Abstract
The economic and social transformations following the exit from
the wage earning society (Castel, 2009) made the process of becoming an
adult longer, less linear and more difficult than in the past. The transition to
adulthood is thus delayed, especially in the countries like Italy, where due to
poor welfare protection and reduced job opportunities, young people’s destiny
depends largely on family support and undeclared work. All of this is happening
in the context of structural conditioning, defined by the intersectionality of
class, gender, and ethnicity (Hill Collins & Bilge, 2016; Amelina & Lutz, 2019),
unequally distributing life chances across different categories of young people.
This process of being subjected to structural influences is described here as
‘living intersectionality’. This, however, is not a one-sided process, as structural
conditioning can be reflected and acted upon in the agential process of ‘doing
intersectionality’ (Lutz, 2014; Lépinard, 2014). We argue here that young people
are not only subjected to the intersecting dimensions of gender, class and
ethnicity but they may also develop the capacity to critically reflect and act on
them thanks to the power of agency. On the basis of 80 autobiographical narrative
interviews (Schütze, 2008) conducted in the last decade with young people of
different gender, class and ethnic background, living in the metropolitan area of
Naples, we aim to show how the combination of intersectional and biographical
analysis allows to grasp the processes of living and doing intersectionality.
the wage earning society (Castel, 2009) made the process of becoming an
adult longer, less linear and more difficult than in the past. The transition to
adulthood is thus delayed, especially in the countries like Italy, where due to
poor welfare protection and reduced job opportunities, young people’s destiny
depends largely on family support and undeclared work. All of this is happening
in the context of structural conditioning, defined by the intersectionality of
class, gender, and ethnicity (Hill Collins & Bilge, 2016; Amelina & Lutz, 2019),
unequally distributing life chances across different categories of young people.
This process of being subjected to structural influences is described here as
‘living intersectionality’. This, however, is not a one-sided process, as structural
conditioning can be reflected and acted upon in the agential process of ‘doing
intersectionality’ (Lutz, 2014; Lépinard, 2014). We argue here that young people
are not only subjected to the intersecting dimensions of gender, class and
ethnicity but they may also develop the capacity to critically reflect and act on
them thanks to the power of agency. On the basis of 80 autobiographical narrative
interviews (Schütze, 2008) conducted in the last decade with young people of
different gender, class and ethnic background, living in the metropolitan area of
Naples, we aim to show how the combination of intersectional and biographical
analysis allows to grasp the processes of living and doing intersectionality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 8 |
| Pages (from-to) | 171-194 |
| Journal | Italian Journal of Sociology of Education |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 10 Jul 2021 |
Keywords
- transitions to adulthood
- Intersectionality
- Agency
- biographical methods