Social movement studies have been adopting for many years a life course approach to the study of activism with interesting results. These studies showed that activism does not arise in an empty space, but it is embedded into previous life conditions. They also showed that there are parallelisms and crossing point between life-course theories (e.g., as concern processes of accumulation and diffusion) and activism studies. The collection of life-course data on militants is pivotal to further explore activism in a life-course perspective. The use of Life-History Calendars (LHC, also referred as Event-History Calendars) has received a growing attention life-course studies to collect retrospective data on life trajectories. However, this tool for data collection is still underused and under-explored in political science. In this paper we present possible applications of the LHC method to study political activism.
