Research Project: Timescapes: an ESRC qualitative longitudinal study
Dates: 01 February 2007 - 31 December 2012
Timescapes is a five-year study, designed to explore the dynamics of personal relationships and identities, and how these are forged, sustained, discarded or re-worked through the life course and across the generations.
The study comprises seven empirical research projects that focus on relationships with significant others: parents, siblings, wider family, children, partners, friends and lovers. These are fundamentally important relationships that are implicated in the way individuals define themselves, and impact on their life chances and well-being.
The study aims to produce new theoretical understandings of the micro-processes of social change and the dynamic relationship between personal and collective agency and wider structural processes. It will do so through an exploration of three linked 'timescapes': biographical, generational and historical. The data gathered in the study will be of relevance for social policy, shedding light on the dynamics of well-being, social care and the long-term resourcing of families.
The study has an important methodological focus, involving the development and scaling up of qualitative longitudinal research, and the establishment of a specialist archive of research data offering innovative methods of data management and exploitation, based on the principles of data sharing.
Contact
Sarah Finney
Timescapes Administrator
School of Sociology & Social Policy
University of Leeds
LS2 9JT.
Tel: 0113 343 8489
Email: s.j.finney@leeds.ac.uk
Principal Investigator
Other Staff Involved
Professor Janet Holland (co-Director) - London South Bank University
For full details of staff, see Timescapes.