The paper discusses a research design used in an ongoing collective research project (SOMBRERO). It examines 68ers political involvements’ socio-biographical effects, with immediate or deferred repercussions in all domains of social existence (subsequent commitment, professional and affective life). The research identifies 68ers in three movement families and in five French urban locations.
For this, we have recourse to a process and multi level approach of activist trajectories, based on an interactionist and configurational approach of life-course, what we call a sociology of « Activist careers » Such an approach allows us to articulate micro (idiosyncrasies) meso (secondary socialization through commitment) and macro (local and national contexts) levels of analysis in order to make sense of individual trajectories.
We discuss the methodological advantages and obstacles of why and how to combine contextual analysis (based on archival research and informative interviews) with 500 life stories, associated to life calendars and sequence analysis?
