Biographie und Geschichte: Dynamiken individueller und kollektiver politischer Erzählungen [Problems of biography and history: Dynamics of individual and collective political narratives]

This chapter explores the relationship between the stories people tell about their lives, and the political frameworks which form the context for those stories. Discussion in the article is based on data collected in four different research projects: the first carried out with fifteen British lifetime socialist activists; the second with anti-war activists during the Gulf War of 1992. The third project was carried out in the former East Germany, in 1992, immediately following the opening of the Stasi files. The fourth project involved close reading of the transcripts of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Against the backdrop of these studies the author explores the relationship between history and biography, and the dynamic interplay between micro and macro political narratives