Relating the Method: Use of the Itinerary Concept in the Analysis of Sport Biographies

Abstract

The article "relates" the method (in-depth interviews and content analysis) used for two research projects centred on people's subjective experience in relation to their sport activities. Both projects examine the issue in terms of process and, to this end, make operative the concept of sport itinerary, understood as the context in which events take place and acquire meaning. Nevertheless, due to the fact that the two projects differ greatly from each other from the theoretical and thematic points of view, one being concerned with the socialisation processes undergone by young people in sport and the other with passions in top-level sport, the adaptation of the method and its application are very different in both cases. Hence we stress the fact that the method -and not just the theory- leads us to the obtention of results.