Subjects analysing subjects in the biographical approach: a generational study of Chilean musicians

The biographical approach aims to understand a subject’s life story and its personal interpretations. Produced in specific settings, this approach considers how the elements of this production play a role in the narratives. Therefore, choosing the biographical paradigm assumes methodological decisions within the data collection and definition of analytical tools. In this article, we focus on the researcher’s role in the production of the biographies and the formal analysis, a technique that is borrowed from narrative studies, which emphasises ‘how’ the story is told – on the telling rather than the told. Using the case of three generations of Chilean musicians, we address these two relevant points within the inquiry of biographies: the researcher–researched relationship, with a focus on the impact of the generational proximity on their interactions and how it affects the construction of the narrative; and the different story genres drawn from the formal analysis, which reveal the primary role that temporalities and subjects’ generations have within the biographical approach. We aim to give relevance to the subjective dynamics considered in a formal analysis and in the interview settings, for further biographical studies.