Abstract:This paper considers the conceptual value of social capital, given its contested empirical and theoretical purchase. It addresses how the use of the metaphor of capital to represent sociable and normative aspects of everyday life affects our sociological imaginations. The rhetorical force of metaphor inheres in its creative capacity to transform understanding and bring about enriched apprehension of the social world. Moreover, in social science writing it is considered invaluable to processes of knowledge tran… Show more
“…One of the thrills of working with metaphor is the way that it operates at different scales (Devadason, 2011). Metaphor connects the material embodied world to language and theory through a chain of sensuous abstractions and transpositions.…”
In this article we engage critically with how metaphors have been used in sociological youth studies, including a turn to new metaphors that capture the foreclosure of futures and experiences of waiting, delay and non-institutional temporalities. Drawing on the resources of queer theory we challenge the developmentalism that underpins youth studies, employing notions of the impasse and growing sideways to capture the open-endedness of young adult lives. Working with data from a qualitative longitudinal study of Danish youth, we focus on how 47 young people responded to an invitation to talk about and through an object that represented the last three years of their lives. These rich accounts can be understood as examples of Paul Riceour’s ‘metaphoric discourse’, characterised by the simultaneity of ‘is’ and ‘is not’. The article first offers a schema of the biographical objects (trophies, hobbies, mortal, connective and protest) that captures the work of ‘being in time’ for young adults, mapping this onto the formal and informal markers of adulthood. We then engage with participants’ own metaphorical thinking in greater depth – suggesting that the paradoxical metaphors that emerge from their talk can expand how we understand the struggle for maturity. The metaphor of open-endedness is offered as a hybrid term, allowing us to look in two directions at once: capturing and comparing transitions as part of a project of social justice, while also recognising the limits of such frameworks for understanding the experiences of a new generation.
“…One of the thrills of working with metaphor is the way that it operates at different scales (Devadason, 2011). Metaphor connects the material embodied world to language and theory through a chain of sensuous abstractions and transpositions.…”
In this article we engage critically with how metaphors have been used in sociological youth studies, including a turn to new metaphors that capture the foreclosure of futures and experiences of waiting, delay and non-institutional temporalities. Drawing on the resources of queer theory we challenge the developmentalism that underpins youth studies, employing notions of the impasse and growing sideways to capture the open-endedness of young adult lives. Working with data from a qualitative longitudinal study of Danish youth, we focus on how 47 young people responded to an invitation to talk about and through an object that represented the last three years of their lives. These rich accounts can be understood as examples of Paul Riceour’s ‘metaphoric discourse’, characterised by the simultaneity of ‘is’ and ‘is not’. The article first offers a schema of the biographical objects (trophies, hobbies, mortal, connective and protest) that captures the work of ‘being in time’ for young adults, mapping this onto the formal and informal markers of adulthood. We then engage with participants’ own metaphorical thinking in greater depth – suggesting that the paradoxical metaphors that emerge from their talk can expand how we understand the struggle for maturity. The metaphor of open-endedness is offered as a hybrid term, allowing us to look in two directions at once: capturing and comparing transitions as part of a project of social justice, while also recognising the limits of such frameworks for understanding the experiences of a new generation.
“…Wilshusen, 2014: esp. 140-5; also critical exploration of the performative application of the capital metaphor to social life in Devadason, 2011).…”
Section: The Fact(ish) and Fallacy Of 'Natural Capital'mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…That is, without extending the term to ‘human’, ‘social’ and ‘cultural’ domains, as delineated by Bourdieu () in his use of ‘capital’ as ‘a surrogate for [accumulations of] power’, as well as more normatively in multiple development and corporate models (see discussion in Wilshusen, : esp. 140–5; also critical exploration of the performative application of the capital metaphor to social life in Devadason, ).…”
“…The sort of analysis metaphors demand of an audience is also core to the geographical imaginary to the extent it reflects – and extends ‘vertically’ into increasingly complex questions about Nature – the sociological imaginary, encapsulated by C. Wright Mills as the capacity ‘to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two’ (Mills, 1973 [1959]) p. 6). As Devadason () notes, in Mills' quote:The use of the verb ‘to grasp’ indicates that these relations can not easily be pinned down in sets of hard and fast rules, but rather acknowledges that the patterns and processes of social production and reproduction are tacit and elusive, recurrent yet distinctive and, therefore – critically – require analysis to illuminate them (p. 637).More specifically, metaphors are of strong interest in geography both because they are pervasive within the discipline (Barnes and Duncan, ) and because spatial metaphors are pervasive elsewhere (Massey, ) (as Anthropocene discourse demonstrates). Indeed, with its notion of movement – in moving meaning from one word to another – metaphor is an almost inherently geographical concept.…”
Section: The Meaning Of Metaphorsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Metaphors are now also recommended to scientists as a communication and collaboration aid, serving as a ‘boundary object’ (cf. Star and Griesemer, ; Devadason, ). Rather than indicting the use of metaphors, my purpose here is to highlight some of the pockets of meaning they fold into the Anthropocene concept.…”
Intellectually as well as materially, the Anthropocene is a deeply cultural phenomenon. This includes its communicative form, which is a contested trope-rich narrative, even within the sciences. In this essay I focus on the role of metaphor in Anthropocene thought and in particular, on the provocative, ambiguous, and potentially far-reaching idea of humans as a geological force. By considering the different interpretations and meaning this metaphor encourages -including differences in what is meant by geological and force, both within and beyond stratigraphy and Earth System Science -we gain a stronger sense of the deeply allegorical and theological character of the Anthropocene story and the way it promises to reposition humans in the world.
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