A place for mobility in metaphors of youth transitions

ABSTRACT

Metaphors are central in the study of youth; in fact, it has been argued that ‘youth’ itself could be considered a metaphor. In a recent assessment of transition-related metaphors, Cuervo and Wyn [2014. “Reflections on the Use of Spatial and Relational Metaphors in Youth Studies.” Journal of Youth Studies 17 (7): 901–915.] have noted that such metaphors as ‘niches’, ‘pathways’, ‘trajectories’ and ‘navigations’, often contain an element of movement. However, it is still under-debated how we can systemically incorporate mobility into the study of young people to capture the precarity characterising their lives (a), but also heuristically link to metaphors used to describe the changing shape of careers of young people (b). Indeed, scholarship on ‘boundaryless careers’ and ‘peripatetic careers’ appear to have developed separately from the youth-related literature, albeit dealing in part with similar issues. Departing from Furlong’s work on metaphors in youth studies, this article interrogates potential for intertwining research lines within the growing debate on mobility in youth transitions. The article develops at a conceptual level; however it takes on Furlong’s legacy in the sense of contributing to a youth research agenda which is attentive to both the creation of new imaginative categories for the study of current conditions of youth, and the challenges that emerge in discursively positioning youth in society.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth transitions
• metaphors
• careers
• precarity
• mobility
• pinball

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This has, in turn, fuelled a rich debate on configurations of agency and structure in young people’s lives, which would be impossible to summarise here. For an overview see Heinz (2009), Schoon and Lyons-Amos (2016), and to stay with Furlong’s work, Evans and Furlong (1997) and Furlong (2009).

2 There is some scope to expand on the possible configurations of temporalities that may accompany an attention to spatiality, in particular in terms of fragmentation and diversion from the syncronicity to a linear path. I do, however, keep the focus on space in this contribution.

3 A critique of an overemphasis of this kind of literature on agency has been put forward (Tams and Arthur 2010; Cuzzocrea and Lyon 2011).

4 Italics are mine.

5 Some key authors of this strand are considered Sheller and Urry (2006), Urry (2007), Lefebvre (1974), Massey (2005), Thrift (2006) and Cresswell (2006).

6 By ‘for us’ and ‘we’ Ambrosini intends EU nationals outside of the UK, and maybe, to some extent, Italians in particular. The emphasis on ‘for us’ and ‘we’ is mine.

7 I wish to thank Hartmut Rosa for suggesting this metaphor in the first place, David Cairns for having long discussions on how it could be used to understand youth mobility, and Sebastiano Benasso for confronting on youth metaphors in general. Any criticism remains my full responsibility.