ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to emphasize the heuristic value of the life story as a methodological tool and discusses the individual and/or networked trajectories that connect musicians’ and dancers’ worlds to other spheres of their social lives. The book examines the life stories as a basis for comparison, attempting to tease out common patterns of circulations and transformations without betraying differences. It highlights geographical and/or social mobilities, whether they involve status or contexts. The book explores status as a mainland French citizen who is a permanent resident of Reunion Island and their long-term relationship clearly contributed to the digression from a research-oriented relationship, transforming the ethnographer into a biographer. The status of the ethnographer ultimately falls along a situational continuum. Friendships with eventual informants can also precede working relationships.
