Biographical Research (Understanding Social Research)

Biographical research is used as a general term to describe the rapidly growing interest in how to study individual lives in a range of disciplines and fields - by using autobiographies, biographies, life histories, life stories, and oral histories. The increase in the study of individual lives can be seen in the inclusion of biographical research on many courses in research methods and the number of books and journals now being published. There is also a general revival of interest in the nature of autobiographical and biographical writing, which has led to an increased examination of why such writing takes place, how it is defined, what materials should be considered 'autobiographical', and how audiences respond to it.