Comparer des méthodes

	Recherche biographique	Analyse narrative
Domaine	Qualitatif	Qualitatif
Famille	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Année d'origine	Late 19th–early 20th century (Dilthey ~1883; Thomas & Znaniecki 1918–1920)	1967 (foundational); 2008 (canonical handbook)
Auteur d'origine	Wilhelm Dilthey (hermeneutic foundations); Thomas & Znaniecki (sociological application); Norman Denzin (interpretive biography)	Catherine Kohler Riessman (seminal synthesis, 2008); roots in Labov & Waletzky (1967)
Type	Qualitative research method	Qualitative interpretive method
Source fondatrice	Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive Biography. Sage Publications.	Riessman, C.K. (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Sage.
Alias	life history research, biographical method, life story research, biographical narrative inquiry	narrative inquiry, life history analysis, biographical research, Anlatı Analizi (Narrative Analysis)
Apparentées	6	6
Résumé	Biographical research is a qualitative method that examines individual lives in depth — through life-history interviews, personal documents, letters, and autobiographical narratives — to understand how personal experience intersects with social, historical, and cultural forces. Rooted in Wilhelm Dilthey's hermeneutics and made prominent in sociology by Thomas and Znaniecki's study of Polish immigrants, it treats the individual life story as a window onto broader social structures and processes. It belongs to the narrative inquiry subfamily alongside oral history and life-story research.	Narrative analysis is a qualitative research method, synthesised canonically by Catherine Kohler Riessman (2008), that examines how individuals storise their lived experiences and construct meaning through the telling. Drawing on life history, biographical, and narrative inquiry traditions, it treats the story itself — not just its content — as the unit of analysis, attending to temporal sequence, plot structure, and the social context in which a narrative is produced.