Briefing Note 2
Kate Bird and Annica Ojermark
2011
Issues in collecting (and recording)
data from life histories, life stories,
oral testimonies and family histories
Aim
Having looked at the power point presentation and read this
briefing note and some of the core readings you should have a
good understanding of the following issues:

When the life history approach is especially useful in
chronic poverty research

How to decide the best parameters for a study that uses
the life history method (philosophical/ epistemological
approach, key research question – if any, sample size,
interview check list – if any)

Which approaches to collecting, recording and analysing
life histories deliver results most likely to contribute to
policy debates, and which are most likely to be valued by
academic audiences?
You might also be asking yourself the following questions:

How can the researcher get around issues of bias?

What are some useful ways to confront the ethical issues
that arise in the process of collecting life histories?

Do researchers using life history methods face the same
challenges as others collecting primary data? If so, can
they be overcome using similar approaches? If the
challenges differ, how do they differ?
Designing Chronic Poverty Research
Introduction
Using data from life histories to inform our understanding of chronic poverty is uniquely
useful for a number of reasons. Life histories are relational. They have the potential to
link macro and micro processes. Life history interviews allow individuals to discuss not
only themselves, and their lives, but also the social, economic, political spaces that
they inhabit. Thus, they can be used to communicate how structure and agency
intersect to produce the circumstances of a particular person‘s life. Lastly, life histories
capture processes of change. For example they can be used to map an individual‘s
poverty trajectory and they can be used to identify the key poverty drivers, maintainers
and interrupters. Additionally, a life history approach can illuminate pre-existing
conceptions of poverty, refute common but damaging misconceptions (Hulme, 2003)
and generate counter-intuitive findings, stimulating new areas of research.
The life history approach has the potential to deliver chronic poverty researchers
powerful insights. However, like other approaches, it confronts researchers with
choices (research design, interviewing process, analysis, and dissemination of
findings) and a corresponding set of challenges. This briefing note and connected
readings will review some of the choices and outline some of the challenges.
Why use life history methods?

What is your key research question?

What data do you have already?

Is panel data available?

Does your existing data help to answer the ‗what‘ as well as the ‗why‘?
Does existing data help to answer the questions about the dynamic processes that
drive people into chronic poverty (drivers), about what keeps them there (maintainers)
or about what might help them to leave poverty (interrupters)? If not, life histories may
help to understand both what is happening as well identifying some of the dynamic
forces at work. Furthermore, the CPRC has found that experienced qualitative
researchers can quickly and successfully add life history methods to their ‗toolbox‘. It is
a powerful method, particularly when used in combination with other approaches. It
generates fascinating insights and allows for the counter-intuitive to emerge and it
produces a wealth of rich data. (See Davis, 2006).
Davis (2006) points out that although the life history approach tends to deliver a small
sample, each interview covers a number of variables and moments in time. This allows
for the exploration of social mechanisms that other research instruments might miss,
including multiple causation, cumulative causation, sequence effects, interaction
effects and threshold effects. See Figure 1, below.
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research
The life history method can be used either on its own, or in combination with other
qualitative and quantitative methods, such as panel surveys. Life history interviews can
fill the gaps in understanding that other methods leave unfilled, and may be used to
validate and elaborate on previous research findings. Findings from life history
interviews may help to expose the complexities of chronic poverty because the method
highlights the decision making process of the respondent and the strategies they use
to tackle poverty. Since the life history interview is longitudinal, linking the past to the
present, as well as relational, linking the macro and micro, it is a method that can
provide a great amount of depth.
Including the excluded
Life histories have the potential to act as an ‗empowering‘ form of social science
methodology, as it can be used to record the opinions and life experiences of people
who are disadvantaged in some way and often excluded by other forms of research
(Reissman, 1993).
Various approaches to using life histories
A great deal of diversity exits in the ways that researchers can approach the life history
method. Miller (1995) has outlined a useful way to discern between the most common
approaches.
1. Narrative: The emphasis in this approach is on the active construction of life
stories through the interplay between interviewer and interviewee. The finished text
is the result of the collaborative project, and the informant‘s viewpoint is treated as
a unique perspective, mediated by social context. Analysis is of the interview itself,
or the informant‘s view of reality, the themes that emerge from the narrative, and
how the respondent reconstructs the past and it‘s meaning. This approach
emphasises the microanalysis of the text, to get at the perceptive and contextual
nature of ‗reality‘.
2. Realist (inductive): This approach uses grounded-theory techniques of
interviewing. Researchers begin with a hypothesis and through a series of
interviews produce the facts that will be incorporated into theory. Interviews are
sequenced in a series or in rounds. They start unstructured and open ended and
once generalisations from the first interview are identified, the interviewer returns to
conduct subsequent interviews - with more specific questions. Interviews stop at
the point of saturation, when no new ideas are being generated and the theory has
therefore been ‗proven‘. Analysis takes the form of categorising the information
gathered into ‗building blocks‘ from which theory is constructed. This information is
then validated against further empirical material; transcripts or new interviews.
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research
Figure 1: Exploring causation over time
Source: Davis, 2006:7
3. Neo-positivist: This approach validates pre-existing theory against empirical
reality. Previous work or a literature review on the topic of interest generates the
form of the interview and the questions that will guide it. The aim is to fill gaps in
existing research, or to provide a more holistic or nuanced perspective to an
existing understanding of phenomena. The identified gaps form the basis of the
analysis, as they determine the topics to be investigated and the subject of the
interviews.
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research
Combining life history methods with other data collection
techniques
Regardless of the approach taken, analysis of life histories requires the researcher to
understand the social context that the respondent is operating in (Van Onselen, 1993).
This can be achieved by combining methods to collect contextual information, drawing
on data from household surveys, PRAs (Participatory Rural Appraisals), focus group
discussions and key informant interviews and a range of secondary sources.
Household surveys can be used to provide a contextual understanding of the area
under study. Depending on the design of the survey it may provide useful insights into
income and consumption, education and health outcomes, access to key markets and
public services, access to and control of resources, livelihoods and coping strategies –
all differentiated by important dimensions of social difference (e.g. status of household
head, age, gender, income group and ethno-linguistic group). Where panel and crosssectional data is available it may be possible to explore changes over time. Qualitative
data can then be used to complement such data to provide insights into processes and
to explore relationships between households and social groups as well as the
institutional and political economy issues that can only be weakly explored by
household surveys.
PRA data can provide contextual information about a study site or community (e.g.
historical timelines, an understanding of local customs, norms and institutions, local
understandings of poverty—for example what are the processes driving, maintaining
and interrupting poverty) as well more detailed information (e.g. community listings,
wealth ranking exercises, poverty maps, an analysis of key shocks and trends and of
local livelihood and coping strategies).
Focus groups can also generate wealth ranking information and can identify important
lines of social differentiation within the community and the characteristics associated
with chronic poverty and marginality. As such, focus groups can both help to identify a
sampling frame for random (or purposive) sampling of respondents for life history
interviewing and can also give a sense of the power and wealth distribution within a
community. Focus groups can also be used to identify issues to discuss during life
history interviews and to triangulate and verify initial findings from such interviews.
Using these methods of data collection in combination with in-depth life history
interviews provides the opportunity to develop a richer and more complex
understanding of issues being examined by the research. Importantly, it also makes it
likely that findings will be more robust, since the life history findings are often validated
by findings from community level participative research. For this reason, combining
methods is especially fruitful for researchers who are intent on influencing or shaping
policy since many policy makers or donors are interested in to what extent a trend or
phenomenon is generalisable/ representative and on the rigour of the method. This is
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research
arguably even more so where qualitative methods are used alongside household
surveys and quantitative analysis.
Challenges faced by researchers using life history methods
Dealing with bias
Life history data cannot easily be "managed" by standardised analytical procedures,
which most social scientists have been trained in (Agar, 1980). A number of issues
arise in the process of collecting, interpreting, and communicating life histories that
may challenge the researcher. To begin with, life histories are constructed. Life
histories reveal the subjective perceptions of living in chronic poverty, as well reflecting
the researcher‘s conscious and unconscious emphasis; such as the important themes
that emerged from the interview, or stages in the informant‘s life that were identified as
the most important (Kumar-Nevo, 1996). It is the author or interviewer/researcher who
ultimately decides how people‘s narratives are represented. As a result, the reflection
of personal and social life that life histories provide are not mediated by the researcher
(Reissman, 1993). Many researchers therefore prefer to see life history materials as
resulting from a collaborative effort, and which speak to the subjective nature of the
collaboration rather than as representation of fact or truth. The results of the life history
interview can therefore be seen as ‗interactive texts‘ (Miles and Crush, 1993) (see the
section on approaches, above).
Some scholars who use the life history method reject the notion that data gathered is
purely subjective, but posit that ‗truths‘ and fact-finding can very much be a part of the
process. Daniel Bertaux (1984) for example, employs a method of saturation, also
described by Miller (1995) as the ‗realist‘ approach (above). Bertaux suggests that by
repeatedly testing a hypothesis using the life history method, and moulding that
hypothesis as findings dictate, until the hypothesis has been confirmed, theory formed
and the point of saturation reached, objective truth can be realised (Bertaux, 1984).
This perspective sees interviewees as informants, and uses the life histories in an
ethnographic fashion to get an accurate picture of the trajectories within certain social
contexts in order that patterns of social relations may be identified and the process that
shape them better understood. Researchers who are interested in establishing
objective truths through the life history method will be more concerned with, and
challenged, by the validity of findings from life history interviews (see section on
approaches, above)
The data from life history interviews is at risk of bias from a number of different
sources, for example the post-hoc rationalisation of the respondent (e.g. ―I decided to
become a tailor because I knew that I would be able to make a lot of money.‖ Rather
than ―there was a place in the local vocational training college and they provided a
bursary, so it seemed like a good idea.‖); recall bias – where the respondent puts
(positive or negative) gloss on events (e.g. ―I left the village and went to the city
because I knew that I would find a good job there and improve my situation.‖ Whereas
actually the respondent left the village because he had been accused of adultery and
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research
had to run away; bias caused by mood/ level of rapport with interviewer; bias causes
by the way the researcher conducts the interview. See the text box, below.
Box 1: Bias caused by the interests of the researcher

During a life history interview in Uganda, it emerged that a key shock in the respondent‘s
life had been the simultaneous death of livestock and several members of the extended
family. The respondent attributed these deaths to witchcraft. However, as an interviewer,
rather than probing belief systems (which were outside the remit of my research project) I
focused on how the death of the interviewee‘s father and the loss of livestock had affected
his household‘s well-being, his relationship (as a child) with his new step-father and the
long run impact of the shock.

Poverty researchers tend to focus on events/ cause and effect relationships rather than on
respondents friendships and their sources of happiness. Does this bias results?

Poverty researchers also tend to focus on issues amenable to development policy (e.g.
asset thresholds) rather than social policy issues (e.g. domestic violence, household
fragmentation, mental illness)
Other sources of bias include:

Insider/outsider perspective (does the interviewer speak the local language
and/or share in a common history? Is the interviewer very familiar with the
community and it‘s history, or not?) Both perspectives have their merits and
shortcomings (Miles and Crush, 1993).

Gender of interviewee and interviewer

Whether an interpreter is present - what gets lost in translation?

If other family members are present for the interview (may the interviewee be
‗storying‘ the life history for the enjoyment/ educational benefit of family
members (or hiding unpalatable truths)? For example, a woman may describe
herself as more strong and resilient than she actually was (See Box 2, below).

Inherent problems involved in memory recall - how accurate?

The assumptions and biases of the researcher(s).
Box 2: Storying and parallel truths
Even highly skilled researchers will find that they stumble across inconsistencies in their
respondents‘ stories. This may be because the respondent is struggling to remember facts and
sequence them correctly or because they are seeking to mislead you. In the power point
presentation accompanying this Briefing Note we discuss two cases where a respondent told a
convincing life story only for the researcher to find out later that an ‗alternative truth‘ was
available.
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research
Life history researchers can seek to limit the risk of inaccuracies in the stories they collect by a
structure approach which helps respondents to remember facts and figures (see da Corta,
2007a and 2007b) and by triangulating their findings, but it is impossible to fully remove.
Instead, where the researcher identifies that a respondent has sought to mask the truth, it is
important that they seek to understand why (e.g. to preserve their dignity and status, to bolster
their self image as a sensible decision-maker, out of fear that the information will be given to
the authorities, because they hope for direct or indirect benefits from telling you a sad story,
etc.).
Ethical issues
Regardless of the approach taken researchers will almost always confront a host of
ethical issues in conducting the life history research and disseminating the findings. In
particular, when conducting research with chronically poor people some important
questions that may arise include:

Research takes up poor people‘s time, which is often a scarce and important
resource - how can research be pursued in the most time effective manner for the
respondent?

Should researchers provide payment/ payment in kind to respondents?

How should
respondents?

Does the interviewer have a responsibility to the community?
researchers
approach
anonymity/
masking
o
To provide feedback?
o
To ensure that issues are taken on by local government?
o
To provide results to a local NGO for action?
the
identity
of

What approach should researchers take to feeding back locally/
nationally/nationally/regionally/internationally?

Should researchers using this method consciously commit to building a long-term
partnership with a service delivery or welfare NGO, in order to have a long-term
engagement with the identified community (this will lead that particular community
to benefit over and above neighbouring villages and others in the country and in
other countries. To what extent should life history researchers emphasise using the
results from their life histories work to feed into pro-poor policy change - indirectly,
through policy engagement?)

To what extent should researchers identify a route through which they will feed
emerging policy issues (Govt, LG, NGO, civil soc)? How will they do this in difficult/
contested policy areas, particularly where findings are not robust, but an issue has
clearly been identified?
sub-
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research

Will life histories be compiled and turned into a (key word) searchable data bank? If
so, the locations and identities of individuals will need to be masked and we will
need to work out access rules.
Are life histories extractive or empowering?
When designing research it is important to remember that not everyone has a story
―ready made‖. People‘s willingness and ability to talk about themselves can vary
culturally (India versus Uganda, where people tend to be very fluent in India and need
a great deal of prompting in Uganda). This may influence the number of interviews you
can conduct in a given amount of time and the skill needed in collecting them. Also, it
is important to remember that not everyone enjoys telling their story. This will depend
partly on the nature of the community and on what the process of recalling and
recounting uncovers or resurrects. This means that a process that may be empowering
for some is exploitative or at least unpleasant for others.
Other issues

Should interviews be only conducted in the interviewee‘s mother tongue?

Should the interviewer take notes?

Should the interviewer record the interview and have it transcribed?

Should interviews be recorded, translated and transcribed

Are there arguments for or against having two interviewers instead of one?

Should all life history interviews be conducted by specialist researchers? This is
likely to imply that they have post-graduate qualifications in social sciences?
Alternatively should they be undertaken by local non-specialist and fairly
inexperienced research officers/ trained community members? (I would argue
strongly for specialist researchers, because the interviewer strongly determines
the quality and depth of the information gained. However, where the specialist
is non-local and has to work through a translator, there may be difficulties in
building rapport).
Research using life history methods is incredibly resource hungry. It needs a relatively
large amount of (expensive, experienced) researcher time, and at each stage (design,
data collection, data analysis and write up). It is not a form of research that can be
successfully delegated to enumerators or even well trained but relatively inexperienced
colleagues. This is partly because a great deal of analysis takes place during the
interview (deciding what issues to drop and where to probe).
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research
Core reading
Davis, P. (2006) Poverty in time: Exploring poverty dynamics from life history
interviews
in
Bangladesh.
CPRC
Working
Paper
69.
http://www.chronicpoverty.org/pdfs/69Davis.pdf
Roberts, B. (2002) ―Introduction: Biographical Research‖ in Biographical Research.
Open University Press, Buckingham and Philadelphia. http://www.mcgrawhill.co.uk/openup/chapters/0335202861.pdf
Other references and resources
Agar, Michael (1980) ―Stories, background knowledge and themes: problems in the
analysis of life history narrative‖, American Ethnologist, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 223-239.
Atkinson, R. (1998) The Life Story Interview, London, Sage.
Baulch, B., & Scott, L. (eds.) (2006) Panel Surveys and life history methods: Workshop
Report.
London:
Chronic
Poverty
Research
Centre.
http://www.chronicpoverty.org/CPToolbox/images_and_files/CPRC_2006-Q2Workshop_Report.pdf
Behar, R. (1990) ―Rage and Redemption: Reading the Life Story of a Mexican
Marketing Woman‖ in Feminist Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 223-258.
Bertaux, D. and M. Kohli (1984) ―The life story approach: A continental view‖ in Annual
Review of Sociology, vol. 10, pp. 215-37.
Bertaux, D. ed. (1981) Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social
Sciences, Sage Publications, CA.
Bird, K. and Shinyekwa (2003) ―Multiple Shocks and Downward Mobility: learning from
life histories of rural Ugandans‖. Overseas Development Institute, CPRC Working
Paper No. 36.
da Corta, L. (2007a) (forthcoming) ‗Concepts and methods to understand the
intergenerational transmission of poverty.‘ CPRC Working Paper. London: Chronic
Poverty Research Centre.
da Corta, L. (2007b) (forthcoming) Concepts and methods to understand the link
between the intergenerational transmission of poverty and escapes and political
economy. CPRC Working Paper. London: Chronic Poverty Research Centre.
du Toit, A. (2005) Poverty Measurement Blues: some reflections on the space for
understanding ‗chronic‘ and ‗structural‘ poverty in South Africa . CPRC Working
Paper 55. http://www.chronicpoverty.org/pdfs/55duToit.pdf
Hulme, David (2003) "Thinking 'Small' and the Understanding of Poverty: Maymana
and Mofizul's Story", CPRC, Working Paper no. 22.
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Designing Chronic Poverty Research
Miles, M., and J. Crush (1993) ―Personal narratives as interactive texts: collecting and
interpreting migrant life-histories‖ in Professional Geographer, no. 45, pp. 84-94.
Miller, R. L. (2000) Researching Life Stories and Family Histories, Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications.
Miller, R. L. (2000) Researching Life Stories and Family Histories, Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications.
Roberts, B. (2002) Biographical Research. Open University Press, Buckingham and
Philadelphia.
Rogaly, B, and D. Coppard (2003) ― ‗They Used to Eat, Now They go to Earn‘: The
Changing Meanings of Seasonal Migration from Puruliya District in West Bengal,
India‖ in Journal of Agrarian Change, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 395-433.
Thompson, P. and H. Slim (1993) Listening for a Change: Oral Testimony and
Development, Panos, London.
Van Onselen, C. (1993) ―The reconstruction of a rural life from oral testimony: Critical
notes on the methodology employed in the study of a black South African
sharecropper‖ in Journal of Peasant Studies, no. 20, pp. 494-514.
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