Reflections

Abstract

This chapter starts with general discussions about divides in the wider research community and then narrows down the focus to the biographical life course approach and the various suggestions that have been put forward for bridging methodological divides. Mixed methods strategies across the quantitative-qualitative gap is the title of a section that presents different research designs in such studies that make use of both quantitative and qualitative material. It discusses challenges and potential barriers against incorporating both types of data along a continuum of statistical techniques for causal analyses on the one end, and biographical material for exploring social processes, on the other. Examples from empirical research illustrate the points raised. Questions of quality in biographical life course research is the topic of a separate section that underlines how different research strategies and approaches invite specific types of questions in relation to e.g., generalisability. The chapter ends with some general reflections inspired by research from this approach in contemporary society.

The social world is a world of events, and the lives of both social groups and individual persons are navigated as complex trajectories across this heaving sea of happenings. (Abbott 2016, p. 247)

Attempts at Bridging Gaps and Overcoming Divides

The topics discussed throughout the chapters in this book have been set into the historical contexts they originated in and related to the debates they were part of in their contemporary society. Thus I have made every effort to avoid the trap that Mills (1959/1980) called the ‘ritual (of) a dull little padding known as ‘sketching in the historical background” (p. 171). In this final chapter I will start by tracing the general origins of the specific discussions that were addressed in Chap. 6. These debates go beyond biographical life course studies, beyond social science and well into the academic community as a whole. I will thus focus on the early suggestions for overcoming conflicts and controversies that can be identified in the literature. I will do this in order to open up a wider backcloth against which to discuss topics such as mixing methods and questions of quality in biographical life course research. Examples of studies that use single or multiple methods, are addressed in relation to different types of analyses of biographical material in combination with other types of data. The section on mixed methods designs is followed by a discussion about quality in biographical life course studies and the chapter ends with some concluding reflections.

The differences between the quantitative and the qualitative approaches in general sociology can be considered in view of the wider topics Charles Percy Snow (1959) named ‘the two cultures’. In The Rede Lecture of 1959, Snow, who had a PhD in physics from Cambridge, discussed the antagonism between the two cultures in academia and the intellectual world.¹ He raised the question of whether the humanities and the natural sciences were irreconcilable since there were few lines of communication between researchers in each of these fields,

Literary intellectuals at one pole – at the other scientists, and as the most representative, the physical scientists. Between the two a gulf of mutual incomprehension – sometimes (particularly among the young) hostility and dislike, but most of all lack of understanding. They have a curious distorted image of each other. Their attitudes are so different that, even on the level of emotion, they can’t find much common ground. (Snow 1959, p. 2)

He believed that the ‘intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups’ (p. 2). An opportunity to bridge this gap was for him in industry and engineering, which were important for what he named the scientific revolution, which could only come about through a total shift in the whole of the system of education.²

The arguments put forward by Snow about the intellectual and academic community bear some resemblance to Blumer’s (1954) critique of the hegemony of the natural sciences and how they should never become a model for the social sciences. His launching of the differences between sensitising and definitive concepts originated in the same type of argument as those later introduced by Snow. Mills (1954), clearly inspired by the same body of thought but taking the situation in sociology as a point of reference, came up with suggestions for, if not bridging the gap between the ‘Scientists’ and the ‘Theorists’, then at least of finding a way around this divide. He proposed a new form a sociology, one that contextualised the lives of people studied and maintained that the place for sociology was somewhere beyond the two dominant fields of ‘Theory’ and ‘Method’ of his day. Whilst the ‘Scientists’ sought to ‘break down truth and falsity into such fine particles that we cannot tell the difference between them’, the Theoretisians had withdrawn themselves from efforts to describe, understand and explain human society (p. 569). What he named the ‘third camp’ would include sociologists who should start from three questions about the way societies are formed:

• (1) What is meaning of this – whatever we are examining – for our society as a whole, and what is this social world like? (2) What is the meaning of this for the type of men and women that prevail in this society? And (3) how does this fit into the historical trend of our times, and in what direction does this main drift seem to be carrying us? (p. 572)

These questions, and his visions for a third space for sociology, bore no methods prescriptions; his ambitions were wider than mere methodological. In that sense his thoughts and those of Blumer (1954) and Snow (1959) covered some of the same ground; they found the dichotomic division between academic approaches confining and called for a third space. This particular period, the 1950s, is often portrayed as characterised by consensus in the mainstream academic community. The examples shown above demonstrate that there existed alternative voices in both the social sciences and the natural sciences at this time.³

As Chap. 6 demonstrated, in the social sciences the potential, and sometimes actual, conflicts between methodological approaches have been many and varied. Attempts to overcome the different lines of disagreement between not only the quantitative and qualitative approaches but also those within the qualitative camp, have varied in intensity and scope over the years. During the past three to four decades practices of mixing or combining methods and data, have been explicitly addressed.

Combining Research Designs, Methods, and Data

Mixing various types of methods and data has been one way of trying to combine practices and knowledge from various fields within and between disciplines in order to bridge the gaps between them. Over the years a number of mixed-methods ideas have been launched, for instance in the writings of Julia Brannen (1992) and Alan Bryman (2006). However, the fact that different types of data have occurred in the same study has not always been acknowledged as a mixed-methods strategy (Brannen and Nilsen 2011). For example, in the Polish Peasant study a number of different sources of data and modes of analysis were evident. The authors did however not present the study as one of a mixed-methods design, nor did the appraisal proceedings (Blumer 1939) mention this or similar characteristics, in spite of the study combining diverse types of qualitative data as well as statistical information.

The very notion of mixing methods is thus new, even if the practices involved are not. Empirical research show that when quantitative and qualitative methods are used in the same biographical life course studies, aspects of methods and data from across the divide are most often being used within the main methodological framework, and from the viewpoint, where the lead researchers have their methodological ‘home’ (Bryman 2006; Nilsen and Brannen 2010).

In the past decades the literature on mixing methods in general social science has ballooned.⁴ In actual empirical practice it is quite common to make use of different types of data and to combine aspects from the qualitative and quantitative fields in the same study. To fully integrate them within a design that does justice to the origin of both, is however more difficult. As Bryman (2006) pointed out, ‘(…) the formalization of approaches to multi-strategy research through typologies has moved too far ahead of a systematic appreciation of how quantitative and qualitative research are combined in practice’ (Bryman 2006, p. 99). However, this said there are instances where different types of qualitative and quantitative data and techniques of analyses are combined and reflected upon with reference to methodological considerations involved. Such studies do however rarely cross the challenging qual-quant design divide. As the section above demonstrated, attempts to overcome gaps between approaches often lead to suggestions of finding a ‘third way’.

The studies of Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame (1997) are early empirical examples of how combining qualitative and quantitative data in the same study may lead to wishes of transcending established research designs and create strategies that could make the strength of each type of method be used more advantageously together. They advocated a third space beyond the natural sciences and the literature and the arts and arrived at this suggestion through studies in a field which has been dominated by quantitative approaches: social mobility. Their analysis of biographical case studies of five generation families brought results they saw as consistent with a third space,

But perhaps the time has come for us to acknowledge the existence of a third space, outside of those spaces occupied by the natural sciences and by literature and the arts: one that possesses its own regimen of truth. It is precisely because that space contains criteria for comparing the relative value of various interpretations of the same phenomenon that the interpretive imagination may be given free rein. (Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame 1997, p. 96)

This call for a break with traditional practices echoes the much earlier writings of Blumer (1954), Mills (1954) and Snow (1959) cited above, who all suggested similar ‘third space’ ideas for the future of the research practices in the social sciences.

Other scholars have tried to overcome divides by using all available methods from whichever toolbox they originated. Tamara Hareven was one of the first in the tradition of biographical life course studies to make truly mixed data and methods research in her aforementioned historical research of the relationship between work and family in an industrial community in the United States. The material she integrated in her study were ‘company files and employees’ files from Amoskeag, vital records, parish records, insurance records, and linkage with the 1900 census’ (Hareven 1982, pp. 385–386). This huge material was combined with biographical interviews. On the differences between surveys and interviews, Hareven observed,

Like surveys, it [a life history] recalls attitudes and perceptions, but, unlike surveys, it places these perceptions in the context of an individual’s life history. These perceptions are exceptionally valuable not as individual case histories but as historical, cultural testimonies’. (Hareven 1982, p. 382)

Although she did not name her research practice ‘doing a mixed methods design’ she nevertheless integrated both quantitative and qualitative material in the study, and also discussed their methodological implications,

Whereas the quantitative analysis provides structural evidence concerning the organisation and behaviour of kin, the oral-history interviews offer insight into the nature of relationships and their significance to the participants. The empirical analysis reported here—although attempting to weld both types of evidence—at times presents two different levels of historical reality, each derived from a distinct type of data. (Hareven 1982, p. 371)

In her research, all types of data were combined and discussed together in order to explore and explain different layers of contexts of the research questions. Hareven’s studies are thus some of the first biographical ones where data and methods of analysis were fully integrated and the merits of each type of data, together and separately, were explicitly addressed. Moreover, as she was sensitive to the temporal aspects involved in the type of research she carried out, her reflections on the usefulness of the different methods included how they could separately and together illuminate issues on the different temporal levels addressed.

The more conventional attempts to mix methods have been in combining various forms of surveys, administrative data or questionnaires, with interviews. Recent examples of this include Østergaard and Thomson (2020) who combined longitudinal questionnaires with interviews to address questions of drug use and early school leaving in a Danish sample of young people. Descriptive statistical analyses of the quantitative data were presented in tables and overviews to serve as a backcloth of the narrative analysis of interviews sampled from the overall material. An earlier example with a similar design is from my PhD-research in the late 1980s. I used a deliberate mixed-methods design combining questionnaires with biographical interviews to explore questions relating to women’s occupational careers compared to men’s with the same type of education in three cohorts. The biographical interviews, that included 44 women from the quantitative sample, were combined with ‘lifelines’ in the analysis (Nilsen 1992, 1994).⁵ These are helpful portrayals of the sequence of events and phases in a life course in relation to age and chronological time and are especially useful in cross-national studies (Brannen and Nilsen 2011). Analyses of the questionnaires in my PhD study, as in most others of the same type of design were done using descriptive statistics.⁶ Combining quantitative analysis of the descriptive kind with interviews is more often than not the main way of mixing methods in biographical life course studies. When the focus is on sophisticated predictions are prominent in order to uncover ‘causal mechanisms’, the strategies and research questions are rarely compatible with designs where biographical interviews are main sources of data.⁷

Other examples of mixing methods are from cross-national studies where focus groups and individual interviews were used as primary data, in combination with a variety of descriptive statistical information and overviews (Brannen et al. 2002; Lewis et al. 2009). In the latter study we also made use of lifelines in combination with individual interviews (Brannen and Nilsen 2011; Nilsen et al. 2012). Lifelines demonstrate how the social structure in a particular historical period frames specific life courses of men and women in defined contexts. As such they are excellent tools to heighten the awareness of the importance of focus on the biography-history dynamic. The following examples show how lifelines may be drawn up to illustrate the individual trajectories in relation to structural conditions (Fig. 7.1).

Fig. 7.1

Lifelines: illustrations of life courses with phases and events

The lines⁸ of the four interviewees are from the Norwegian part of a cross-national research project (Lewis et al. 2009; Nilsen et al. 2012). The interviewees in the project were selected because of their workplace in either a public sector social service or in a private sector company. These lifelines illustrate how structural conditions frames opportunities and impact on aspects of the lives of a man and a woman from each of the workplace types. They belong to the same birth cohort, late 1960s to early 1970s.

Lifelines are useful in the phase of analysis of individual interviews when they are seen in view of the interpretations interviewees themselves have of the phases and events in their lives as rendered in their own narrative style. Taken together a group of lines can give snapshots of individuals’ trajectories in relation to birth cohort and structural aspects of a specific historical period. They can also indicate gender and class specific aspects of types of trajectories. Gendered dimensions in the four lines presented here are suggested by the parental leave period in particular. Gunilla had a phase of being a fulltime mother for a long period of time which exceeded the maternity leave period she was entitled to. Whilst Arild had three children and a months’ leave for each even if he was eligible for longer leave for his third child, Bengt who had a career in a multinational company had five months’ which was longer than the paternity leave period. As a contrast is presented his colleague Gro who only took out eight of the 12 months she was entitled to. She was also the one with the most ‘streamlined’ lifeline; she had undergone every phase according to normative expectations of ‘timing’ and ‘timeliness’ (see Chap. 4). Her colleague Bengt had a patchier education trajectory and had during the last five years before the interview done part-time studies whilst being in full time employment. The two social service employees both had shorter educational trajectories. Gunilla had done some academic subjects, but not a whole degree, whilst Arild came from a vocational background. The jobs they had did not require higher education at the time. This has now changed so that social workers are required to have a bachelor’s degree as a minimum.⁹ Only analysis of the interviews can give some understanding of the variations in trajectories as these are related to decisions and relationships in the interviewees’ lives, and that has been done elsewhere (Nilsen et al. 2012).

Other more recent examples from the biographical field may shed further light on how quantitative and qualitative approaches in biographical life course studies may find common ground in similar designs. Le Roux et al. (2023) made a case for mixed methods combining sequence analysis of survey data on residential trajectories in the Paris region of France with selected interviews from a larger sample. The sequence analysis was applied to select interview cases without making use of any specific case selection method associated with practices from the qualitative tradition. This form of analysis was the most prominent in the paper and the interview material was used as illustrations of points brought forward by the statistical analysis. This practice is widespread in mixed methods designs starting from a quantitative design and is useful for giving a fuller picture of the research questions investigated. The article in question here was written by a team of researchers that included members who had published qualitative material. The form of sequence analysis that was the main method in the analysis, is based on an exploratory design and although the technical methods of analysis are complex and sophisticated they render some room for other types of data because of the method’s processual quality—its main aim is not prediction or causal modelling. Adding the qualitative element gives depth to understanding how patterns uncovered in sequence analysis are related to biographical interpretations and actions in view of structural circumstances.

The second example is not multi-method but based on a study using a sample from Norwegian administrative data to study gendered transitions from school to work in Norway in two cohorts (Lorentzen and Vogt 2022). The theoretical foundation of the article is a contextualist life course approach and the authors made use of a specific variety of sequence analysis.¹⁰ The results are presented as descriptive tables of aggregated outcomes over time for the two cohorts.¹¹ The authors of this article come from different methodological approaches in sociology. Whereas Lorentzen is well versed in sophisticated statistical analyses, sequence analysis in particular, Vogt is trained in the contextualist life course perspective and biographical interviewing. Although the empirical material in this particular article is quantitative, the logic of research questions and discussions are based in a life course approach.

Using data from both qualitative and quantitative designs in a single study and publications may help towards bridging the gap between them. But many quantitative strategies are modelled on the natural sciences and require huge amounts of data and advanced statistical analyses based on causal models and ‘mechanistic’ designs which are not compatible with qualitative approaches—neither their data nor the types of analysis. Processual statistical approaches such a sequence analysis may open up a road towards mixed-methods designs that are helpful in studies that seek to investigate the history-biography dynamic using both biographical and quantitative life course data. The purpose of sequence analysis, however sophisticated and advanced the technique is, stems from a processual logic suggested by one of the most important proponents of a processual and contextual approach as it originated in the Chicago tradition, Andrew Abbott (Abbott 1995, 1997; Aisenbrey and Fasang 2010). Future collaborations between qualitative and quantitative based researchers in the life course field may benefit from combining biographical interviews with quantitative material analysed by sequence analyses to further contextualise biographical accounts and ground them in wider patterns of life courses in their specific historical period. Lifelines could serve as an intermediary element to illustrate individual cases in comparison with the patterns described in tables from sequence analyses.

A Note on Quality in Biographical Life Course Research

During the Appraisal proceedings for The Polish Peasant (Blumer 1939) questions about what biographical data could be used for, and whether biographical accounts could be trusted, were high on the agenda. These issues pertain to the validity and reliability of a study; notions that are more associated with quantitative than qualitative designs. Questions of representativeness and generalisability must therefore be approached differently from those in studies that rest on statistical, random sampling.¹²

In the vast literature on generalisations in qualitative studies there are many different suggestions of how to address the issue in this research tradition. Many varieties of generalisations in case studies are discussed by Gomm et al. (2000). They made a distinction between theoretical inference and empirical generalisations. The first refers to ‘reaching conclusions about what always happens, or what happens with a given degree of probability, in a certain type of theoretically defined situation’ whilst the latter ‘involves drawing inferences about features of a larger but finite population of cases from the study of a sample drawn from that population’ (p. 103). Whilst neither of these are particularly associated with case study research as the former is often used in experimental strategies, the latter is associated with surveys. The authors show examples of their use in qualitative case studies as well. They observe that case studies may overcome the problems involved in empirical generalisations in their sampling strategy. In most biographical studies the sampling follows a purposive logic (Silverman 2020), i.e., the sample of intervieews are selected because they share characteristics that are relevant for the types of question the researcher seeks to explore. This is related to Glaser and Strauss (1967)¹³ arguments that the quality of qualitative data is closely related to the sampling procedures which again have to do with what kinds of research questions a study seeks to examine and to what extent the findings of studies are sociologically and theoretically relevant.

Procedures associated with a quantitative logic involve representativeness of findings based on random sampling and of rigorous testing of replicability and reliability. These procedures may however not secure that findings have enhanced generalisability. Notions of representativeness are associated with sampling procedures whilst generalisability has to do with the findings from analysis. A lot happens between sampling and final analysis that may affect the quality and hence generalisability of the research (Gobo 2008).

Glaser and Strauss (1967) were also wary of the social sciences adopting procedures of rigorousness from the natural sciences because,

(…) a great deal of sociological work, unlike research in physical science, never gets to the stage of rigorous demonstration because the social structures being studied are undergoing continuous change. Older structures frequently take on new dimensions before highly rigorous research can be accomplished. (…) Undue emphasis on being “scientific” is simply not reasonable in light of our need for discovery and exploration amid very considerable structural changes. (Glaser and Strauss 1967, p. 235)

This is not to say that qualitative research in general, and biographical studies in particular should not be subject to careful inquiry of its procedures. However, particular types of scrutiny and criteria for truthfulness and trustfulness, must be regarded in view of the specificities of these data within the wider context.

Whilst the early debates were centred on whether biographical accounts could be trusted, whether people tell lies and therefore render life stories invalid as sociological data, the questions shifted to matters of ‘Truth’ in itself, in the sense that reality became the object of question. The debates came to centre around ontological and epistemological issues instead of methodological ones (Nilsen 2008).¹⁴

In other instances matters of truth have become important because of experiences from past historical periods. As addressed in Chap. 3 in Germany the methodological discussions that became prominent during the revival of biographical research were related to experiences during the Nazi period. This time was still present in the minds and lives of researchers who were part of the revival phase of these studies. There were overall suspicions about people’s truthfulness about experiences during this painful period in German history, and in order to ensure that biographical accounts were trustworthy, sophisticated forms of biographical analyses were developed (Apitzsch and Inowlocki 2000).

If temporal dimensions, and layers of time, are brought into the discussions, a different set of issues become relevant for assessing the quality of biographical research. In Hareven’s studies biographical time, family time and historical time were brought together in a framework for understanding how social processes in a society during a particular historical period were synchronised and woven together. The context of temporal elements together makes the scrutiny of biographical accounts a matter of analysing them in relation to the layers of temporality they are situated in. As Bertaux (1990) observed,

Whenever [life stories] are used for probing subjectivities, life story interviews prove able to probe deep; perhaps because it is much easier to lie about one’s opinions, values and even behaviour than about one’s own life. […] it takes a sociological eye – some lay persons do possess it – to look through a particular experience and understand what is universal in it; to perceive, beyond described actions and interactions, the implicit sets of rules and norms, the underlying situations, processes and contradictions that have both made actions and interactions possible and that have shaped them in specific ways. It takes some training to hear, behind the solo of a human voice, the music of society and culture in the background. (Bertaux 1990, pp. 167–168)

This beautifully poetic way of stating the purpose for doing biographical life course studies shows how the biography-history dynamic unfolds and how sociological research may capture the processes involved in life lived in particular contexts. It goes to the heart of what this research tradition in its time set out to be and demonstrates how it has evolved under changing historical circumstances.

Some Concluding Reflections

The topic of this book has touched upon one of the core issues in sociology: the relationship between the individual and society. Throughout the chapters I have tried to demonstrate how an approach that sees this relationship as a dynamic where events and processes at different temporal levels are the driving force in the ‘heaving sea of happenings’ (Abbott 2016, p. 247) is still one of the most vigorous frameworks imaginable for empirical research in sociology. The writings of C. Wright Mills have been a great inspiration throughout my academic life. The simplest way of saying what sociology is to be about is his: ‘Social science deals with problems of biography, of history, and of their intersections within social structure’ (Mills (1959/1980, p. 159).

In order to show the relevance of this approach it was necessary to go back in history and try to trace its origins. Numerous books and articles have been written about the Chicago tradition from its beginning at the newly established university in the late nineteenth century. Only a few of these have made the connection between the female dominated, and indeed female funded, Hull House, Jane Addams, and the other women’s contributions to the innovative methodological foundations Chicago sociology at this time has become famous for. Gender has been absent from many discussions in mainstream sociology. As this book has touched upon topics that are at the heart of the mainstream, I have made it a point to include gendered aspects of all the issues discussed, some of these with examples from my own empirical research and that of others who have addressed these themes.

Time and temporality, at all levels, are central to biographical life course research. This is a topic that in itself has engendered a revival of interest in the past decades. Focus on the temporalities involved in biographical research have sometimes competed with the attention to narrativity of interviews in the latest decades. In this approach the temporal structure of narratives has been a point of interest, also in my own research as discussed in Chap. 4. However, this temporal element is somewhat limited compared to an approach to time as a processual context for the lived life, so in and of its own a narrative focus gives only partial insight into the biography-history dynamic. In quantitative life course studies the temporal dimension is often eclipsed when highly sophisticated statistical techniques are involved in strategies to predict and uncover ‘causal mechanisms’ in social life.

Most life course studies address the historical period as a level of temporality that forms the backdrop to comparisons, specifically in cohort studies which have been a main empirical focus in much of life course analyses. In cases where historical periods are clearly defined by specific events such as the division and unification of Germany, studies of birth cohorts and their life courses under varying historical circumstances have been prominent.

The timing of phases and events in the life course has been addressed in a number of studies that have been referenced in the chapters of this book. The age boundaries for life course phases shift and become flexible across societies and historical time. Terminologies may change and discussions about life course transitions be clad in vocabularies that are grounded in any present of a particular historical context. This has always been so. For instance only in the postwar era did the phase we think of as ‘youth’ became accessible to the many, and for young women access to contraceptives and education changed their lives in comparison to their foremothers’ generations. The normative and actual timing of life course events vary between societies and over historical time as do the transitions between life course phases. Notions of time thus invite reflections on age and contents of life course phases. As ideals of the phase of youth stretch into both younger and older age groups other phases of life are seemingly crowded out from view in the public domain. Slogans such as ‘60 is the new 40!’ advertise ideals of youth for older age groups. Cosmetic procedures, especially for women, promise eternal youth as wrinkles and other ‘imperfections’ that occur with age, can be smoothed out at a price. At the other end of the age spectrum social media affect ever younger age groups with ideas and practices that have traditionally belonged to youth rather than to childhood.¹⁵ However, chronological age is still important in society for legal access to a number of rights, for instance getting a driving license; a passport of one’s own; the right to vote etc. Examples from the older end of the life course include OAP discounts on public transport.¹⁶

In empirical studies, and theoretical ideas ‘people’ in general were until the latest decades referred to with the term ‘man’ and ‘men’ (e.g. Mills 1959/1980). As Mills said elsewhere (1940), differences between terminologies and vocabularies are that the latter are located in historical contexts and specific situations, whilst the former is non-specific (p. 913). When gendered nouns became part of the vocabulary that replaced the men-only one, this happened in a period when the women’s movement became influential in academia and beyond and wider overall changes in social institutions started. Other aspects of reality could thereby come to the fore. For instance, in studies about the future different dimensions became important when there was a shift in the vocabulary. The early studies of women and time and gendered thoughts about the future, for instance, originated in a period when changes in gender relations on the labour market, in politics and in the domestic sphere was a novelty and happened at a rapid pace in the Scandinavian countries in particular.

The future is an aspect of time unknown but the seeds of the future is found in the past-present continuum, as observed in Mead’s writings. The Enlightenment period’s ideas of time were that of a linear course and an underlying Progress as an unstoppable force of history akin to processes in nature. During this period there was a shift from beliefs in the future as in the hands of deities to one where we humans are in full control of our personal lives and that of our surroundings. At the time of writing (July 2023) scorching temperatures across southern Europe break every known heat record. This is just one, but perhaps the most spectacular of the catastrophic consequences of twentieth century policies involving our exploitation of nature. For the past decades the scientific community has warned about future consequences of these policies. The increasing social and economic inequalities is another issue that causes much suffering. Warnings have been directed at the economic policies that drive more and more people into poverty. Descriptions of the ‘cost-of-living-crisis’ that affects millions of people in the Western world and beyond, go hand in hand with reports of extreme affluence among the few. If we do not believe in the future as destiny decided by deities, it is up to humankind to create the kind of societies we wish to live in. Sometimes though, the results of human ingenuity and imagination become unpredictable and beyond our control, or as the Marx quote in Chap. 1 said, ‘we find ourselves at the mercy of forces that we ourselves have created’ (Sayer 2008).

Sociological research about the future at the biographical level, indicate that developments at the level of society sometimes are too overwhelming for people to engage with in their everyday lives. As stated in Chap. 5, when the temporal interval between cause and effect is too long for people to observe the connection between them, outcomes of policies and/or aggregated actions can become a field for contested opinions. When actors at the political level in societies are in disagreement amongst themselves and with science about causes of specific outcomes, for instance in relation to global warming, it becomes even more difficult to legitimise policies that interfere with people’s everyday lives to try and create change in the conditions that cause this catastrophic situation.

The opening paragraphs of Mills’ The Sociological Imagination, written with a completely different historical situation in mind, the Cold War period, still seem relevant and fresh in light of the current situation in society,

Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part. (Mills 1959/1980, p. 10)

The task of sociology is thus to make this interplay a subject of research and to communicate the results of such studies to the wider public beyond academia. In this book I have tried to trace the ideas of this type of sociology and to show its relevance for understanding contemporary society.