Migration Letters, Volume: 6, No: 2, pp. 101 – 108 October 2009 ISSN: 1741-8984 & eISSN: 1741-8992 www.migrationletters.com Editorial: Biographical methods in migration research THEODOROS IOSIFIDES * DEBORAH SPORTON ** Biographical methods and research practice During the last decades, qualitative biographical/narrative methods gained a prominent position within the spectrum of social science methodology and research practice, mainly due to a reaction to the positivist-empiricist domi- nance and associated views of social reality. After an initial interest to bio- graphical methods, which followed the edition of ‘The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1919-1921)’ by Thomas and Znaniecki (1958), bio- graphical and generally qualitative research methods gave way to empiri- cist-quantitative approaches and only since the end of 1960 the positivist domination begun to be unsettled (Halfacree and Boyle 1993; Findlay and Li 1997; Tsiolis 2006). Empiricism reduces social reality to a series of observable and discrete, highly atomistic entities (events, behaviors etc), which may be allegedly categorized and measured with the use of ‘objective’ quantitative methods by more or less ‘neutral’ social scientists (Iosifides 2008). The purpose of this, is the discovery of empirical, ‘law like’ regularities between variables, which are considered to exhaust both social processes and causal relations (Iosifides and Spyridakis 2006; Iosifides 2008). Against this, a view of social reality as consisted by meaningful actions and social interaction, gives great emphasis on individual meanings and interpretations and moves human subjectivity and social inter-subjectivity from the periphery to the center of social inquiry. Instead of variable-oriented law like explanations, such a view adopts an understanding (verstehen) approach to social phenomena, grant- ing qualitative methods (including biographical/narrative approaches) an indispensable position in social research practice (Iosifides 2008). Indeed biographical approaches aim at the reconstruction of life trajectories of re- search participants and of the ways of making sense of the world, of their conceptualizations, meanings and representations of it. We would add to those, the investigation of their practices, actions, interactions, the influence of socio-economic and cultural context and the role of the personal, familial and social material conditions and circumstances (Iosifides 2008). * Department of Geography, Laboratory of Population Movements, University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Lesvos, Greece. Email: iwsifidis@aegean.gr ** Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, UK. Email: d.sporton@sheffield.ac.uk