Capturing women's lives - A discussion of time and methodological issues

Time is an important underlying concept in life course research and in the use of the ''life-line method'' an approach that has gained interest among researchers examining women's lives more processually. Notwithstanding, the author argues that time itself is not sufficiently problematised in this context. In the first part of the paper, the question is posed: What do we mean by time? It is argued that the Newtonian mechanical view of time, which is used in social science research and is the basis for the life-line method, limits our ability to capture the complexity of individuals' and especially women's everyday lives. A discussion of theories of time leads to an examination of methodological problems that are inherent in doing and presenting life histories. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd