Understanding the world through legal biography: Lessons from history, sociology and law

Abstract

This article draws on the historiography of biography, sociology and examples from law to consider the potential of group legal biography projects to generate knowledge and theories about law, society and politics. From the historiography of biography, it explains how debates between historians about whether histories of social orders are best treated as large-scale biography projects reflect certain theories about humanity and how people construct society. They suggest that biographical approaches are about something more than form and that the size and depth of projects support some theories better than others. From sociology, it explains how sociologists have unwittingly taken positions in the historians’ debates, developing theories that encourage researchers to approach biographical data in different ways to generate certain theories about society. From law, it situates historical and sociological projects that draw on lawyers’ biographical data within the historical debates and the sociological theories. The point is to encourage more researchers to appreciate the range of possibilities and corresponding debates about the use and potential of biographical data in understanding law. Show more