A place for mobility in metaphors of youth transitions

The production of metaphors is 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, Wyn and Cuervo (2014) have noted that metaphors used in relation to youth, such as ‘niches’, ‘pathways’, ‘trajectories’ and ‘navigations’, often contain an element of movement. However, it is still under-debated how we can, in wider terms, 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.