The Story of Life History: Origins of the Life History Method in Sociology

For some time psychologists have been employing life history methods in their work. Perhaps the key publication in this regard is Erik Erikson 's (1975)book Life History and the Historical Moment. In fact, life history methods were pioneered by anthropologists and taken up with considerable enthusiasm by sociologists. A central location for the pioneering of life history methods by sociologists was the Chicago School in the 1930s.A range of innovative life history studies were generated here as part of the wide-ranging studies of the urban environment undertaken by the sociology school. In this article, we look at some of the possibilities of life history work, but are particularly concerned with analyzing the dilemmas that led to a decline in life history methods. The last section examines the rehabilitation of life history methods and puts forward a number of arguments as to why life history methods are particularly suitable for what Harvey (1989) called the "condition of post-modernity."