654.2
Analyzing Recurring Themes in a Life Story with Social Context in Mind
Every life story tells about the history of a person who has lived in a given social niche of a given society with a specific cultural model. Thus sociologists may learn a lot from it about this social niche and cultural model; especially if multiplying life stories lived in the same social context. In analyzing the life stories I have collected myself, I usually follow three main steps. First, as Bertaux (2007) indicates, I reconstruct the chronology of life events, which during the interview have usually been mentioned according to some semantic associations rather than strict chronology. Secondly, through thematic analysis I’ll look for recurring themes; their very recurrence usually signals crucial processes (e.g. discrimination, selection) out there, in the external social world. Thirdly I’ll look for hints, indices, clues about social processes out there; e. g. constraints, limits to action, social barriers, or - by contrast - opportunities, spaces for initiative, creative courses of action. Bertaux states that a life story should be read and re-read many times while focusing - and trying to imagine – patterns of social relations ‘out there’ that shaped it. I agree, but I also pay much more attention to childhood. Indeed I believe (with Wordsworth, Nietzsche, Freud …) that the child – i.e. childhood - is the father of the adult. A given childhood includes many keys which, if unraveled, will prove very helpful in deciphering the grown-up adult’s inner workings. Another issue is about turning points in the course of life. As Hareven and Masaoka have shown, far from happening out of nowhere through impact of some external event, turning points in life usually result from a slow maturation taking place in the inner space of psyche.