ABSTRACT
In transnational migration studies the concept of biography is used as a theoretical and methodological key concept for investigating migration processes in the age of globalization.
The biographical approach provides an excellent way of researching transnational migration experiences and processes because it offers a methodological way to capture empirically the diversity, process and transformational character of migration phenomena and identity constructions in the age of globalization. The biographical approach proceeds from the characterization of biographies as ‘radical documents of the sociality of the individual’ (Apitzsch, 1990, p. 90). In this way, processes of change and identity constructions can be investigated. Biographical analysis can thus look at problems and conflicts, but it can also examine the subjective coping strategies which are available to the subjects as ways of dealing with social structures. As Apitzsch and Inowlocki point out, the focus of biographical analysis is not the reconstruction of intentionality that is represented as an individual´s life course, but the embeddedness of the biographical account in social macro-structures (Apitzsch & Inowlocki, 2000, p. 61).
