There is a close link between history and an individual, which Charles Mills has suggested. He defined the sociological imagination as a particular state of mind of a researcher that allows us to understand people’s social structures and behavior (Corrigall-Brown, 2019). This is the ability to look at familiar things in a new way, to see the relationship between phenomena and the trend behind them. The individual’s life and the course of the history of a society cannot be understood separately without understanding both together. Every historic event takes a toll on a human’s flow of life regardless of the epoch it happened.
There have been numerous significant events that have shaped my biography. From the point of view of the sociological imagination, some important social phenomena, for example, both the First and the Second World Wars, influenced the lives of my ancestors, who brought up new generations abiding by new social rules. Not to mention the Enlightenment, which formed our cultural perspective. The Industrial Revolution enabled many of my progenitors to find a new occupation to sustain their families. In addition, NAFTA, a trade agreement, allowed people to sell and buy goods from Canada and Mexico. This event was significant for my biography because the free trade zone allowed my family to acquire items that we did not have before. 9/11 was a massive tragedy for my parents because they saw it on TV and developed a new meaning of human life by passing it on to me. The Global Financial Crisis left my parents unemployed, and we had to struggle financially for some time. COVID-19 has had an enormous impact on changing attitudes to health, family ties, and other vital areas. Hence, all these events have brought me to where I am now.
Reference
Corrigall-Brown, C. (2019). Imagining society: An introduction to sociology. SAGE Publications.