Life history and project: life history as a project and "life histories" attending to projects

Abstract

Twenty years of reflections in and about procedures of "life histories in formation" allow the production of a synthesis about their contributions, and the understanding of the development from the point of view of the developing subjects. They also provide an understanding of the aspirations of knowledge about the contexts of usage of biographical perspectives. The paper therefore offers a wide scene of European and international authors who have published their research in this field, and recognises life histories as a project of knowledge of thematic biographical perspectives attending to specific projects. In this diversity, however, a unity can be perceived: the preoccupation with creating a knowledge based on an intersubjective collaboration between the researchers and the writers of the accounts, and therefore the preoccupation with providing the work with and about subjectivity with hermeneutic standards. At the same time knowledge of the process of creation of the self and of knowledge that can be generalised through its usage value is produced.