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BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH .. ,
3
Biographical research
Gabriele Rosenthal
"' years since I first
---""' thaO t\\CO; .
lt ss no"' research in connecuo_n
came .,crOSS
1
..
11
was a time when thiS
dQCIOfll tu .. ..,ls. . h . If
,.11h mY be ning 10 re-cstabhs .11SC
_-roach was I!ID . . I .
-
0
German sOCIO ogy m
half a centlli'Y. I . I
after ISO at the intematwnal (eve .
phical research began in the
Soclolog with the migration study
1920s. ID b
Tile Polish Peasant in Europe and y
W
.
11
J c Thomas and Flonan Znameckl
I 13111 ,_ . . f Ch'
191 8
_
20
; )958) at the umvers1ty o 1cago.
then. empirical work was already concen-
trating on the single case study. Alongs1de docu-
mental)' analysis on the m1grd!IOO process, thiS
voluminous work contains only one biography
of a Polish mi grant, commissioned by the
researchers. lt was not so much the concrete bio-
graphical analysis that made this work so influen-
tial for subsequent interpretative sociology and
biographical research, but rather the two authors'
general methodological comments. One of the
most important was their demand that 'social
science cannot remain on the surface of social
becoming, where certain schools wish to have it
float, but must reach the actual human experi-
ences and attitudes which constitute the full live
and active social reality beneath the formal
mzauon of social institutions' ( 1958: 11, 1834).
Biographical research, inspired by this study
blossomed at the Sociology Department
Chicago dunng the 1920s at the initiative of
Emest W. Burgess and Robert E P k
Researche ar .
. rs mouvated by realization of th
of 'getting inside of the actor's
...-- 1ve now recnun d he bioraPhical -.,..lze 1 advantages of the
live cue study for recording the subJ. ec-
penpe<:tlves of membe f .
In the sociol . rs
0
vanous milieus.
eummmg wod opy mcreasingly began re-
ing lO a School, lead-
rt1ear h m
10
mtcrpretativc
c . The ftnt anthology of
biographical resea_rch was publish .
in 197!! by Mart m and C
reader by French SOCIOlogist D


followed . in 198 I. This re se ahnlc)
. h . arc
1
expandmg to t IS day in the v . cndc .
disciplines. In sociology today

Spe' 1
increasingly considered and ex;
f
. I . rnmcd ill
construct o soc1a reality in the as a
1986; Fischer and Kohli , 1987),
wntten or narrated biographies w cas lniti!Jh
mentally as a source of specific used
As well as in sociology,
has become especially well
history (Bornat, Chapter 2 th d m O!ll
' IS V I
Thompson, 1992; von Plato, 1998) and
0
ullit,
cational (Aiheit, 1993, 19
94
-'he
. Marotzk1, 1999). Psychology _
diSClphne also began putting down tl:!
roots 10 the 1920s and 1930s through th
Charlotte and Karl Biihlcr and their
the Psychological Institute of Vienna

(cf. Biihler, 1933) - has also begun rcdiscl':llll)
. h. I
the bwgrap 1ca approach. Internationally Ill
work by Jcrome Bruncr ( 1990), Georg; C
Rosenwald and Richard L. Ochberg (1992) 111l
Dan MeA dams ( 1993) - to m1mc but a
led to a rediscovery of verstehende psycho\oc)
and above all biographical research operallllj
with narrative methods. Recently the
narra tive ide ntity has gained more attention ml
fairly elaborated versions of the concept ha1t
been proposed (Hols tci n and Gubrium, 200Ji
As Chapter 7 by Molly Andrews et al. (in thJ
volume) clearly s hows, thi s concerns abolt
all ' the potential of narrative to function all
cornerstone of identity formation and maiiiU
nance over time' .
My own introduction to biographical_ reserti
in 19KO came thro ugh an interest 10
patterns of interpretation that was imuat1
unconnected to biographical approaches-
1
'.,
. , the patterns of interpretation of a
stlldY
1
ng whose members were at that time
defining the discour.;es of the various
ioCreas ncluding professors. My own parents
elites -
10
this generation, the 'Hitler Youth
!JC)onge , born approximately between 1920
erauon . .
gell
30
1 was interested m the questiOn of
and
19
to what extent the patterns of inter-
internalized under the Nazis had
in the democratic Federal Republic. As
change k progressed, it relatively quickly became
the worh t
1
had little chance of understanding
)ear I a f I
c . rccption and mterpretauon o soc1a reality
their peh r processes of cogmuve transformation
nd t el . h h h. d .
p 1 was familiar w11 t c 1story an expert-
unless I h
. f the generatiOn - m part1cu art e1r expe-
cnccs
0
under the Nazis in the Hitler Youth,
ences .
n . the Second World War, and dunng the
of the Third Reich. Unless I knew their
eo kapround history, how could I explai n why
bac g d 'fi d I h
. generation 1 cnll 1e so conspicuous y w1t
. h .
west Germany's _economiC growl ' a nd_ why 11
was at the same t1me so performance-onentated
and so hard on itself and unforg1vmg of 1ts own
aknesses? On the other hand, much could
understood if one knew the biographical
b:ckground- their experiences in _childhood and
dolcscence, their concrete expenence of youth
and school. I knew some of thi s bio-
raphical background from the s tones told by
parents. For that reason there is a sense in
which 1 have them to thank for my interest in my
interview partners' pasts.
So at that point I decided to adopt a life-story
approach. At this time, the narrative interview
method of Fritz Schutze ( 1976, 1983) was pro-
voking a great deal of discussion in the field of
qualitative research. Following this method, 1
asked my interviewees to tell me their biograph-
ical experiences during childhood and in the
years foll owi ng the collapse of the Third Reich
(Rosenthal, 1987, 19t<9. 1991). Today, many
years later, I have reflected on the theory and
methodology of my empirical approach at that
time, and no longer employ that degree of
thematic focus. Instead - like many biographical
researchers in Germany - I ask interviewees to
tell me their whole li fe story (sec below). This
approach - and the associated bracketing of the
research question during collection of data and a
large part of analysis - involves a significant
effort to put one's acquired traditional
methodological training.
At the outset, for the reconstruction of the life
s_tories of members of the Hitler Youth genera-
lion! I drew up an analysis concept where the
d_Jsllncuon between life story and life history
(1.e., between the narrated personal life as related
in conversation or written in the present time and
the lived-through life) plays a central role. This
means I distinguish between the perspective of
the biob'rnpher 10 the past and the perspective of
the biographer in the present. This analytical
dist inct ion and its methodological realization in
analytical steps was in part a result of the
theoretical influence of the work of Wolfram
Fischer (1982), who demonstrated so clearly the
constitution of biographical narrative through the
present perspective. lt was, however, a lso a
result of my chosen field of research. Narratives
concerning National Socialism are characterized
in the first place by denials, reinterpretat ions and
formation of myths, so analysis demands that the
researcher exercise a permanent methodological
doubt and overcome his or her own West German
socialization. If one wishes to avoid contributing
to the reproduction of myths and denials, one
has to pay attention to the difference between
the account and the past experience. In my habil-
itation t hesis (Rosenthal, 1995) I went on to
develop a gestalt-theoretical-phenomenological
concept of the dialectical interrelation between
experience, memory and narration, and dis-
cussed this distinction as one that must be
taken into account in all narrated and written
biographies.
BIOGRAPHY-THEORETICAL
ASSUMPTIONS
The methodological decision to ask for the
whole life story to be told, regardless of the spe-
cific research question, is based on fundamental
theoretical assumptions. Where we are dealing
with questions of social science or history that
relate to social phenomena that are tied to people's
experiences and have biographical meaning for
them, these assumptions lead us to interpret the
meaning of these phenomena in the overall con-
text of the biogrdphy.The indi vidual assumptions
are:
2
In order to understand and explain
2
social and
psychological phenomena we have to recon-
struct their genesis - the process of their
creation, reproduction and transfonnation.
In order to understand and explain people' s
actions it is necessary to find out about both
the subjective perspective of the actors and the
courses of action. We want to fmd out what
they experienced. what rneaninK they pvc
their actions at the time. what meanini they
auign today, and in what biograpiUcally coo-
i tituted context they place their experienc:cL
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

HffOJHG . . lh< m<thod of b;o"''Ph;,.
C
oi.J d'scuss . va rnpJ ' ijf c
.. ""' ' . ,;,, '" ' ""' """
1 rructron Y.
n:cons 5I l'lir.nJ and
.... ro un.it . boruphcr
__...,. 10 , ..... "
J 111 ,1f an t:\peric:nccs rn
ttt fll"',.;ul&r t0fl
1
'
1
,, iot.:rprcl thCIO

1
t oc-..:sS&fY(.rt rur
IIW .-1 .,!lit ,,..,rrJ/1 1'/Ifll n ; prt-senr and
,. ,_.. .,a bJS!bCr rtSII 11 !;
ft#ll
.

anhc expe-
. .......,
S<JIII fLJII'"'ing rhe
JIIC"":;:i'd.t .Jillc:f in rhCY occum:.
Ill . rru-:r ,w.:iul phenomena JO
T1lt p)ll1l IS rc-'()11)10 ' This appliCS IO
111c procos. of rt-proJuction ol
ot . pro<-..:SSL'S of uansforrna
laJJN sOUC!UrtS anJ tO na<l life history)
' -uucnng r-' '" .
IJOII. Wbtfi rt''()ll) nt life nart11rive (the
lll_rhe that me prescnrauon
;101}'111 must .b( riruted by me present of
of pa.-.1. ,,ents " .ons. b. -nher determines
The prtscnr of the rO,!;I"''' .. .
na>l -- produces a spccrfic
rht .... on uo. .- wou ..
The presenr condrrrons
pail f ..,.....,..fics, the temporal und
rht scJccnon o . , of
rhtfllllic JrnlJgC of mcmoncs. and the rype
ration of rhe rcmtmbcll.'d
=,ns that in rhe course of a life w1m rts bro-
rurnilll:l points - points of interprcrarron
tfiscbcr. rhal lead to a reinterpretation of
tbr piSI and present. and also of the future.- new
rtiiiCII!btred pasts arise at each pornt. Thrs con-
saucbOfl of rhe past out of the present is not, how
t\'CI', ro be understood &\ a cons!IUction separate
6om the respecti,c expenenced past Instead,
rncmory-bastd narratives of experienced events
11t also constituted mrough experiences in the
I*' tRostnthal. 1995). So narratives of experi-
enced e>cnts refer both to the current life and to
tilt piSI cxpcncncc. Just as me past is constituted
our of tbt prcscrll and the anticipated future, so the
praeDI arises our of the past and the future. In this
way biographical narratives provide infonnation
011
tbt narraWr's pment as well as about his/her
1-' and pmptttivcs for the future.
The theomical discussed above
ra-.ply pwtrcular requirements of the dalll collec-
1100 and analysrs methods:
BIOGRAPHICAL-NARRATIVE:
INTERVIEW
The biographical-narrative
1

. . nterv
these requm:ments particular! rc11.
Schiitze ( 1976, 1983) introduce/ h WeJJ.
method in the 1970s; in the meant/
18

be
come an established interv llle 11
. rew
fields other than socrological bio r; la
and has been developed further g. aphy
In I . ""'1:11
increase rn quesuonrng techniqu or
1995: 186-207). es IRosenr
Today most people who pursu .
k e lhts
research trrst ta e rnto considerat tyPe
h . .
1
. ron 1 ct.... or
dent of 1 err socra scrence questio '
life story both !n tenns of its the enlire
is constructed rn present. That is :d how il
one first conducts rntervrcws and hy whtn
life stories, one does not restrict
or phases the biograph/6
10
Jlar4
individual areas of .hfe or individual
life in tenns of the brography's entire P ases n
. conrexr
take place only after the entrre life
510
Can
ture or gestalt and the whole life nary s struc.
been taken into consideration. ff'dtrve ills
The sequences of a narrative
interview are:
Period of main narration
Interviewer: initial narrative question
Interviewee: main narration or self.
strucwred biographical self-presentatioo
Interviewer: active listening and taking
notes
2 Questioning period
(a) internal narrative questions
(b) external narrative questions
rht requirement to allow insight into the
pesia and sequential geslllh of the life history;
2 a proximity to !he courses of action and to the
not only to the present inter-
prelal10115 of the investigated persons; and
The initial question
lilt rtC005Irllction of their present pcrspcc-
ti'n and the driTen:ncc between these prc-
ICIII pmpectives and !he pcrspt.'Ctives that
wm ldQpccd rn the put.
111
tbe followmcJ wrll fiDt the instrument
or lire bropaphical-narrllivc interview und
As I intlicated above, I started rny
research with thematically focused narrative inlcr
views. In l(rct, I conducted my lirst narr.rtivc inlcr
view with ll completely closed initiul question:
('an yuu srill n:mcn
1
h.;r when you firsl ihuughl a"":
the possihility Jhut ( knnany mi!lhl lose wurfd 1\'arlll
l'kusc 1.:11 me uhuul tins phase. and yuur fl''f)(
1111
Ill""'"
BIOGRAPHICAL ftE5AftCH
51
. DCC of !he. war. r.bc end of lhc war. and lhc years
, until you fell your life was 'back 10 normal' .
wllo ..
. er was: 'Yes. well I have to start much
ans" ha
r..... . and the intervrewee. who d been a full-
earlier, -'er of the Nazr youth organrzation.
. ...,. h H' l
"";-
10
relate her career rn t e. 11 er Youth.
bC!;an Id rnc how greatly she had rdenufied with
She.
10
1
socialism and her work. and how
she had denied. all the .contradictions
theory and pracucc. In rhrs biographical
rcsentation she attempted to explarn to me,
.
0
to herself. why she had been absolutely
bUt
8
. s ced of the Endsit'J:, the Gcnnan final
convrn ri"hl up until the collapse of the Third
vcrory. "' 1
. h This intervrew was an rmportant esson
Rcc 1 h
In subsequent rntcrvrews c anged my
(or rne. d .
. . .
1
question and aske my rntervrewees to
rnrua h H 1 y
talk about their experrences rn I e rl er outh
d then about the last years of the war, etc.
an Nonetheless. I was still convinced that the
. iewees needed a thematic orientation. In my
rote!" . . . F . s h"
PhD I argued - '" opposrtron to rrtz c utze -
that asking rntervrewees to tell therr lrfe story
would be asking too much of them, because they
ould not know what they should talk about and
\ar they should leave out. I first met Fritz
;hiitze after publication of this work (Rosenthal,
1987). He had read my criticism of his open
method, and simply said: 'Why don't you just try
it out with an absolutely open question?' Schiitze
did not want to argue with me about my objec-
tions. Instead, in keeping with the 'grounded
theory' approach,< he wanted to motivate me to
gain an insight through prdctical experience of
my own. I did this, and had to discover that none
of the objections drafted at my desk passed the
test of empirical practice. Quite to the contrary,
an open request to tell his/her life story makes it
much easier for the biographer to talk without
other considerations and planning. Also, this
method opens up new fields and thematic con-
nections to our research question that we had not
previously suspected. My failure, in the work on
the Hitler Youth, to give sufficient attention to
the political attitudes of the parents and their
acti vities in the Nazi Party was an expression of
my own blind spots. A subsequent empirical
investigation of First World War veterans -
the generation of the fathers of Hitler Youth
members - made me very aware of the biographi-
cal relevance of the background family history
(Rosenthal, 1991 ). This marked the of
my in multi-generation fumily studies
and rn generally integrating the life story in the
family history (Rosenthul, 1997, 2002).
The initial question I work with now uvoids
any thematic restriction. At the beginning of
each individual interview, we' iCnerally
requested the following of the biog111pher:
Please: reil me/us your fam1ly srory and your pe1110nal
life 11ory; llwc am/arc inrercsrt:d m your whole life.
Anyrhin11lhar occurs ro you. You have a. much umc u
you like. Well won'r ask you any questions for now.
Well wilt jusr make liOmc notes on the lhinj.i lhat we
would like ro ask you more abour lalcr; if we haven't
gol enough rime loday, perhaps in a second inlcrvicw.
In some contexts, however, I recommend
working with a more structured fonn. This
relates to situations where an initial question
relates to particular research contexts that arc not
tied to the history of a person. Let us consider,
for example, a qualitative study of a particular
institution, in which the residents of this institu-
tion arc interviewed. Here the initial question
could be:
We arc interested in your personal experience in this
insrirution. Perhaps you might start by telling your
experience when you came 10 rhis insritulion, tell us
whar you experienced since then unti lroday. You have
as much rime as you like .. . (sec above).
One intennediate structured fonn that stands
between these two fonns of initial question and
to an extent offers a compromise between the
very open and fairly closed approaches combines
the life hi story with a thematic focus. It reads:
We arc imcrcsrcd in lhc life siOrics of people with a
chronic disease (or: of people who experienced pere-
stroika in Russia), in your personal experience. Please
tell me your life srory, nor jusr abour your illness (no!
jusl abour lhc perestroika years), bul abouJ your whole
life story. Anything .. . (sec above).
This fonn of request is particularly suitable for
research contexts (e.g. in my interviews with
Holocaust survivors) where we have to state our
specific research interest, and where it is not
enough simply to refer to an interest in life histo-
ries. Furthermore, this allows us to state our
topic and ensure that the interviewees speak
about it, while still leavi ng enough room for
relating other biographical strands. The subse-
quent narrative could clearly show what role the
illness (or the experience of everyday politics)
plays in the biogmphers' li ves. where they link it
to other biographical strands, and where they
allempl to locate the beginning, for example, of
the illness in their life history. Nevertheless,
there arc reasons to choose the most open foml
even here if possible. Life stories of chronically
ill people who arc nnt initially asktd about their
illness, and who fil ii to mention the illness in
their self-structured biographical sclf-prescnration,
arc of particular theoretical interest. This cun, for
...........__
......
TIJ'If'IU ,,_- . . ' '
()ntinue narrutmg. such liS "A. aiOGilAP'HICAL RESEARCH
d ili--uiiY 10 through eye contuct., lld
of
1
of
11
ucntion. Dunng lhis llld othtr \
"' _.-JO(I ,.pl!Y ,u."l listcn.curcfully. makinu n the
_. , t-""'";. bi<lll n . --
1
. . , . .. otes Tv..."'
c.;ts rctem:-u o, notmg in . . on lilt
:-,....- oons J arc not plausible or not Pilrtlclll-.. '
_..-till fJ(IfJ ques is These notes are then

i11
--,_...-- . hiC stof)' . qucsti0nlng 1-X.nou. . '" lht S
1"' ,._.-- tltt ,ot<l' ic,_...:- s hi.:al (lllfTll- Narrativc-gcncrutmg que5tio
---'JOIIC" o.Jftcn ultlllth.: intervi.:w's second phns are""-
- by ... "' rcscolllll
1
"' . &se ..... llo..
fi.l!lowcv . ,
1
sdfr
0 0
arr.1tion IS question does not mean ask _A
,..:llllc-J [lllll . from the opinions or reasons t ' Why did
ti<ll' fh15; b) po..>rtcJ by did you do thut?'. 'Why did You 'Wou ... .
IISIJIIII [lit ,otclfUP' aJ is ) r nd uucn- -
1
n"tead means cncournginu pcoptant to ... .,:'\
11 "" u bUt ,osiC of interest a . rtUP"' .. e I t
".c"'cr.-. .....sswos . mtc phases in their life or particular .
0
t
.... h""'IS'" Junnl! nafTll ra"cntent to SltuatiO!is_ -....
rkc "pNm -.. .:ncou "'
ri,'<ncss
1
h monvath-..
t.t<10S.
. the following ways:
are
0
,;ented
111
ouestions . terviewee's life.
. phase of the
10
. hen you were . .. (a child, in school, pregn
Addressing a more aboUt the ume w etc.Jr
.r Id you tel me . th process: r. th 4:
._ou . . ncerest m e . n the army, perhaps 1rom e 1orst days until

;nd1aon&
1
e aboUt your ume
1

. Id ..nu tell me mor ' . .
'(ou ,-- nmg" . the interviewee s hfe by opemng a tern
o( your . . le theme en PCifll
Addressang a sang .
2 nts7 Perhaps from your earliest memories until
space. aboUt your pare . d . h . !M...
could you tell me mor: ituation already mentione m _t e mterview.
A
ddressing a spec1fic s r1 could you tell me/narrate m more detail, what tx
l . d ituatJOn X ea .er,
'You meniJOile s
.
1
"fy an argument already made before.
4
Eliciting a narrataon to c an fc'ather behaved in on authoritative way (when you stnM...<
11 situatiOn when your -rt><V
'Con you reca a 7'
believing in justice, peace, etc.). 'enced event/phase or transmitted knowledge
. on-self-expera . .
5 Addressing a n . . when somebody talked about th1s event (how your father
'Con you remember a sauotJon
We first limit ourselves to internal narrative
westions, meaning questions
has already been discussed. It as _not until
the next phase that we onent . our-
selves according to our own scientific cntena
and pose atanal narrative questions regardmg
topics that interest us and have not yet been men-
tioned. The internal quesllons we formulate are
based on the notes taken during the main narra-
tive; that means they do not introduce a topic the
DUTator has not already mentioned. Keeping the
DUTative-extemal questions for the last phase of
the is important so that the interviewer
does not impose his/her own relevance system
upon the narrator. In the reconstruction of the
interview this also simplifies answering such
questions as why certain thematic areas or
biographical phases were not covered by
biographer himself or herself. Did he
assume that these would not interest the inll!-
viewer, or did it not fit with the image she
wants to present, or did he or she find it too
embarrassing or too painful to elaborate on this'
This can only be clarified in the thematic
analysis (see below).
Since the biographers are first encouraged K'
give a longer account of their own expeneiiCtl.
lhey can structure the narration accordmg to !he
criteria they themselves find relevant and !he
d V
. mum
memory process is supporte la cog
feelings or subjects, we listeners also
ovc
experience the narrators at a rem . that
they arc telling about; it is rather the cas: .. .,
d d
h narrauons ....,..
they are embed e m t etr
.
1
cx""riences. In contrast to
r If 1 d
b
loipt ns and descnpuons. se - 1ve
ntJIIO
arg"me cs addttionally have the advantage of
to -..hat concretely happened . and
bC'ng cl . need in the past m the narrated snua-
was cxpenert from restaging past situations,
tiofiS- -'pa is the only way Ill come close tu an
I
. 11 stoTY - h ha d th
tel ,n., roduction ot w at ppene at at
integral past experience's gestalt. However, it
umc: or the case that argumentauons are forrnu-
is rather m the present _perspective and from the
1ated fro of their soc1al de:strablhty. Whale, an
--'polO! . . lh ha
boUt experiences. 11 1s e case t t we
JCihnl!l
1
re with our memories than with the
intc:ntC
1
_ explanation:s regarding what we
cd are directed at the interlocutors. If
to support the biograp_hers in their
we arc without posing any addUonal ques-
_ ....... uons . .
1
..&:
und if manY memones easa y suuacc an
uorl5.memory that they can tell then what
JhCtr
1
ly be seen is how the narrations become
c ear th h
,_.. d more detailed, e oncntauon wtl
more the listeners lessens and the physical
respect_ s become stronger. While, atlhe begin-
memone
. . he biographers perhaps reflect on how
nng.
1
h l ' fi
e going to present t eu 1 e story, on
theY har reas in their life they should talk about,
whC a fl
. ffort subsides as the narrauon starts to ow.
tillS e rrators increasingly find themselves in a
The na . . .
arn of memories; 1mpress10ns, 1mages, sen-
strel and physical feelings, and components of
sua . f
the remembered s1tuat10n come up. some o
which do not fit in the1r present s1tuat10n and
which they have not about for a long
time. The narrations' prox1m1ty to past thus
creases in the course of the narratiOn, and per-
entirely different fro':' the present per-
spective show themselves, whach become clear
in the argumentation parts or also in the narrated
anecdotes.
BIOGRAPHICAL CASE
RECONSTRUCTIONS
The principles: reconstruction and sequentiality
1 developed the biographical case reconstruction
method presented here over many years in com-
bination with various other methods (Rosenthal,
1993, 1995; Rosenthal and Fischer-Rosenthal,
2000). I - and in the meantime many of my
colleagues too- work with a combination of the
objective herrneneutics of Ulrich Oeverrnann
et al. (1979, 1987
7
), the text analysis method of
Fritz Schiitze ( 1983) and the thematic field
analysis of Wolfram Fischer ( 1982, prompted by
Gwwitsch. 1964 ). Biognlphic&l
arr charactenzed- as already mentioned- by the
particular attention paid to structural differences
between what is experienced and what is
narrated.
Biographical case reconstruction shares the
rcconstructive and sequential approach of other
herrneneutic methods. Reconstructive' means
that the text is not appTOilched with prcdefined
categories - as in content analysis - but rather
that the meaning of individual passages is inter-
preted through the overall context of the inter-
view. 'Sequential" in this context means an
approach where the text or small text units are
interpreted according to their sequential gestalt.
the sequence of their creation. The analysis
reconstructs the progressive creation of an inter-
action or the production of a spoken or written
text step by step in small analytical units. In this
method. development and testing of hypotheses
is based on the abduction procedure introduced
by Charles Sander Peirce (Pcirce, 193311980)
where, in contrast to deduction and induction,
how the hypothesis is generated is as important
as how it will be tested. 'Peirce's theory of
abduction is concerned with the reasoning which
starts from data and moves towards hypothesis"
(Fann. 1970: 5). According to Peirce, the first
stage of inquiry is ' to adopt a hypothesis as being
suggested by the fact' (para. 6,469). The next
stage is ' to trace out its necessary and probable
experimental consequences' (para. 7,203) and in
the third stage we test the hypothesis by compar-
ing our predictions with the actual results. Both
scientific theories and everyday theories have a
heuristic value in the development of hypothe-
ses. So unlike in deduction it is not a matter of
following and testing a particular theory. Instead
a range of concepts are taken as possible expla-
nations of an empirical phenomenon - in other
words for forming several possible hypotheses.
' The act of adopting an hypothesis itself, at the
instant, may seem like a flash of insight, but
afterwards it may be subjected to criticism'
(Fann, 1970: 49). In other words: abduction
imposes on you to give reasons for your sugges-
tions and to prove them in the concrete individual
case.
Just like deduction and induction, the method
of abduction comprises three stages of inquiry;
only the order of the stages is different. Whereas
deduction starts with a theory and induction with
a hypothesis, abduction begins by examining an
empirical phenomenon. For a sequential analysis
this means:
Fmm an empirical phenomenon tu all poss-
ible hypotheses. Starting from an empirical
u,..r.:""'-- ...............
f,..co h. oal of n:construl:tion is both Jlll""""
I t - . th b
f trnpirica meaning ot past cxpcncncc and c I()
.n unit I) ' th rcsred . Ill the present the .
S4 J \\' 1 tO SI: ';I
tO
1
" .
1
of( rr'C riociple .


I rulr I> ocncrlll p I 0) ThiS
r- ,
0
of
1
1 Q70: The dure
dill- uPI"'tiiO . . fcrenc.:. The proce
dlC s. (!1( fact> ucuvc tll onlY one
lh: ,ctual not_ that arc
IS I , I> Ill ,,othl!Se> . and
.acP aotthtn!; 11 the h,,.- Jcruuon
. but a f consl
. ( nlC 0
h''.':': le at thC I hcnomcnon. . J(Jthesii or
f"'s>
1
b lain th< P Ji<H-uP lt)l hcnom
c.P ,,Jr.,.lii w Jo Follow-uP p ulatcd
FTfllll IIYP' " the forrn -
pnt' d from h r phenoOl
f(Jio" dcdu.:c th .. rule ot c Or put
, arr frorn
1
' his rule.
en be,cs. t.c.. contirm t . follow-uP
inferred hypothestsda ' to what
cna . for cac d ccor tO!:\ s
d
tTcrrntiY. osiderc a . ding prove
t . tS eo . ' f thts rea
. thC te.\t. I .
me m empincal
.:o siblc . s "here .
be plau.
1
ThtS 1. f inducuve
to . ,a/ '"' . h -ensc o d
Tilt! emP'" . J out in t e . .
1
nvestigate
came case t>
te>rinS ts The concrete d d ccd follow-u_p
tnfcrrnce. match the e u occdurc thts
for In a sequenual arc now
..t..onomen h. 'ollow-up hypo ces or the
1
"" that t e '' - quen
means
1
h the text c of thern
ted Wl JJ W Some
conl!1lS
1
data that fo
0
h . . are falsified.
mpinca h as ot crs . d
e . -'bility w ere be falst fie
10
gatn plaust . that cannot h ,
The analysis _- t
tht process o th sis tesung has ex d
left over after hypo - are then regarde
thC improbable rea '
as the ltlOSI probable.
- sequen-
. reconsnucuons,
In biographical case roeedure where the
tial llllllysis narrated and the
temporal suucture o is analysed. Based on
life hlsto!)' nuct the sequential
uy to recons .
the given text. we resented in the intervtew
gestalt of the hfe story p he sequential gestalt of
and in a try is also analysed. As
enccd htc
15 0
d tu I
the expen . f the sequence an tex a
11 as tile questiOn h b'o
we b. hers to present t etr t -
sort used by this also
tile individual biographical expe-
layered chronologically in the_ expe-
life history. So in the reconstrucuon
tbe life histoty we uy to break the genests
of the ellperienced life history and 10 the analysts
of the biographical to break
down the genesis of the representation 10 pre-
ieDI. which differs in principle in its themattc and
temporal linkages from the chronology of the
npcriences.
In tile approach presented by the author
(cf. Rosenthal, 1995) it is crucial to investigate
the two levels of narrated and experienced life
history in separate analytical steps. That means that
Biographical case reconstructions
which arc selected for dccpe ()fin,.
f 11 r "'1\
global analysts o a ac , his a lt-,.
1
nl
odel of theoretical sampl Cordi fttr
. _ (G
Strauss. 1967. 45- 7!!, Gobo, Ch laser
volume), are based on a full tr-.tns:Pter


audiotape. ' lh\
The steps of analysis arc: llf 11o,
I
2
3
4
5
6
Analysis of the biographical d
Text and thematic field
(structure of self-presentatio

struction of the life star . n.recClt\.
life). y, narralt(J
of the life .
(lived ltfe as experienced).
Microanalysis of indiv'td
ual
segments.
Contrastive comparison of
1
.
1
tory and life story.
1
e his.
Development of types and
trastive comparison of several Con.
C4se!.
In the following I will first briefly descnb
individual steps and then outline the ap
h d
. . . ..
of the met o usmg an cmpmcal example. ""
Sequential analysis of biographical data
This step of analys is (see Oevermann et al., 19lillt
starts by analysing the data that is largely free Ill
interpretation by the biographer (e.g. binh, nllllf
ber of siblings, educational data, establishlll(mm
own family, c hange of place of residence,
events, etc.) in the temporal sequenceofthceltllll
in the life course. This data is taken from the tlln-
scribed interview as well as from all other a1!1].
able sources (archive material, interviews
other family members, ofticial files such b
medical records). The individual biob'lllphltli
datum is initially interpreted independently of !M
knowledge that the interpreters have from the tw
rated life story - independently of the ru:
course of the biography. The mterpretatton o !M
datum is followed by the next, whtch
interpreters which path the biographer act
BIOGRAPHICAL ftESEARCH
55
. rprctation is initially independent of
Th
e mtc d . h b.
o0k . retations an accounts m t e lo-
t lf-1nterp .
thC se a1 ntcrvtcw. .
!l111ph1C
1
uential abductive procedure - hke the
ThiS seq . 1 steps too - demands a degree of
alyuca . .
other an . 1 disciphnc, t.e., we always have to
.,ethodologt':ur knowledge of the case. Critics
bt11ckct this as unachicvablc. Experience
0
ncn reJect r that this is not only possible. but
. howevo.; . . h h
shows. cannot normally memonzc ett er t c
,ISO _tlllll of the data or the fine structure
prectSC scq rresponding mtervtcw passages.
of the . data often gains its significance only
Biogruph
1
tca . has begun, so when the first data is
ana ysts . d .
after d -
1
has often not rccetve anenllon at all
rprete
1
b 1
intc . . si mificancc has not ecn rea 1zcd.
or
11
'
1
g in this approach great advantages arc
J'lonethe in groups where the
offered yters are not familiar with the interview .
critical question directed at this
A why we should consider all the poss-
mctho ts retations of a datum, when the inter-
ible mterpade his/her own statements about it
vle".'e:u:wing the meaning to be discovered .
thus can respond that on the one hand the
Here we ec's self-interpretations are constituted
terv
1
ew h h I 111
h'sfher present, whtle on t e ot er, as socta
from . we strive in particular to reconstruct
scten!ls s h d h
I
1
nt structures of m ot er wor s t e
a e s to which the tntervtcwee has no access
mcanmg 8 ) H . . I
. Oevermann et al., 19 7 . ere m part1cu ar
(see reat advantage to initially avoid looking
titS a g d h
h
interviewee's self-mterpretattons an t etr
at t e fi h
Iausibility, but instead to trst mvesttgate ot. er
P . 'ble interpretations. When we later exam me
possl f 'bl .
h text with this spectrum o poss1 e mterpreta-
t e s
1
n rnind we will be able to find many more
uon . .
sible interpretations between the hnes.
analysis of the bio!,rraphical data thus
rves as preparation for the third step of
the reconstruction of the life history -:
where we contrast our hypotheses o_n the
vidual biographtcal data wtth the btographer s
statements. However, before we anempt to reveal
the past perspectives in the various life phases, it
makes sense to first decipher the interviewee's
present perspective using text and thematic field
analysis. This helps us to adopt a source-cnttcal
perspective, so that we avoid satisfying a particular
presentation need in the present or naively inter-
preting the perspective reconstituted by the
present as a representation of the experience in
the past. For example, if we know at the end of
analysis that - although she is probably not herself
aware of thi s - the biographer's self-presentation
in the thematic fi eld ' I live my life independently
and autonomously of my family' serves to avoid
talking about family bonding and associated
distress, or possibly also the upi'Ciiaion of a
socially required self-presentation, we arc recep-
tive to other interpretations at the: level of
experienced life history.
Analysing the biogruphieal data hl.'jorf' the
text and thematic field on the other
hand, serves as a contrast for the analysis of the
biographical self-presentation. So we can see
which biographical data arc blown up narratively
in the main narration, which are not mentioned
at all , and in which temporal order they are
presented.
atOGRAI'HICAL DATA OF GALIN'S FAMILY AND UfiE
HISTOin' Before I turn to this next analytical
step, I would like first to demonstrate- at least in
outline - the procedure for analysing the bio-
graphical data. I use an interview that I con-
ducted in English in Russia in 1992.' I called my
interviewee Galina.
The first datum with which we begin the
analysis is the date of Galina's birth. Here we
take into consideration all the infom1ation we
have - on the level of data - about the family
constellation at the time when Galina is horn into
this setting. In this case it is:
Galina was born in 1968 in a small village
near Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. She lives together
with her paternal grandmother Olga and her
great-grandmother Vera - Olga's mother.
Galina's parents live and work- after com-
pleting university education- in Krasnoyarsk.
Her father's family comes from the Ukraine.
In the Ukraine Olga was a teacher of
Ukrainian language and literature before
and during the German occupation. Her
political orientation was Ukrainian national-
ist. In 1943, after the Red Army reconquered
the Ukraine, Olga was imprisoned by the
Soviets for alleged collaboration with the
Nazis (under Article 58)
9
and was sentenced
to ten years' imprisonment and subsequent
banishment to Siberia. Her son Vasily -
Galina's father - was about five years old
when Olga was arrested. In 1956 Olga was
rehabilitated.
10
Looking at this data we build up all the poss-
ible resulting hypotheses and deduce from each
hypothesis assumptions about the further devel-
opment of this family system and Galina's per-
sonal life history. The main question is: which
effects will this family history have on Galina
and on her later life? Here we must remember
that in 1968 Olga' s past was still subject to mas-
sive taboos in the social discourse in the Soviet
Union. Depending on how openly families deal
. .-
have ver'f

1
will rand-
56 Jiah>llUC
1
of rhC
11
td-
faJIIilY bi<>llrapllY . ' her chl
h
ctu> 10 . on cllC
1
tll' dunngh. _ 31 the
,. 11 f(cd> ... vea of 1 '"
.JJOertf'' c crt' 1 can nolhinll
dlllihtcf tl ,.115 ,,,Jd .. chapter 10
-.1 GJIIII' .... ofuoiS I ing
110' le e). nd scol'". d in ana y>
Ol'nifcsl , ..,. to:vO s 1 ra1se readings
'()Ill".,. . n 1wo h.P
lt" 11 chC h, , .. n o , relations I
a tJerc I eo. ' of Gahna s drnother's
chis cast hC quesuon )ler gran

11
nJ
10
10 )!er g . h her ornllld-
WII " 11
Jina grows up ther she Wl
sceaUSC rn:al-grandrno bOnd to thcr11
J.l mother an a stronger .ll probably
probllbiY (Oiga . "''that reason
to h: mother ror d on only
rake on I en if it IS pass< hical rele-
""'t. C' 1 b1ogfliP . fi
)ler r- will be of grea. asing si gill r-
JatentiY. nd will gam rncre
.-ance a Jina 's life.
cancc on Ga . can deduce a
. hypotheSIS we h this
On the baSis of thts h theses as to ow
number of course:
tl
ecr her su se 'I I
could a . .fi ation she Wt .
f
this ldentl IC d
Because o . le with the gran -
J.la Jarer in her ltfe, with the
ast In pa '
morher' s P . and less with her t e
phaseS of suffenng. d the time under
before her arrest an
German will attempt to deal
I I b
In her larer life a . her biographl-
. f; 'Jy hiSIOr'j Ill
with th1s arnl le choice of voca-
cal choices. for is based
. or partner IS d.
uoo . . I from earlier stu res
00
emprnca
(cf. Rosenthal , 1987).
As counter-hypo
thesis one could fonnulate:
11 Galina grows up longing for her mother _or
ts an
d dreams of a better ltfe w1th
paren . . . d I .
them in the city. She mcreasmgly eve ops
an aversion to village life with Olga and
V m.
Here. again. ICveral follow-up hypotheses are
pouible. For example:
1.2a
llb
Galina anempts by all means to attract the
at1e111ion of her parents. One possibility
would be to fall ill often or, later, having
IC!ious difficulties in school.
Because she distances herself from the
pandmother, when she is an adult she will
probably with the gr.mdmother' s
lime before her arrest and even
reJeCt her on grounds of suspicion of
collaboration with the (j
context, . m_ her youth s
disassocratmg from h he lllil!h. lo
increasingly identify
become act1ve with th sl><:i totht;
. . e "-O 4 ...
organrzatton. This rni h lllsolllQ .,, ;,
not calling into
1
also le
I
, . . on tL ......
0 ga s convtcllon. e
. . 11 )"
After ra1smg a possible h '
to the next datum to see how 1\
continues. For the sake of brc na s lire
fd vny I
1
"'
two 1tems o ala together here sulli
Gl
. . .
2 When a ma 1s five year
s Old (
moves together Wtth her ., 197]
d h
.,reat-o I "
and gran mot er to the re , .
near the Ukrainian border. or
to follow later. One year I at Parents


with the family. er they lliov;'IC
Again we build up all possible h
can develop from this data and deJPotheSCs
hypothesis assumptions about the frolli l'acl
ment of this family system and the
history of Galina. We can, for exarnpfers
0
11al t1ft
the following hypothesis: c,
2. 1
2.1.1
2. 1.2
2. 1.3
Galina finds herself in a serious eo .
loyalty. She will have to ask h nfllct t(
is my mother now, who do


h
Here, m t e same way as described
there are vanous possibilities: on I.
Because of her previous closeness to
grandmother (cf. 1.1) she will re
1

h d
.
mot er an contmue to orientate on
01
She will now be happy to have her
with her at last (cf. 1.2) and
full attention to her.
She will attempt to escape from the
flict of loyalty and orientates more on ha
father or great-grandmother.
I will now skip the data on her school careu
and her career in the Komsomol youth organizl.
tion, and conclude by examining a very impoltlll
datum in connection with the family history. Untl
Galina was thirteen years old. she had oo
conscious idea of her grandmother's
imprisonment. At this age she accidentally dis-
covered a hidden document frorn wh1ch Ill:
learned that her grandmother had been scntcnclll
to prison in 1943 and was not legally rehablhtattd
h
data, weaL
until 1956. Looking only at t esc
that this is an of
Gl
. Th s notonlycaiil
graphical relevance for a ma.
1
cl
doubt on the exact reasons and
. . . the qucsuo
the judgement, but also raises
BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH S7
andmother may have been convicted
for Galina this discovery is
uJljustlY F with the question of why this past,
haS major imphcattons for her. father,
which als k
1
secret from her. Dcpcndmg on
hll5 bCC
0
ept Galina identifies with her grand-
or no h. d' .
whet.. he will experience t IS 1scovery m very
mother.
5
So here we return to the hypothe-
. ot ways. I I b d I 2 S
d1ffere . d at the outset ( 1.1 a, . an . ). o
scs rises as to whether she reacts more
r11e quesnonlla or more critically to her gr.md-
of persecution, or oscillates
mother s
1
IS between the two possibilities.
school, Galina studied history
After me of the interv1ew she was a lecturer
and at the conducted oral history interviews
in hstOr'/ p that had been suppressed and pcrse-
with a fonrner Soviet Union. Here we can
cuted
111
for example, that this also served as a
surmise, ay of dealing w1th the fam1ly h1story.
rr0
orate w .
su ".
11
ow skip this analytical step and pro-
1_ Wt hn text and thematic field analysis, based
cd tot e .
ce rk of Aron Gurw1tsch (1964), Wolfram
on thhe w(
0
1982
) and Fritz Schutze (I 983 ).
F1sc er
Text and thematic field analysis
The general goal of stage of
1
ana
1
1ysis is tod
fi d ut which mechamsms contro se ecuon an
10 0
zation and the temporal and thematic link-
orgam d
1
.
fth
e text segments. The un er ymg assump-
. .
cion is that the narrated story does not consrst
fa haphazard senes of drsconnected events; the
autonomous selection of stories to be
elated is based on a context of meamng - the
overall interpretation. The narrated
life story thus represents a sequence of mutually
interrelated themes, which together form a dense
network of interconnected cross-references
(Fischer, 1982: 16X). In the terminology of Aron
Gurwitsch, the individual themes are elements of
a thematic field. While the theme stood in the
'focus of attention', the thematic field is 'defined
as the totality of those data, eo-present with the
theme, which arc experienced as materially
relevant or pertinent to the theme and form the
background or horizon out of which the theme
emerges the centcr' (cf. Gurwitsch, 1964: 4).
Furthermore, the textual sort used by the biog-
rapher to present his analysis is crucial for the
analysis. These considerations were introduced
by Fritz Schutze ( 19X3). Given that each textual
sort is able to serve specific referential and com-
municative functions, one can ask: why did the
interviewee choose this sort of text in this
sequence and not another sort? The underlying
assumption is that 'reality' does not impose: the
sort of text a speaker uses, but the speaker him-
self or herself chooses the sort of text for parti-
cular reasons (which may or may not be known to
himsclflhcrself). The working hypothesis is that
these reasons arc related to the biographical con-
cept, the lived life, and to the situation of relating
his account (including the interviewer's influ-
ence) in ways to be found out empirically. From
the sort of text and the sequential arrangement
one draws conclusions about the narrator and
how he/she wants to convey the world. In this
analytical step close attention must be paid to the
extent to which the selection of textual sort and
also the presented themes are due to the process
of interaction between interviewee and inter-
viewer. The question of whether the interviewee
is orientating more on the relevance system
he/she ascribes to the interviewer or more to
his/her own biographical relevances is investi-
gated sequence by sequence.
In preparation for the analysis the whole inter-
view text is first sequentialized, that is, briefly
summarized in the form of a list of separate units
that are divided up according to three criteria.
The three main criteria to define the beginning/
end of a textual sequence are:
textual sorts
thematic shifts and changes
conversational turn-taking
speaker).
(changes of
Among the textual sorts we distinguish argu-
mentation, description, and narration with the sub-
categories report and single stories. A narration
refers to a chain of sequences of events of the past,
and they are related to each other through a series
of temporal and/or causal links. 'The decisive
feature distinguishing' a narration 'from narra-
tives is that descriptions present static structures'
(Kallmeyer and Schutze, 1977: 201). An argu-
mentation is a sequence oflines of reasoning, the-
orizing and declaration of general ideas. They
show the narrdtor' s general orientation and what
he/she thinks of himself/herself and of the world.
Let us look now to the first sequences of the
sequentialization of the interview with Galina.
This sequencing, which is also used as a kind
of table of contents for later analysis, is now
itself subjected to a sequential analysis. The
question here is no longer the biographical sig-
nificance of an experience in the past, but instead
why the experience is presented this way and not
otherwise. In formulating hypotheses we orien-
tate on the sub-questions given in the 'Thematic
Field Analysis' panel overleaf.
_____ ..... ______________________ _
. rvieW with Galina
tf!e .nte
'otl of
_ own life story
fa111ily

_ father's side
ttJ1

2]18 argumenQoon:
2129
110
n-ve
rbal asking for
,.eatgral1
1
d when she died, 92
g no
l)krainaa rt uagic story
ne tJ2d a ve d stopped by something
s llildhOO .
1 haPPY c
11
the faml y story
she liked told the story
sister of 'er without news
grandfath er was in pnson after occupation
g
randmoth camp. she never told it
ars In a her
ten ye tOld not much about - "'T - nor ..
from mother's side
met g was in the th1rd class ( 11 Years old)
wnen sh; reat-grandmother and grandmoth
lived wl Ukrainian tr
first langu nearby the town where my par- .
all [own , .. ts .
sm I refused to eat
'whend told stories about my father in
5
.
an ma
gr he did not eat - about not having en ....,
when . 0\Jgh 1....
father childhood dunng war """l
-
1
.ked to invent words
father 1 ,
- d these stories very much
'/like . I
f grandma es not c ear

0
duces a psychological barrier
thts pro
taking
turn- [O vnur life S[Ory very long and very short
2130
1 come ,- . et IS k . sb .
L-' evaluation: bo
1
n Krasnoyars m 1 ena
2}33 glo.,.. rn
description: 1 ]
. arration is on page
End ofmam n
Thematic Field Analysis
General questions for developing
hypotheses .
I Why is she or he presenting thiS
sequence in such a way! . .
why at this place- and tn th1s sequ-
ential order
why in this text sort
why in this length
why this topic or content
Wha[ does the biographer not pre-
sent! Which biographical data is left
out or not elaborated!
What i[ the thematic field! Which
themes do not fi[ in this field?
TEXT AND THEMATIC FIELD ANALYSIS OF GA!Ju'l
INTERVIEW Let us now cons1der the
sequence in Galina's interview. When asl:cd :
tell the story of her family and her
begins with a description of her
grandmother, a reference to her ethnic oo
111
and age. At this point we can ask why !he Ill\
in this way. Are age and above all ethnic OIIpl
perhaps of great relevance for Galina
especially when the Ukraine became
just one year before the interview? If this
esis ( 1.1) were true, we would expect that ou
both of these themes would be referred to
edly later in the intervi ew or be constiluti,ei.J
the thematic field of this main narrat1on. Soll:n
too, we fonnulate follow-up hypotheses
1
fitting continuation of the text ..
Another hypothesis ( 1.2) 1s that the get
b
. hcal relevllf.
grandmother is of great 1ograp I
8
great deal more about
hO will tell we must also
aJi(IB. "' w progresses.
jl)l G the interv
1
c alina starts with the family. s
IJCr Gause she assumes that thiS
C()l15 origins beC interest to the Germa_n
#"'nlc of ""rtlcular dlflierent hypothesis
d bC ,- ) A very . .
.;0111 . er ( t.3
1
.
8
be ins wnh a fam1ly
1C"' hat Ga m " . b-
Id be t _ sociated w1th taboo su
( 1.41 who is tes: she chooses the great-
other wor ;he family history because
_;cc[S oilier to begm avoid speaking about the
Id prefer to
.,vou nJISt . I
sbC other s ..-- ond sequence 1s a so
-._.ul!O the sec .
8'""''- we see. lt 1s IOtro-
/<S L great-s f
ed to ""' .
1
ith the story of her su -
.l#vot ntauve Y w d fi
.,.. ced argume k whether there 1S a nee or
dll . g We can as d formulate the hypothesis
rcnn . . here. an h
t"mizaU0 . fi
1
the need to present er
(hat Gahna of suffering or victim-
L. ily llistory as a s stify other elements of the
,..,.. . rdcr to JU . 11 h
itation 1n If this hypothesis 1s true, s .e
, ..,ily 1!1story.od the grandmother m th1s
,..... I o mtr uce
tiJCP a s
therllatic field? eport follows. We are told that
A brief15-hhne mily's story by the sister of
told t e ,a h
she was h that he went m1ss10g 10 t e
IJer grandfatlderW. ar and that the grandmother
d Wor h
5eeon . d The sequence ends w1t a
mpnsone . k bo
was
1
th grandmother never spo e a ut
k that e d 1 bo
remar th. point we have hear on y a ut
So at IS f 2 I) A
thiS .
1
lements of the past ( c . . . s
the t of suffering, the topic of 'Who
the family history and who did not'
introduced in this sequence. .
1s also b. et becomes even clearer 10 the
ThiS SU th
rgumentation telling how the mo er
followmg a .'
d l
ttt about her fam1ly. After JUSt four hnes
toi
1
C. dh d
bng her hfe w1th her gran mot er an
descn 1
_ randmother comes a longer sequence
great g d . . .
(Z
4
lines) dealing with a condense sltuau?n, te.,
a description of a frequently expenenced situation
where her grandmother told her about her
father's childhood. lt now becomes clear that one
of the major themes of this main narration is
'telling versus silence' . According to Galina's
description, the meaning of the silence and the
unclarity about the grandmother's past produce a
'psychological barrier' . Here she indirectly
accuses the grandmother of having been unable
to talk with her about the conviction, and thus
with having created this barrier. lt is noticeable
that Galina requires the interviewer's assistance
after this explanation. So we can actually formu-
late the assumption that this subject also pro-
duces a barrier in the text, or blocks the narration
of her own life story. This analytical step goes on
to show that Galina's self-presentation is constituted
by two themes, 'my grandmother's mysterious
St
and secret past' and ' my own life' . These two
competing themes make it diffiCult for her to oar-
rate her own life 51ory and constitute the thematiC
field My own life 1s burdened and handicapped
by the more or less unknown

of my
.L. This latent biographical overall mter
momc;r . f the text
pretation 1s manifest m the strUCture
0
. :
Galina needs the interviewer's help several umes
in order to switch from talking about the
past to relating her own biography. Gahna s pre-
sent time and future projections are
by her need to separate herself from this burden-
ing family past and from . the correspondmg
family dynamics. In the mterv1ew passages
where she then talks about her own life story. she
concentrates absolutely on her educauonal
career. The analysis highlights Galina's need to
lead her own life more freely and lightly as the
dominant topic of her self-presentation. Why,
however, does Galina feel this or put dif-
ferently, which biographical expenences have
caused this need - which presumes a bond to the
family history and that the family exists at aU -
to arise? So we have to ask in what way Gahna
is actuaUy bound to the family past. The next
analytical step, the reconstruction of the life his-
tory, can give us an answer.
Reconstruction of the life history and
microanalysis
In this step of analysis we return to the biographi-
cal significance of individual experiences in the
past and above all to the timeline of the life
history, its temporal gestalt. We go back to the
analysis of the biographical data and contrast it
with the biographer's own statements. After
approaching the text using text and thematic
field analysis with the question of why the bio-
grapher presents this in the interview in this way
and not differently, we now re-examine the text
for traces of past perspectives on the respective
events. The hypotheses raised in the ftrst analyt-
ical step are falsified or verified by analysing the
interview texts, or other new readings are found.
To put it in practical terms: following the logic of
sequential analysis we move through the bio-
graphical experiences in the chronoiOb'Y of the
life history, examining at each point the inter-
view passages where the biographer speaks
about them. In the process we will also discover
further biographical experiences that we had not
included in the data analysis. Furthermore we
choose several text passages in order to do a
microunu(vsis of indi\iduu/ text segmetlls, orien-
tated on the method of objective hem1eneutics
(Oevennann, 19!!3). These passages are subjected
....._.........
u( .. . ,..1141 crilrt<' 11 "w >o .,,..,.llt' bo-t ,....
_ ....,. go-'1
1
",.!.- IIMJAber of tltt' anrd.,_ AII<J .
0
"' '
'SI>- PP :...:...r 1 ru11IC1 wr)-}atlt<'r. tGahna, I"" ",
11
4 IJt;, ;.

' , llct'l -.,, Jn) 1j,_ .,
t':ll s . > ""
- --dlt ___.,"' (b( pc-:uliJfl" With the help of the interviewe ''
1
fill' ." ,nJ '"antasies she had had when sh r She l't
" . "' . . . of tJte . h.,_ " d u .L e fit,.. ""t. .
""': .ll -- is habilitation car . ' "''en I ll!tl h :t
,...., ..... . th3fl re I I uur'lt I r'tl h I IS " "'
,...-- . ,.,..., I as "' . 1Jn/li!Clt't !er "' ' ' er seco ' "11;
!ItS,..,. ... ,; . .,; ""
1
1\S '"')I'C n critena Galina. 1992: 21 ). Her fantasy hrqk 'I
-:;og. JfC \randmother killed her second as
.......... ('Ill ttf>l _ . _ - in the P g en thoul!.h Gahna knew that this hUsh,_ her
_ "' gatncv C' - tnan :-"'l<<
fcl ,clt'-oo_- tbe divorced from the grandmother bet ' "'ho
-es 10 JiCSI as born was still alive. How rna ore c;.
1
.<i
fJl(' -1:(1(,1 stL"P" . al step 11 w ' . f 11 y We .
IJIIS In this she was this fantasy? First o a ' we find lnte!Jlrt
..- se un dence for a tendency to accuse her unher e
1
'5 '-"' .-o-:- Gallna's cl!! ' her great . d t b . grand, lr.
that'" . "er)' dose to hat lesser However, m or er o ener Interpret th' .
"""' ,,...- '' ht wa> ornew "e must at thts pomt conduct a m
1
c Is fill},_
. eatS oru and IO a > We had not ,, . roan I ""'i
vera dJtlothcr Olga.b.li"' in the the passage m the text where she SPe a Ysis Of
g- !Jtr gran h. poss1 'J h this man. We now look at the text mo aks ah.
dc..ce to -'dertd t IS On the ot er . d . re Pre . "11111
,.. fi 'l)' con>l h' al data- tes
11
ne by hne, an once agam in the Clse),
spe<:i """ .
1
' h sequ '
1111
1ysis of theveriiies and furt _ her mother order. entia!
)llnd. the 1ext
01
. a cJoscnesWs hto her parents Recalling this man whom she had
tbe>l
5
fi en h tatement about h eared
the hYP" the age of tve. wing conlltcts begms er s tm as follo"'s:
begin"'"g ar . I experienced gro ther and
rd in. the glf be ause her mo
Jll()''
1
especially c well Galina expe-
of Joya IY d'd not get along .f th two and

1
h weaker o c
ll'';d her molher a.' I e ' she says that at that
be
ne aon 10 take her Side. Toda) psychological bar-
b-' 1 ped a grow JOg H re it
time she dcre o. If and her grandmother. e
rier between hersC resented m the pre-
can be seen that the reasons! - the grand-
.. sycholonJca 'ble
sent for p . I is not the only
Jll()lher's h1ddcn pas h easons for it m the
ha tbert were ol er r .
Oflt, or t I h. tstbatthis development m
:' has something to do
....., IDI s before her fifth birthday and wtt da
""' ome I . h'p between Olga an
tlict laden re auons I
coo -r:.. some evidence for this in the text,
ven. ...-re 1s .
1
h.
iall in the background famt y tstory.
history it is now interesting to
sec bow sbe experienced the discovery of the
-cll-biddell family secret when she was
years old At this time, she was already.


widl brr mother. So we can also assume, m me
Wllh our readings in the analysis of the biograph-
ical dD. that the insight into her grandmother's
pu1 did oot jUSIIead her to develop empathy for
past persecution, but also to begin
nq this from a critical perspective. Let us
s wlul 5be experienced: in an English-Russian
diclimlry, wbicb Galina to use in learning
Englub. w found the docwnent concerning the
rdabilllllllOO of ber grandmother, which merely
aed !bit Olga bad bctn convicted under some
Aniclt 58' Galina read it and stared at the
llllllber o( Ibis ll1icle:
lt is one of tire must - er (fuur-secoruJ Puus.) _ .
erring r<JIIectrurrs from ear/rest childhood .. lngh,.
Here we can ask which frightening ex .
Galina actually had with this man.
assume that these expenences still frinh tan
fi
" ten h
today and that her ear perhaps rnanifest d . er
. fi e 'lself
again dunng the our-second pause. If .
. . h '11 b this
hypothests ts true t ere w1 e evidence f . .
b bl
o ll1n
the subsequent text, pro a y at the paralinn . .
h h
. .,UIShc
level. Let us see ow t e text contmues:
it's-, he is-. he is cumirrg-. he is mming
Galina starts to stutter, speaks in the pn:sen
1
tense and we practically gain the impression thai
she is returning to the scene. The hypothesis tha
1
it is still frightening for Galina today gains fur-
ther plausibility. She continues:
and his voice and his- his pre.ence in our home (JJ 1
don) know
In her memory the man is present in the home
again. Here, however, Galina hesitates and stops,
saying, '/don know. ' One possible reading here
is that re-experiencing the most frightening
recollection is too threatening and is rejected by
Galina. The interviewer now responds to her and
asks:
Whe11 vou go back in this siluation, he is comiltg to_)OI
home he is crying loud (3) what can you
Galina responds:
. . lll)'btJ
Ah- I can I say that eh {1) I (l) I'm (vtng
111
loM' 111ft
"'Y room and eh, I eh, I am seei11g the saMt
BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
61
,J ,./tilt! (21 .. -all. and I jwst, /tt!Qr his
,J IA4
1
wry' laud. (Galioa, 1992: 22)
tlt- ,,..r). a .
nifest level of the text Galina
,o\1 the r.na and in the following how she
I
. here ' . . h d
...,0 un s husband s v1s1ts to er gran -
- the ex-
fellf'Cd d their arguments._ However, the text
mother, an to other readmgs. We can ask
is alsO

linle girl lay in bed hear-


whether th of violence between the grandmother
jog The text also suggests the
and that she might herself have become a
pOsstblhfthis man's violence.
,.icurn h self experienced v10lence durmg
that shed in plausibility through other text
cniidh
00
even if we cannot prove this
passages. . of this text passage, we can at least
th
basis
on e h t Galina's fantasy of her grandmother
suppose
1
of this man is based on an unful-
as the We may suppose that as a child
filled wished that her grandmother
Gahna better able to defend herself and her
h d been . .
a dd ughter agamst th1s man.
gran a h f h d'
let us return to t e sttuatJOn o er IS-
Now of the document Galina runs to her
covery who tears the document out of her hand.
fathl er, asks what it means and her father says: 'lt
Ga tna h Id ' h lk d b '
. b
1
Grandma. 11 s ou 11 I e la e a out.
15 a Oil . k h
h rabs his arm and tnes to ta e t e document
5
e g h h' h '1 if
k from him, and e 1sses at er: I s none o
doni ask. 'Galina is startled at the
violence of his reaction:
1 W<L' so surprised because I had a very close n!lation-
ship with my pan!nts. and I discoven!d that there is
something he wants to hide. and I a>ked my ma and she
was just us surprised as I, she said that she didn) know.
(Galina, 1992: 24)
11 then turned out that the mother, as she herself
related in her interview, also knew nothing of her
mother-in-law's conviction and thus also nothing
of her husband's childhood. This experience, and
the constellation that mother and daughter were
excluded from the family's secrecy management,
dramatically intensified the bonding between
Galina and her mother. Another result is that
Galina is unable to find an empathic approach to
her grandmother's history of persecution.
The result of Galina's discovery was that she
started tormenting herself with questions, and that
the psychological distance from her grandmother
grew because Galina did not dare to confront her
with her questions. And this has remained so until
today. As Galina says: 'The story of my grandma
IS not clear to me. I know only the plot ... and it is
a brg problem for me that I can I ask. '
In fact, it is Galina herself who resists learning
more about her grandmother's past. Although
she is a trained historian, she has never tried to
find out exactly what Aniclc 5R was about. We
can suppose, on the one hand, that clarifying this
past ts sttll too threatening for her, but also that
she IS unconsciously still avoiding a possible
rehabilitation of her grandmother.
Contrastive comparison of life history
and life story
The concluding contrastive comparison of life
htstory and life story aims to find possible expla-
natiOns for the difference between these two
levels, i.e., between past and present perspective
and for the_ associated difference in temporality
and themallc r_elevance of narrated life story and
expenenced hfe history. In other words con-
trasting helps find the rules for the
between the narrated and the experienced. The
questiOn of which biographical experiences have
led to a particular presentation in the present is
also pertinent here.
In Galina' s case the life history level shows a
bonding to her mother that stren1,rthened over the
years, an increasing accusation against the
grandmother (probably based on early childhood
experiences where she felt insufficiently pro-
tected by her) and an associated, increasing feel-
ing of guilt. At the conscious level in the present
th1s IS, however, placed in connection with the
grandmother's political past and her silence
about it. This family history constellation led to
a strong bonding to the family of origin. Galina,
tries to present herself as leading her
hfe mdependently of the family history. We may
surmise that the need for separation is so strong
because she still feels tied to the family and
its past
Development of types and contrastive
comparison
The biographical case reconstruction leads,
finally, to the development of types. On the basis
of reconstruction of individual cases, we aim for
theoretical rather than numerical generalization.
Generalization from the single case and on the
basis of contrastive comparison of several cases
are required here (cf. Hildenbrand, 1991;
Rosenthal, 1995: 208ff.). Here we do not infer to
all cases, but to 'similar cases', as formulated in
1927 by Kurt Lewin in his definition of a law
based on Galilean thinking: ' The law is a state-
ment about a type that is characterized by its so-
being' (1927/ 1967: 18), and a type comprises the
similar cases. The frequency of occurrence is of
TERING METHOD
ENcolJN . . .,........
r her pcrspectJvcs m the Past .,..
. , the
d rcrrJll"'n"
o b . I. . 'he
BIOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH
63
4l ... in e , The rules
signt1"
3
. , used hcrt: . of its
. .nlutciY in tit<: the divcr.;JtY. The
....-:-.,1 in a c- J organJt , of u ..
1)11' nc:ratc Jl dn t for the .tYJICm letcly mde
thiJt Jes IS eo p terns of
pll1S lfC . of these similar
tfc>ll"enc:ss otlcn wt I
e of hOW . cvioUS Y
social reaiiiY'wc rerum to and the
1\1 es
1
!)'pes. h questt h
To deve OJl
1
rescarc .
1
and psyc o-
l
..,ulateJ genhcra.. "ociateJ SOC'.a n of the case
'"'" . aftC"""' plcuo d
xplanauon na ufil!' com , are intereste
e . nhenonl< , . plC, Wt . r
laglcal t'" . n If for ,xam olitics m the o
-onsuucuo . 'of everyday p a we can
... .,.
11
ence . , .. ,n:slrvt , .
in the ex,:- Union dunng ''" ents on that tn
So
v,cl sta tern
1
s
mer . he interviewee s le life. In Ga ma
consider '. f his or her who . . tion of poht:
the an my lije
cast disinterest and the Rosenthal, 2000).
ial /reo( the state ( truction we are
fn
J"' tne !! . ase rccons h
. basis of our c d. ' to our researc
On "" . _ accor
10
!:: type
w in a posluon . - to construct a
and this one phenomena
not only attitude) but also explatns
h as an unpohuca I ds to thts presen
(so<; .
1
rse that ea th' .
the biograph,ca cou I that produce IS
d fi es the ru es d to
tation or e '" fi d that Gahna s nee
deSCription. Thus we her family and the
'""""''e her own hfe 11 cted in her attitude to
-r- is also re e
fanuly history . . We were able to see
rt"cs m Russ1a. th
everyday po
1 1
f ed for resolution and at e
bow the panem family history -which
same ume bond gl I linked to the social hiS
th' . ase IS SO C OSC Y f h.
tn IS c . d .tself over the course o t IS
""" C01151IIUIC I h
"":' - h . B. raphical case reconstructiOns t us
bt0g13P ) JOg 1 t types that
all the construction of deve opmen
the rules of the genetic process and/
or allow ' How it happened that ' narrations
IDausien. 1999: 228) as well as explanations -
with rtSpeel
10
both the experienced hfe h1story
and the narrawd life story. In so domg, we are not
following the causal relationship and cause-and-
effect models borrowed from the natural sc1ences.
CONCLUSION
The methodological approach of biographical
research described in this chapter aims to collect
its 'data' by conducting a narrative course of
COOVmation that allows the interviewee's per-
specuves and subjective relevances to become
apflllrenl and to generate texts that give social
iCJtl11151s the opponunity to reconstruct past
expenence .. The procedure of biographical case
:;:nstrucuons makes a strict distinction between
Jll'esent perspective of the biogrdpher and his
comparison ctwccn 1fe histo . Contr
helps us to trace the rules di fferr; and lifl il.lti
1
t
h
. cnhat e
rated from t e expenenced _ 1ng t
b
. h.
1
the '1C
between 10grap 1ca self-pres difr n.r
. entar ere
time of narratiOn and the experienc Ion at l'ltt
In this process the gencrdl conce e 111
cal research is to understand socrn
1
or


d
la and
logical phenomena an to explain 1.
context of the process of their ere them
duction and transfonnahon. In th. ahon, rq,
P
henomena on which the res
15
traditio. ().
. earch
focuses arc cxammed both frorn th quesr
perspective of the individual and . e subiecion
context of his/her life and the struln the ov/e
Th
k ctur
1

P
rocesses. 1s ma es 11 possible
1
d' ng or
. I. . o lsc
latent and 1mp ICJt structuring rul over
1
,.
d h h l"fi h' es. It "'
emphas1ze t at t c 1 e Jstory, the i "'ll.lt
review of the past and the manner of nterpreti
1
. 11 . PreSe e
of the hfe story are a constituted thr "lat1on
dialectiC . of the mdiVJdual and thcough
Biograph1cal research allows us to
8
0!:1a1.
the interrelationship between

cnce and collecllvc framework so hexPerj.
reconstruct an individual case a w en We
re alw
aiming to make general statements. l'hu. h ays
of bio!,'Tllphical research is not only to e goal
individual cases in the context of ind
1
v"derstand
I Ual
histories, but to gam an understanding of. .
1
e
realities or of the interrelationship between SOcJetal
and life history (see Rosenthal, 199R).


To conclude, I would like once again to
two classic researchers, Williarn lsaac Thquore
and Florian Znaniecki ( 1958: 11, lll32): ' !noma;
. d i!Jla.
lyzing the expcnences an attitudes of an indivi.
dual we always data and elementary
which are not exclus1vely hmncd to this indivi.
dual's personality but can be treated as mere
instances of more or less general classes of
or facts, and thus be used for the determination of
laws of social becoming.'
Translated by Meredith Dale
NOTES
I Sec the overview article by Bcrtaux and Kohli (\9S4)
2 Understanding and explaining arc undcrslood hen: ID
the sense used by Max Weber and Alfred Schueu.
According to Weber's postulate of subjective inll:rpn:
talion, scientific explanations of the social world must
refer 10 the subjective meaning of the aclions ofhumJD
beings and thus explain their aclions and the coosc
qucnccs of their actions through the intcrdcpcndcnCJ
with the actions of others. Schuctz ( 1962) is
3
'
. . . . lhat SOCIO)Ogll
ncm rcprcscnlallvc of ms1s1mg
conslruclions should be based on construe IS of cvtQ
day life.
r
10
use Jhc 1cnn 'bwgraphcr' instead of the
we prcft . raphcr' in thiS con !ext. In our OpiniOn,
autobtog d has.
JCf111 does not place a equate cmp 1s on
JhC taucr lcnn nstrUction of life histories and life
the soctal eo
slori" . cd by the title of the work by Glascr and
AS

The Discoery of Grounded Theory,
suauss (I . is concerned with the discovery of
. tf11d111on
1
. (
tiltS . h mpirical process o research sec Scale,
ti1COr:Y JR I Cc
99" . .
19 . ws were conducted by two tn!Crv1cwcrs.
c intcrvJc 'd .
som he contrib"tions by lngn M1c1hc and
sec also :rchcr in Roscnthal (2002), as well as
sunonc Brcckncr ( J99K) and Bcllina Voltcr (2002).
ooswttha 1
" J" h article of 1987 IS mere y a translated
The

the Gcnnan article of 1979, which deals


X1f11CiorO .
c d IBil with the analys1s .
ID .c . the granddaughter ot a thrcc-gcncralton
Gahna IS the fonncr Sovicl Union, which I rccon-
fam>1Y
1
n 200
d For details sec Roscnlhal ( 0).
sUUCIIC SS of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet
Ar11C c "lh h"gh Th"
socialist FcdcraJion deals . I : treason.. IS para-
h as used rather arb11ranly m lhc Sovtct Umon.
grap w one of many who were rchabilitaiCd during
0
she was . .
1
the period of polilical :nodcra11on followmg
KhJUShchcv's secret speech at !he Twcntclh Party
Congress (25 February 1956).
REFERENCES
Alhcit, Peter (1993)
Das "biographischc Parad1gma m dcr We1tcrbtldung .
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Grundlagen wissenschaftlicher und beruf/icher Praxis
in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (2nd expanded ed.).
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Alhcit, Peter (1994) 'Everyday time and life lime: on !he
problems of healing contradiclory experiences of lime' ,
7ime and Society, 3(3): 305-19.
Bcrtaux, Daniel (cd.) Biography and Society.
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Bcrtaux, Daniel and Kohli, Martin (1984) 'The life story
approach: a contincnlal view', Amtual Review of
Sociology, 10:215-37.
Brcckncr, Roswilha ( 1998) 'The biogrdphical-inlerprctativc
method: principles and procedures', in Social Strategies
in Risk Societies, Sostris Working Paper 2: Case Study
Materials: The Early Retin!d. London: Ccnlrc for
Biography in Social Policy (BISP), University of East
London, pp. 91-104.
Bruncr, Jcromc (1990) Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA:
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Tho
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2
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eruttollfll
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4
Focus groups
Phil Macnaghten and Greg Myers
ten years ago, an academic
As explain, define and justify. the
odd research practtce of gettmg etght
5
cenungly
1
. a room and making them talk for
pe
op e m
or so g tape-recorder; now everyone,
an overheandn non-academic alike, thinks they
d
rnoc an . h
aca e cus groups are. focus groups ave
w what ,o . . I d f k
kn the specta1st know e ge o mar et
gone from and a few innovative academic
researchers. n such fields as cultural studies and
rcsearchelrsyt to wide public notoriety, the topic
'al po tc , .
sect . n documentanes and the butt of com-
oftelevtsto ., . ' d '"
bo
ut 'focus group .asctsm an OCus
a I' I d I
in image-obsessed po tt1ca an soc1a
groupoes h 1 "d d
. t' ns But focus groups ave a so prov1 e
(OSIIIU tO . . .
data for highly influential studtes m range of
social sciences (e.g., Morley, 1980: _Burgess
1 1988a Liebes and Katz, 1990; Ltvmgstone
Lunt, 1994; Miller et al., 1998; Wodak et al.,
1999).
The rapid spread of focus ?roups corresponds
to a new interest, in many soc1al sc1ence fields, m
shared and tacit beliefs, and m the way these
beliefs emerge in interaction with others in a
local setting. They are often used in an
exploratory way, when researchers are not
entirely sure what categories, links and perspec-
tives are relevant. For instance, surveys of public
opinion on environmental problems assume that
people agree on what constitutes the environ-
ment, what the problems are, and their relations
to these problems. Focus groups on environmen-
tal issues are likely to reveal complex, contradic-
tory and shifting definitions, and different senses
of agency.
Of course other qualitative methods might
also be used for this exploration. Ethnographies
can reveal more about the non-discursive every-
day practices that define an issue (Agar and
MacDonald, 1995 ), but they do not necessarily
bring out what is not said because it need not be
said in this community. One-to-one interviews
are more likely to allow for extended narratives,
and for more open talk where there are issues of
status, conflict and self-presentation (Michell,
1999). But they can also put a great deal of pres-
sure on the relation between interviewer and
interviewee; the interviewee can wonder just
whom they are talking to. A group can provide
prompts to talk, correcting or responding to
others, and a plausible audience for that talk that
is not just the researcher. So focus groups work
best for topics people could talk about to each
other in their everyday lives - but don't.
Focus group methods have been set out in a
variety of handbooks and introductions (Morgan,
1988; Krueger, 1994; Kitzinger, 1995; Morgan
and Krueger, 1998; Wilkinson, 1999), and the
classic study by the originators ofthe method has
been reprinted (Merton et al., \956). Useful short
introductions by one of the most innovative of
focus group researchers are now available on the
web (Kitzinger, 1995). There has been an assess-
ment of the role of focus groups in the develop-
ment of one field, media studies (Morrison,
1998), and a collection of essays dealing not just
with the practicalities, but with methodological
and theoretical issues, and especially with rela-
tions between the researcher and the participants
in the groups (Barbour and Kitzinger, \999). A
study by Puchta and Potter (2003) applies work
in conversation analysis and discursive psycho-
logy to provide a detailed analysis of interaction
from the perspective of the moderator of market
research groups. And at last, there is a thoughtful
handbook for social science researchers that does
more than just give rules, advice and moral sup-
port (Bloor et al., 2001 ). So we will not give yet
another general introduction to how to do focus
b'TOups. Instead we would like to focus on just

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