ON ‘AN INTROSPECTIVE JOURNEY’

ABSTRACT

To what extent can the experience of travel become also a journey of self-discovery leading to a reconstruction of identities? Taking ‘a year out’, inter-railing, going abroad on a language study or an au pair stay: these are some of the most common forms of youth travel in contemporary Europe. As almost ritual ways of moving, they may be likened to initiation journeys. This article explores the significance of travel in young people's lives, and in the process of identity construction. These issues are explored in the travel narratives of a group of young people who took part in an autobiographical and mixed method project on identities which was conducted in England and Italy. The meaning of travel in these young people's lives is appreciated through their own words and written diaries. Young people's agency and role in constructing their travel experiences is analysed, as well as the extent to which fate, in the shape of societal expectations and norms, as well as parental intervention, may actually predefine some forms of travel as ‘institutional’ rites of passage. Travels may offer a scenario for an individualised construction of self, which may also involve the co-participation of significant others. The experiences of young women backpackers in this study point out how travelling can still be a way of defining alternative gender identities.

Keywords:

• young people
• identities
• travel
• gender

Notes

¹The project was funded by an EC Marie Curie Fellowship (1998–2000), an EP Ramon y Cajal Scholarship (2001–2002), and an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship (2002–2003).

²All names have been changed to pseudonyms which were chosen by participants themselves.

³I have left Bianca's entry in capital letters, in the way she wrote it. Capitalisation was a recurrent feature of diary writing in this research.