ABSTRACT
A conventional conception of biography sees a life story primarily as a record, usually written, of events in an individual’s life, though explanation and interpretation are frequently included. Recent sociological development of the genre of biography is broader (for example Bertaux, 1981; Denzin, 1989; Dickinson and Erben, 1995; Erben, 1993 and 1996) and highlights the range of forms that may be considered to be biography. Such developments also draw attention to biographies as a source of understanding of cultural processes as much as of individual lives, and to the complex relationship that exists between the account of a life and the ‘reality’ of that life.
