Quantitative Data as Sources for the History of Experience

Abstract

This chapter examines how quantitative sources can be analysed from the history of experience perspective. We propose three ways of translating quantitative data into the language of experience. First, we read quantitative sources as qualitative sources. Second, we address statistical categorisations as processes, norms, and structures of experiencing. Third, we transform life courses and autobiographical texts into numerical form and analyse them statistically. The main categories of quantitative data discussed are (1) data gathered by statisticians and authorities, (2) individual-level demographic databases, and (3) digitised autobiographical texts. The Official Statistics of Finland serves as an example of statistical sources. Digitalisation is making quantitative methods increasingly important for historians of experience. Today, archives and researchers can transform sources such as handwritten private letters and historical population registers into large-scale digital datasets. Historians can move beyond close reading to analyse the patterns and statistics of lived experience on a macro scale.