生命历程的个体化

Individualisation of the life course

生命历程是多样化的,甚至是去标准化的,但这是否意味着每一个生命都是个体化的?对于观察生命历程而言,个体化是否是一个有益的分析性概念?在本文中,作者考察了个体化有可能如何以及以何种方式在21世纪初影响着欧洲和北美的个体的生活。随后,作者介绍了生命历程的概念,并将两个概念并置在一起。作者勾勒了生命历程研究为个体化提供的分析性框架:人的能动性、生活联系、语境,以及时机。她聚焦于个体在其生命历程中所面对的社会结构、制约因素和机会,以及人的能动性的局限。在结论中,作者提出,个体化论点的流行掩盖了社会结构和制度的作用。对于社会结构、语境、时机等对人生作用的意识,可以让个体化、去标准化和去传统化等进程进入人们的视野。

Life courses are diverse, even de-standardised,but does that mean that each life is individualised? Is individualisation a useful analytical concept for looking at the life course? The author examines how and in what ways individualisation may be influencing the lives of individuals in Europe and North America in the early 21 st century. Then she introduces the concept of the life course and brings the two together. She sketches the analytical frame that life course research offers for individualisation: human agency, linked lives, context, and timing. Her focus is on the social structures, constraints and opportunities individuals face during their life courses and the limits to human agency. In conclusion, She argues that the popularity of the individualisation thesis masks the role of social structures and institutions. The awareness of the role of social structures, contexts, and timing on lives can put processes of individualisation, de-standardisation, and de-traditionalisation in perspective.