Leitmotifs in Life Stories: Developments and Stabilities of Religiosity and Narrative Identity

Abstract

Faith Development Interviews offer great insight into people's ways of (non-)religious meaning-making, and of looking at their life and relationships. Ramona Bullik portrays nine longitudinal case studies in a mixed-methods design with narrative analysis granting insight into the developments and stabilities in the interviews. The focus on religious married couples allows to carve out the role of faith and the changing view on the spouse and the joint life. The portraits of three non-religious women show how meaning is made outside the frame of organized religion. Individual survey data are put into relation with a larger sample, answering the claim for idiothetic research.