A propos des récits de vie en sociologie et de leurs limites

Abstract

The life story is a determining tool for the sociologist who seeks to know and to understand the life of individuals. It gives access not only to the perspective with which individuals carry their own story but also to the contexts in which their individual stories fit. But if the life story gives access the knowledge of an individual’s story and, thus, describes a social universe, the limits of its contributions to the comprehension of this story must be questioned. What can we find in the whole ensemble of information that constitutes a life story? Is it reasonable to think that it is possible to discover in it the triggering fact from which later events will follow and will shape the individual as he or she is, characterizing and composing his or hers uniqueness? In this presentation, we will initially present the limits of the life story as a tool to be used in sociology, especially when applied for establishing an explanatory link between the past and present. We then explore the importance and the contributions of this tool for this discipline.