The individuation and autonomy achievement processes render young adulthood a suitable period to examine how experiences in the social world, particularly those associated with social and political participation, related to identity formation. Through a thematic analysis focused on dimensions of autobiographical reasoning and a narrative profile analysis focused on the thematic coherence of life stories, we explore whether and how experiences of social and political participation connect to their sense of self in a sample of 34 Chilean young adults, half of them involved in different forms of civic and political participation. Experiences of social and political participation were more frequently highlighted in narratives of participants that were actually involved in social or political initiatives at the time of the study. Compared to the uninvolved group, the involved group provided more elaborate self-event connections and elaborated on how these experiences significantly shaped who they became. Six themes reflecting sociopolitical and idiosyncratic features of the Chilean history (urban migration, social and economic disparities, 1973-1990 military rule, intergenerational impact of political violence, natural disasters, and students' mobilizations) emerged in participants' narratives, confirming the sociocultural embeddedness of personal narratives. Finally, eight profiles that reflect the diverse meanings and forms in which experiences of social and political participation are integrated into a sense of self were identified. Profiles were distinguished in terms of their commitment and their orientation to self-enhancing versus concern for other motives. Methodological challenges, limitations of the study, and future directions for research are discussed.

Existe poco desarrollo de las implicancias teóricas, metodológicas y empíricas de adoptar una postura feminista en investigación social y urbana. En el presente texto, tres investigadoras cualitativas se aventuran al desafío que supone el ejercicio reflexivo de traer al frente y en primera persona sus posiciones onto-epistemológicas en el diseño metodológico de la investigación social, en especial cuando son aplicadas en contextos urbanos desiguales. A partir de sus propias experiencias produciendo datos cualitativos en movimiento en las ciudades de Chaitén, Santiago y Barcelona, se ofrecen lineamientos claves para hacer de la investigación cualitativa un modo de construir conocimiento consciente de las lógicas de poder, evitando así el riesgo de apellidar crítica a la disciplina sólo como una forma de rebautizarla, vacía de su impacto ético, político y práctico.