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It is now more than twenty years since I first came across biographical research in connection
with my doctoral thesis. It was a time when this approach was beginning to re-establish itself
after half a century, in German sociology in particular but also at the international level.
Sociological biographical research began in the 1920s, in association with the migration study
The Polish Peasant in Europe and America by William Isaac Thomas and Florian Znaniecki
(1918–20; 1958) at the University of Chicago. Even then, empirical work was already concentrating
on the single case study. Alongside documentary analysis on the migration process, this
voluminous work contains only one biography of a Polish migrant, commissioned by the
researchers. It was not so much the concrete biographical analysis that made this work so influential for subsequent interpretative sociology and biographical research, but rather the two authors' general methodological comments.

Biographical research may take a range of forms and may vary in its application and approach but has the unified and coherent aim to give 'voice' to individuals. The central concern of this collection is to assemble articles (from sociology, social psychology, education, health, criminology, social gerontology, epidemiology, management, and organizational research) that illustrate the full range of debates, methods and techniques that can be combined under heading `biographical research'

This paper looks at the possibilities of using biographical research in social work focusing on the elderly. Social work with the elderly uses or should use biographical data to create individual plans for clients or for the purpose of sensory activation. Narrative interviews are a form of interaction between a senior client and a social worker. The social worker supports the senior's narrative so they can view their life for themselves and explain its meaning from their own perspective. The use of sensory activation in social work is only possible when the individual's identity is supported by a sufficient amount of environmental stimuli, which can be achieved only by acquiring and analyzing data on the life events of the individual. The paper contains examples of the use of biographical data in social work with the elderly, which is essential for further structuring their lives.

In diesem Artikel geht es um zweierlei: Zum einen wird die Entwicklung eines gemeinsamen Projekts einer Gruppe von Sozialwissenschaftlern rekonstruiert, die ihre spezifischen biographieanalytischen Ansätze und Arbeitsweisen dadurch sichtbar machen, dass sie sich jeweils auf ein bestimmtes autobiographisch-narratives Interview konzentrieren: das Interview mit einer Arbeitsmigrantin aus der Türkei, die in einer deutschen Großstadt lebt. Das Datenmaterial war - unter Leitung der vor einiger Zeit verstorbenen Christa Hoffmann-Riem - im Rahmen eines studentischen Forschungsprojektes erhoben worden. Die Transkription des Interviews ist sowohl in der deutschen Originalversion als auch in englischer Übersetzung zugänglich. Zum anderen wird die Rekonstruktion dieses Projekts in den Kontext einer Forschungstradition gerückt (die mit dem Namen von Fritz Schütze verbunden ist), in der ursprünglich dieser Typ des Interviews - das narrative Interview - entwickelt worden war. Obgleich dieser Interviewtyp heutzutage sehr weit verbreitet ist, erscheint es notwendig, an seine Geschichte zu erinnern, um eine unangebrachte und enge Fokussierung auf 'Methode' oder 'Technik' zu vermeiden. Der Artikel betont die Verbindung von theoretischen und methodologischen Interessen zu Beginn dieser Entwicklung, die Entscheidung, auf methodische Weise Stegreiferzählungen eigener Erlebnisse für soziologische Forschung zu verwenden, und die Hinwendung zur Durchführung und sequentiellen Analyse autobiographisch-narrativer Interviews, die sich als fruchtbar für die Entdeckung von 'Prozessstrukturen' des Lebensablaufs erwies. Daher lieferte diese Forschungstradition einen Beitrag zur Herausbildung und gegenwärtigen Form der sozialwissenschaftlichen Biographieforschung.

It is argued that we need to cultivate a wider appreciation of the range and variety of national traditions in qualitative research in general, and biographical research in particular. There are many such traditions in Europe, but because of the dominance of the English language, they remain poorly known outside their own countries of origin. This paper makes a plea for a greater knowledge and dissemination of those research traditions. The paper is illustrated with references to just two such European traditions – from Italy and Poland. It is also suggested that these research traditions constitute social actors in culturally and historically distinct ways.

This article addresses the paucity of social work political biographies by suggesting a novel approach of combining constructivist grounded theory and biographical inquiry methodologies as a recommended way of exploring the neglected field of social work political biographies. Both approaches have their roots in the democratic turn in social sciences research in the 1960s, which should increase their appeal to radical social work researchers. Political biographies of social workers are increasingly important at a time of neoliberal hegemony and the desire to see more social work politicians (Gwilym, 2017). It is hoped that the article will help to generate further interest in the neglected field of social work political biographies and encourage other researchers to engage with this field.