Reconstructing Changes in Agency in the Young People’s Social Biographies Through Longitudinal Qualitative Research

Abstract

The article is based on the longitudinal qualitative research (LQR) with 20 young people from the two social strata in two urban neighbourhoods of Belgrade carried out in four waves from 1993 to 2014. It deals with interpretation of changes in agency within social biographies through analysis of the narratives from two biographies. Its aim is exploration of agency as a response to changing contexts, and of its biographization—the interpretation of how the young people relate their agency to their identity and subjectivity. The last goal of the article is to discuss the advantage of LQR for exploring and interpreting changing agency. It is argued that interpretation of contextualization and biographization of agency contributes to its understanding as embedded into changing contexts within the social biography. It points that LQR provides invaluable methodological approach for understanding the complexity of interrelations of contexts, agency and meanings in time perspective.