Research Projects

Timescapes explored relationships that span the life course through seven empirical projects.

These projects tracked individuals and family groups over time to document changes and continuities in their relationships and identities.

We explored how such changes were 'worked out' in different socio-economic, historical and cultural contexts.

Timescapes projects gathered a wealth of information about micro level social experience, and built pictures of context through exploring family and intimate relationships, friendships, localities and patterns of interaction and subjective experiences over biographical time.

Collectively, the projects included 318 people from all walks of life, living in varied communities across the UK.

Longitudinal design

All of the projects had a longitudinal design with the potential for long term follow up. By bringing the projects together to create a unified study and dataset, we developed an innovative approach to the scaling up of qualitative research.