Vol. 31, No. 3 (October 2019)

page 238—252

https://jurnal.ugm.ac.id/jurnal-humaniora                                                                                                                                                        https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.v31i3.47412

 

Biography as a Source and a Methodology in Humanities Research

 

 

I Nyoman Wijaya

Department of of History, Faculty of Arts, Universitas Udayana, Indonesia Email: iwijayastsp@yahoo.co.id

 

 

ABSTRACT

This study discusses whether biography can function as a source and a methodology in humanities research. By taking biography as a source, humanities researchers can use a collection of biographical facts as research material or writing resource. Meanwhile, by taking biography as a methodology, they can apply a scientific approach   to biography through their research. This is not a simple issue; thoughts on biography that emerged during the 1980s have been unable to adapt themselves to the emergence of post-structuralist approaches, while the scientific biography approach that emerged in the 1990s has similarly proven unable to adapt. Therefore, it is necessary to hold a congress to develop a contemporary biographical approach that can accommodate the influence of post- modernism [beyond modernism] and post-structuralism [beyond structuralism] in humanities research. To further this goal, this article attempts to provoke some preliminary thoughts by revealing the weaknesses of previous biography methodologies before offering alternative ideas that borrow from relevant post-structuralist theories.

 

Keywords: biography, source, methodology, post-modernism, post-structuralism

 

 

INTRODUCTION

This study examines the function of biography as a source and a methodology in the researches of humanities, including language, art, literature, history, culture, philosophy, and literature. Each field has its own methods, theories, and research methodology. However, all still require biography as a tool for obtaining sources [material] and enriching their research methodologies. Biography, thus, has a special position. A search for the keywords “Ilmu-Ilmu Humaniora dan Biografi” in Google Scholar (March 8, 2019) returned 1,370 results in 0.09 seconds; none, however, specifically included that topic.

Nonetheless, the idea of reconciling biography and the humanities in a single ‘unit’ needs further exploration; as both take humans as their objects of study, they may intersect. Such meeting points are particularly evident, for example, when the topic of the biography is a scholar of the humanities.

Take, for example, the intellectual biography of I Gusti Ngurah Bagus (2012), an anthropology professor who explored not only language, art, literature, history, culture, and philosophy, but also religion and politics. This biography included many of his research results, and as such humanities scholars seeking research sources or materials will find this book very useful. By integrating the methodology of intellectual history with the methodology of biography (Kuntowijoyo, 2003: 203– 217), this book is not only able to present how its subject became a professor, but also his thoughts and his findings (both before and after his professorship). Furthermore, the ‘entry point’ approach used in the writing of this book managed to place its subject within the context of larger historical events and social, cultural, and economic conditions. As such, one can gain insight into the subject’s research methods, either through the interviews or the bibliography. Despite a number of editing weaknesses,

 

 

the book not only provides a resource for humanities

scholars, but offers them inspiration.

This article, however, has no pretension of discussing the facts and the methodologies of the book. It is not a book review. Rather, this article attempts to answer the bigger question of whether biography is capable   of functioning as both a source and a methodology in humanities research. This issue is particularly important given the significant changes that have occurred in the humanities since the emergence of post-modernism (Neuman, 2017: 132–137) and post-structuralism (Aur, 2006: 145–162). Seeking to address the weaknesses of modernism and structuralism, scholars such as Michael Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida sought to radicalize and transform structuralism into post- structuralism. They problematized the position of humanity in structuralism, which marginalized the subject and replaced it with structures. Post-structuralism accepts that there is no reality in humanity except language (meaning) while radicalizing the concept of structure. Structures exist, but they are never constant and arbitrarily change the course of history (Adiwijaya, 2011: 810).

Among these thinkers, Barthes stands out with his idea of the “death of the author”. It holds that there is no authentic meaning; everything is a matter of interpretation of interpretation of interpretation (ad infinitum). Meaning flows without boundaries, and everyone is an author (interpreter). If everyone is an author (interpreter), this is equivalent to the death of the author. One important point through which phenomenology criticizes structuralism in linguistics is language itself; phenomenological research into language has shown that human meaning cannot always be expressed through language (Adiwijaya, 2011: 810).

Within the context of history as a science, the rise of post-structuralism since the 1980s has created political biography’s single largest crisis. Biography has seemingly been unable to describe and explain the lives of its research subjects, as its delineations of its research subjects’ lives with specific origins, logics, purposes, and outcomes to create singular objective identities that can be described chronologically now appear to be imaginary creations by writers relying on a form that began in the 19th century. Such biographies, some have argued, are more fiction than history (Ferres, 303–305; Bourdieu, 1986: 69–70; Shaffer in Riall, 2010: 375–397).

Historians should understand this criticism so that they are aware of the importance of replacing the classical method, which tended to apply modernist approaches that were tacitly supported by structuralism. Such approaches and theories are no longer relevant to

the needs of the humanities, which has fundamentally transformed through the growing influence of post- modernism and post-structuralism. Historians should start borrowing from these approaches and theories. In this article, we focus on the works of Bourdieu, hoping to lay guidelines for biographical works that can better explain the life dynamics of their subjects without separating the objective and subjective structures that shaped their lives. In doing so, this article seeks to answer the following research questions: (i) Why are the approaches and theories of the old model of biography no longer relevant, and why should they be supplemented by a post-modernism and post-structuralism (particularly Bourdieu’s model)?; (ii) How can Bourdieu’s model of post-structuralism be implemented as a useful source and methodology for writing biographies as part of humanities

research?

Supporting the research questions is the argument that a biography cannot come into being before readers until someone writes it. The approach and theory used by this writer determines the biography’s manifestation. Of course, there is no guarantee that a Bourdieuan model of post-modernism and post-structuralism can provide a new framework for reconstructing the past experiences of research subjects, even when nothing remains but memories (Budiawan, 2010; Darian-Smith and Hamilton, 1994). Biography writers who are capable of using Bourdieu’s model to reconstruct the past experiences of their subjects can, however, confirm the model’s potential to more comprehensively explore subjects’ experiences than possible under the old model.

Departing from this argument, this article seeks to produce stronger guidelines for biography writing. Doing so will not only enable biography to play a bigger role in humanities research, but also transform the paradigms of authors and journalists and create new possibilities for

historians.

 

DISCUSSION

Methodology of History and the Old Model of Biographical Thinking

In principle, the methodology of historical research always changes. Carr (1961), in his book What is History, wrote “the more historical sociology becomes and the more sociological history becomes, the better”. This statement shocked historians around the world. It is from this point that social history, a methodology favored by American historians, began, as shown by the body of research that emerged between 1958 and 1978. The trajectory of social

 

 

history was influenced by Marxism and the Annales School, as explored below (based on Hunt, 1989: 1–9). French historians of the third Annales generation (including Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Pierre Goubert) were prime drivers of social history and economic history. These models soon replaced biography and the history of religion in the very conventional journal Revue historique. Between 1965–1984, the number of writings applying of social history or economic history approach in French Historical Studies, a famed American journal, almost

doubled (increasing from 24% to 46%).

In the 1980s, social history began to face stiff competition. At the time, the Marxist and Annales Schools began to take an interest in Cultural History. This can be seen in Thompson’s “The Making of the English Working Class”, in which he rejects the metaphor of Marx’s basis–superstructure, which decisively connects socio-economic conditions with the superstructure, and focuses more on cultural and moral mediations.

Soon, cultural history was a significant challenge to the old model of history used by Annales. Although economic, social, and demographic histories still dominated the journal (being used in more than half of articles published between 1965 and 1984), intellectual and cultural history came second (35% of articles); for comparison, only 10–14% of articles applied a political history model.

The fourth generation