del Río, S. orcid.org/0000-0002-0041-1112, Hall, S.M., Ackerley, E. et al. (1 more author) (2025) Austere life-courses and foreclosed futures: a relational geographical approach to work, housing, and family across austerity Europe. Dialogues in Human Geography. ISSN 2043-8206
Abstract
This article seeks to advance geographical understandings of the impact of austerity on young adults in Europe and particularly on their social, relational, and temporal sense of the future. We adopt a life-course perspective to theorise personal, generational, institutional, and social change in relation to one another. Firstly, we progress relational life-course perspectives in human geography to illustrate how place-based experiences of austerity shape lived experiences, temporalities, and normative ideas surrounding life transitions. We introduce the concept of ‘foreclosed futures’ to re-examine conceptualisations of young adults’ eroding material conditions as a postponement of adulthood. We argue that the enduring impact of austerity contests the theorisation of young adults’ experiences of precarity as a transient elongation of youth. Expanding upon non-teleological life-course perspectives, we show that while austere institutions have foreclosed stable futures, the paths to precarity are myriad and rooted in geographically varied forms of austerity. Secondly, in examining how austere institutions shape young people's work, housing, and family biographies, we argue that, rather than leading to de-institutionalisation, austerity marks a process of life-course re-institutionalisation or ‘familialisation of the life-course’. To conclude, this article proposes a series of prompts for future international empirical research on austere life-courses and foreclosed futures.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Austerity; family; foreclosed futures; home; life-course; work; young people |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Medicine and Population Health |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 20 Feb 2025 11:28 |
Last Modified: | 20 Feb 2025 11:28 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206251316005 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/20438206251316005 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:223601 |