Making the “Structures” Speak: Migrant Biographies along Time by Joana Sousa Ribeiro University of Coimbra (joanasribeiro@ces.uc.pt) Narrative interviews and biographic data collected during a ten-year period among foreign-trained doctors working in Portugal and exploring issues such as migratory experience, job and career paths, citizenship identification, family structure, social mobility, and aspirations indicate the potential of longitudinal studies in the fields of migration and life narrative. The life narratives of the migrants report an interlink between constraints and/or opportunities related to social structures (such as juridical and labor market requirements, language acquisition processes, and participation in reaccreditation programs) and those predicated on agency capabilities. Considering the lived experience of different migrants’ social categories along time—the interviewed migrants are identified at one and the same time as undocumented migrants and overqualified workers, as Portuguese language students, and as recognized skilled professionals—my work suggests that incorporating auto|biographical research methodologies into standard sociological research practices (such as interviews) can reposition the study of migration and migrant lives as a geohistoric biographical process. Indeed, the analysis of the long-term biographic path of migrants considers simultaneously the migrants’ lived (hi)story as an intertwined process of resistance, social system (inter)recognition, and (re)distribution in the social ladder. In this vein, a life- narrative approach posits an important challenge to the structures-versus-agency This is the accepted version of: Ribeiro, Joana Sousa (2017), «Making the “Structures” Speak: Migrant Biographies along Time», a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 32(2), 388-390. DOI: 10.1080/08989575.2017.1289025 Published version available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2017.1289025