Birth cohort studies can be used not only to generate population-level quantitative data, but also to recompose persons. The crux is how we understand data and persons. Recomposition entails scavenging for various (including unrecognised) data. It foregrounds the perspective and subjectivity of survey participants, but without forgetting the partiality and incompleteness of the accounts that it may generate. Although interested in the singularity of individuals, it attends to the historical and relational embeddedness of personhood. It examines the multiple and complex temporalities that suffuse people’s lives, hence departing from linear notions of the life course. It implies involvement, as well as reflexivity, on the part of researchers. It embraces the heterogeneity and transformations over time of scientific archives and the interpretive possibilities, as well as incompleteness, of birth cohort studies data. Interested in the unfolding of lives over time, it also shines light on meaningful biographical moments.

出生队列研究不仅可以用于生成人口水平的定量数据，还可以用于重组人员。问题的关键在于我们如何理解数据和人员。重组需要清除各种（包括无法识别的）数据。它着眼于调查参与者的观点和主观性，但又不会忘记它可能产生的账目的局部性和不完整性。尽管它对个人的奇异性感兴趣，但它涉及人格的历史和关系嵌入。它考察了困扰人们生活的多重和复杂的时间性，从而偏离了生命过程的线性概念。它意味着研究人员的参与以及反思。它涵盖了科学档案的异质性和随时间的变化，以及出生队列研究数据的解释性可能性和不完整性。随着时间的流逝，人们对生活的发展产生了浓厚的兴趣，它也揭示了有意义的传记时刻。