Levels of intersecting temporalities in young men’s orientation to the future. A cross-national case comparison

Abstract

Inspired by G.H. Mead’s philosophy of time and his focus on the present as the site of interpretation of past experiences and thoughts about the future, this paper makes cross-national comparisons between four cases of young Norwegian and British men. The method is case-based biographical analysis. Levels of biographical time, family time and historical time intersect in young men’s orientation to the future in a present set in the current contexts of Norway and Britain. The overarching question addresses if and how timing at the biographical level, related to family time and resources, harmonise with features of opportunity structures in the national contexts. Two typologies are identified: those whose future orientations correspond with standards for ‘successful’ trajectories are named confident continuity while cautious contingency characterises the orientation of those whose biographical timing of transitions is not in synchrony with family time nor with standards in the current opportunity structure.

Relative time and life course research

“…There is also literature addressing the heterogeneities of time across levels of analysis, particularly focusing on how temporal asynchronicities between biographical, family, or historical times can lead to potential ruptures in life trajectories (Bidart, 2019;Nilsen, 2019).…”

The pace of “the good life”: Connecting past, present, and future in the context of a housing affordability crisis

“…Therefore, in the next section, inspired by Nilsen (2019a), we are going to present four cases we have chosen from the original sample that should exemplify the complex dynamics of life course coherence creation. The selected cases should serve as an illustration, providing a detailed description and contextualization of the traits of the whole sample and thus pointing beyond the individual biographies.…”

“…In her research, Nilsen has identified two categories of relations toward time and future: confident continuity and cautious contingency. The former refers to a confident attitude to the future and biographical trajectory in synchrony with family time, generational continuity, and the ideals of the current historical circumstances, whereas the latter refers to a cautious attitude out of synchrony with family and generational continuity altered by current historical changes and conditions (Nilsen, 2019a: 8). In our analysis, we have borrowed and adjusted these and have added two more categories—cautious continuity and total contingency.…”

“…The sampling followed a sociological rather than a statistical logic (Nilsen, 2019a: 7). We aimed to interview narrators with diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.…”

“…There are manifold general conceptualizations of time and temporality; however, for the purposes of this article, we conceptualize time with the help of G. H. Mead (Flaherty and Fine, 2001; Gill, 2013; Jones et al, 2017; Nilsen, 2019a) and his philosophy of the present (Mead, 1932) in combination with the work of Bourdieu (2000, 2010).…”