The text presents an overview of the contemporary history of the emergence of multiform practices dealing with life histories in the 1980-2005 period. Three periods can be highlighted within this history: a period of eruption (the 1980s), a period of foundation (the 1990s), and finally a period of differentiating development (the 2000s). The eruption will be interpreted as a movement of existential action-formation-research dealing with its 25 years of life. Twenty-five years is little in terms of history. It is, however, enough to cause problems of construction of meaning and inter-generational communication, which shall be discussed in this article starting from issues such as the following: Which self-reflective practices of historical construction produce or do not produce, more or less consciously, this movement? How, next to other trends (biographical, autobiographical, life stories), this movement is inscribed in a bio-reflective school of construction of new conceptual spaces to work with the multiform growth of novel vital problems? In our view, in its modest scale, this movement can contribute to turn its practices into a powerful art of self-formation of the existence or, otherwise, of submission, depending on whether or not we allow subjects to incorporate for themselves the power to reflect upon their lives and, in so doing, help them to turn their lives into personal realizations.
Autobiography; Existence; Life history; Biographical movement; Action; formation; research
