Personal reflexivity and biography: methodological challenges and strategies

Caetano, Ana

doi:10.1080/13645579.2014.885154

Cited by 42 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…The empirical analysis was anchored in 20 biographical interviews that were carried out in more than one session, in Portugal, in the interviewees' own homes, with people with diverse social backgrounds and features, mainly in terms of sex, age, educational level, occupation, and social origins (Caetano, ). The interview script was structured around three blocks of questions: the first concerns the respondent's biography; the second refers to the subject's daily life; and the third focuses on his internal and external conversations.…”

Section: Researching Personal Reflexivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing social action: The impact of reflexivity on practice

Caetano

2018

J Theory Soc Behav

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The main goal of this article is to analyse the relationship between reflexivity and action along three axes.The first entails the discussion of a reflexive action model that explores the combination of factors, processes and mechanisms which explain the guiding role reflexivity can play with regard to practices, in specific circumstances. The second axis concerns situations in which reflexivity does not act as an orientation mechanism and may even have the opposite effect, as a source of disorientation and paralysis of practices. The third relates to the production of social change and reproduction that may arise from the exercise of reflexivity. The whole discussion points to the mediation role that reflexivity assumes in the relationship between structure and agency, i.e. in the way structural enablements and constraints are received, filtered and mobilised by subjects in the subjective definition and reflexive implementation of their personal projects.

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Section: Researching Personal Reflexivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing social action: The impact of reflexivity on practice

Caetano

2018

J Theory Soc Behav

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“…However, we believe that the reflexive lifeline approach outlined here, helps to capture what Abbott (2017, p. 13) described as the 'historicality of individuals,' that is, the 'encoded historical experience' that at any given moment 'constitutes a set of possibilities and constraints within which various actors must work in the present.' It also allows us to uncover and explore the 'reflexive competences' (Caetano, 2015) through which people act to address critical life events. Both layers of interpretation and analysis are essential to a biographical understanding of resilience.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using reflexive lifelines in biographical interviews to aid the collection, visualisation and analysis of resilience

Gray

Dagg

2018

Contemporary Social Science

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This article demonstrates the use of a reflexive lifeline instrument within a study oriented towards documenting and explaining resilience from a sociological perspective. Informed by both life course and biographical perspectives, our research design comprised two interviews incorporating recursive co-construction of the participant's lifeline. We aimed to meet three objectives with this method: (1) to collect accurate retrospective data about the timing of lives; (2) to garner biographical data that allowed us to explore lives as wholes; and (3) to elicit participant reflexivity on turning points associated with resilience. Our approach was distinctive in its explicit use of the lifeline both as a means to bring life stories into dialogue with life histories, and as a dynamic prompt to engage participants in the reflexive coconstruction of turning points as fateful moments. We illustrate our approach through a case presentation and analysis of the reflexive lifelines co-constructed with two men who participated in our study. We also show how the reflexive lifeline interview generated opportunities for participant-led researcher reflexivity.

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“…The research design was influenced by the biographical methods employed in life story and life course approaches across sociology and adjacent disciplines ( Bertaux and Kohli, 1984 ; Bertaux and Thompson, 2006 ) but which are relatively under-utilized in the sociology of work ( Mrozowicki et al, 2010 ). Biographies allow the exploration of life contexts, social roles and social relationships, and so are useful tools for accessing personal reflexivity ( Caetano, 2015 ). In turn, accessing the reflexivity of older workers allows insight into the nuances of complex social processes ( Strangleman, 2012 ).…”

Section: Methodology and Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technology, Affordances and Occupational Identity Amongst Older Telecommunications Engineers: From Living Machines to Black-Boxes

Marks

Morgan

2015

Sociology

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This article explores the relationship between technology and occupational identity based on working-life biographical interviews with older telecommunications engineers. In the construction of their own working-life biographical narratives, participants attached great importance to the technology with which they worked. The article contends that workers’ relationship with technology can be more nuanced than either the sociology of technology literature or the sociology of work literature accommodates. Adopting the concept of affordances, it is argued that the physical nature of earlier electromechanical technology afforded engineers the opportunity to ‘fix’ things through the skilled application of tools and act as autonomous custodians of ‘living’ machines: factors that were inherent to their occupational identity. However, the change to digital technology denied the affordances to apply hands-on skill and undermined key elements of the engineering occupational identity. Rather than simply reflecting the nostalgic romanticizing of the past, the biographies captured deterioration in the material realities of work.

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Personal reflexivity and biography: methodological challenges and strategies

Cited by 42 publications

References 30 publications

Designing social action: The impact of reflexivity on practice

Designing social action: The impact of reflexivity on practice

Using reflexive lifelines in biographical interviews to aid the collection, visualisation and analysis of resilience

Technology, Affordances and Occupational Identity Amongst Older Telecommunications Engineers: From Living Machines to Black-Boxes

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