Mobility and Biography

Methodological Challenges and Perspectives

Bibliographic Data

ID20048069
AuthorsSarah Panter (0000-0002-5793-3114), Johannes Paulmann (0000-0002-1025-1650), Margit Szöllösi‐janze
Year2015
Pages1-14
Publication date2015-11-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueMobility and Biography (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherDe Gruyter Oldenbourg (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/9783110415162-001
OpenAlexW2495855203
ISBN9783110415162
LanguageEN
Citations received3

This introductory article discusses methodological challenges for and perspectives related to a field of study that has only recently gained importance in historical research: transnational lives.For a long time, methodological nationalism had slowed down or even prevented investigations of individual or collective lifecourses that were characterised by a high degree of mobility and internationality.We argue that a critical engagement with concepts from the social sciences related to the current interest in processes of globalisation and transnational phenomena can open up new perspectives on "mobility and biography".In doing so, we first explore how focusing on lives that crossed political, social or cultural boundaries can bring aspects of individual agency together with larger structural settings as explanatory factors.In the second part, this article attempts to conceptualise transnational lives for historical research.Introducing our own concept of "cosmobilities", we demonstrate how engaging with two sociological strands, "rooted cosmopolitanism" and "mobilities", might provide a fresh impetus for analysing transnational subjects and their practices.2 Both assertions have also had a deep impact on the historiography of the so-called "Forty-Eighters" -a term that is highly problematic in itself.Wolfgang Hochbruck

Art history · Biography · Sociology · History · Philippine History and Culture

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