Biographical methodology and migration experience: nowadays pertinence of the anonymous and author testimonios perspective in Juan F. Marsal’s legacy

Abstract

The 9th FES Congress in Barcelona has been a special opportunity of homage to Juan F. Marsal Agelet. Born in that city in 1928. Emigrates to Buenos Aires («for more than twenty years») at the beginning of the 50s, where his well-known Making America (1969) is originally published. The life history of a Spanish emigrant that represents the indiano counter-myth. Marsal returns in the early 70s to help settle down the Department of Sociology in the UAB, becoming the first director of Papers. Although his life comes to an end suddenly in 1979, he left a relevant sociological legacy, both theoretical and methodological. This paper brings new methodological reflections, related to a recent research practice on immigration in Spain. Along the qualitative phase of a project about measuring xenophobia in Spain, the (auto)biographical method practiced is reasoned. Marsal’s legacy is considered of present day importance, both his methodological transition and his theoretical reasoning related to the visibility of immigrants and their integration. The method of testimonios, those given by the informants and also by the researcher, involves a traditional and modern proposal of sociological craftsmanship. And it aims to an individual and collective task under way: archiving and promoting the knowledge of lived experience.