The Life History in Community Studies

Abstract

T HE use of the life history in community studies has been initiated and elaborated by Thomas and Znanieckil and effectively continued by Shaw.2 Their work has provided a new orientation on the individual, that is, a view of him as a member of a community and bearer of culture. It is proposed here to carry on this line of research by asking the following question: If all one knew about a community was what one got from a specific life history, what kind of perspective on it would one have? If there is realism to the dictum that the individual and society are aspects of one another3 or that personality is the subjective aspect of culture,4 then one should be able to view the life history subject as a participant in various forms of group life. The best way to get a child's eye view of a community would be to study a child. This research is now in the process, but short of this, one might study the early material of a psychoanalytic life history from the standpoint of the group processes which it might reveal. This has been done, and a detailed life history record has been canvassed for the material from it which would especially reveal community processes.5 From a methodological standpoint, the intensive life history may be a valuable way of making an exploratory study. Too often the exploratory phase is missed in sociological researches, and the researcher relies on his own intuition in discerning the variables to be studied and measured. One of the greatest values of the anthropologist is that he gives us the perspective which makes familiar facets of our social life seem strange and therefore, to some degree, objects.6 Somewhat the same experience is obtainable by studying the life history of another individual,-the familiar and intuitive perceptions of social life can be made clear and external. Everyone assumes, I suppose, that variables have to be discerned before