’ stories and to deepen the  issue of research, it is necessary to better describe and to experience interviewees’ life in time, space and movement. For this, the interviewer as a researcher, cannot be satisfied with the récit, he/she has to widen the observation,  to “be part of the stories collected” and to participate in his/her field at different levels.

I come to the conclusion that ethnography, in particular the Burawoy and Marcus outlines, seem to be essential to give a three dimensional form to the biographical work. There is a strong alliance between these methods that empower the outcomes of biography analysis. Probably, the weakness is in term of time and engagement, considering the commitment in social research.