Linking lives and shifting contexts: critical reflections on qualitative lifecourse methodologies

Catherine Locke, University of East Anglia
Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, Unversity of East Anglia

This paper reflects on the experience of two different methodologies for qualitative lifecourse analysis: firstly, the elicited narratives of 20 older people in Buenos Aires focusing on their lifetime relations with their children and what this means for their current wellbeing; secondly, in-depth semi-structured interviews of 60 young adults in Zambia focusing on their life trajectories with respect to educational and employment choices, opportunities and experiences. In both methodologies, the role of linked lives and of wider social, economic and political changes was central. The paper addresses three core themes: firstly, the challenges and opportunities of two approaches to making sense of widely disparate narratives of linked lives; secondly, two possibilities for engaging with the subjectivity of the narrative accounts of linked lives; thirdly, two approaches to exploring how individual experiences and the lives to which they are linked are rooted in wider shifts in social, economic and political contexts.