方法对比

	传记研究	民族志
领域	质性	质性
方法族	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
起源年份	Late 19th–early 20th century (Dilthey ~1883; Thomas & Znaniecki 1918–1920)	c. 1922 (Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific)
提出者	Wilhelm Dilthey (hermeneutic foundations); Thomas & Znaniecki (sociological application); Norman Denzin (interpretive biography)	Bronisław Malinowski (modern ethnography); rooted in 19th-century anthropology
类型	Qualitative research method	Qualitative fieldwork tradition
开创性文献	Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive Biography. Sage Publications.	Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019). Ethnography: Principles in Practice (4th ed.). Routledge. ISBN: 978-1138504462
别名	life history research, biographical method, life story research, biographical narrative inquiry	Etnografi, participant observation, fieldwork, ethnographic research
相关	6	5
摘要	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.	Ethnography is a qualitative research tradition in which a researcher immerses themselves in a social group or community over an extended period — typically three to six months or longer — to study its culture, values, and behaviours in their natural setting. Originating in social and cultural anthropology, and consolidated as a rigorous method by Bronisław Malinowski in the early twentieth century, ethnography produces rich, contextualised accounts of how people live, work, and make meaning together.