Biographical trajectories and identity: Traditional overdetermination and individualisation

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2000 8: 2YoungNikos Serdedakis and Giorgos Tsiolis

individualisationBiographical trajectories and identity: Traditional overdetermination and

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Biographical trajectoriesand identity: Traditionaloverdetermination andindividualisation

NIKOS SERDEDAKIS ANDGIORGOS TSIOLIS

The present article is based on work done within the framework of a research projectentitled The processes of transition from the educational system to the labour market in theprincipality of Crete.’ I

The central objective of this project was the formulation of a theoretical

interpretative framework for the following issues: a) whether, and to what extent,young people living in Crete shape their life-plans around the ’education’ and’employment’ axes; b) which factors (gender, edueational/social/econornic familycapital, submission to community norms, etc) determine young people’ s choices andstructure their life-plans; and c) what meaning do young people assign to education,work and occupation. 2

Initially, we focused our attention on young people’s life-plans concerning theireducational choices (especially the expectation of moving on to higher education)and their decisions concerning their future occupation. In particular, we searched forfactors that influence both the subjects’ investments in education and decisionsconcerning their prospects in the labour market.

Our preliminary results pointed to the following as the most important factorsshaping and differentiatingyoung people’s life-plans: a) particularforms of membershipin the local community, b) the family as a framework for directing and shaping youngpeople’s predispositions, and c) gender. These considerations have led us to enrichthe ‘sensitising concept’, taking into account Beck’s (1993) and Kohli’s (1988) theseson the processes of individualisation in modern societies.

According to Beck’ s theory:

The global risk situations thatcome into beingand the social and political dynamism ofdevelopmentand conflict they contain are new and considerable. But they overlap with social, biographical andcultural risks and insecurities. In advanced modernity, the latter have disembodied and reshapedthe inner social structure of industrial society and its grounded and basic certainties of life conduct

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- social classes, familial forms, gender status, parenthood, and occupations [...] Family,neighbourhood, even friendship, as well as ties to a regional culture and landscape, contradict theindividual mobility and the mobilc individual required by the labour market. (Beck, 1993: 87-88.)

The market here seems to replace all pre-existing collectivities and, like AdamSmith’s invisible hand, to take individuals out of any kind of social context andcollective determination:

The individual himself or herself becomes the reproduction unit of the social in the lifeworld. ‘Vhatthe social is and does has to be involved with individual decisions. Or, put another way, both withinand outside the familv, the individuals become the agents of their educational and market-mediated subsistence and the related life-planning and organisation. Biography itself is acquiringa retlexive project. (Beck, 1993: 90.)

Kohli writes in the same spirit when concretising his views in the field of biographicalresearch: ’As a result of the process of modernisation, what has been ’achieved is men’sliberation from bonds relating to their social position and their locality, a pluralism ofliving conditions and a loss of influence of traditional orientations.’ (Kohli, 1988: 33.)The individual, freed from obligations arising out of his/herenrolment (participation)in collectivities (class, community, family), forms his/her identitv and shapes his/herbiography through a process of individual quest and reflection in the context of anopen-ended horizon of possibilities and choices: ’the individual is no longerconstitutedthrough his participation in a social category or through his ’belonging’ in a socialcollectivity, but though an autonomous life program’ (Kohli, 1988: 35). The individualbiography is institutionalised in the sense that the biographical stock - to the extentthat traditional frameworks of orientation have weakened - constitutes the central co-

ordinate as far as the subject’s experiences and actions are concerned.The processes of individualisation, however, have not emerged as a new field of

sociological analysis but have formed a fundamental motif in sociology ever since itsformation as a special field of scientific discovery. Different theoretical approacheshave been formulated around this motif, which attempt to explain the rapid changestaking place in Western societies due to the advent of industrialism and the abandon-ment of the traditional worldviews and practices of pre-industrial forms of socialorganisation. The theoretical approaches which focus on the phenomena of thistransition, of course, are not being produced as mere academic exercises on the partof the intellectuals of the relevant era. They are instead interwoven with socialprocesses, as these are shaped by the emergence of new social groups contending forthe distribution of social wealth and for social power within the new socio-politicalcontext. The exodus from traditional society is not merely the result of processesdirectly connected to the field of productive structures and productive relations. It isalso the result of long-term changes regarding the conceptions of the world, thesociety and the individual - changes with which the former processes are dialecticallyrelated. On the level of common conceptions, the religious worldview and the pre-eminence of God are replaced by the pre-eminence of Nature and concomitantly, by



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that of Man. The establishment of the scientific field as well as the initiation of a

discussion regarding individualisation processes in contemporary societies could bemade possible only in the context of such revaluation (Kondylis, 1981). As theindividual gets free from the feudal societa civilts and its attendant legitimisingreligious worldview, he/she begins to pose questions not only about the self, butbroadly about the social world and the self’s position within it.

Consequently, the production of identity is not solely self-referential but includesequation and differentiation vis-a-vis others who have common or antagonisticcharacteristics and interests, views and practices. As Panajiotis Kondylis argues, theproduction of identity (individual and collective) connects to decisions that theindividual and collective subjects make in order to reduce social complexity that cannever be grasped in its totality because of the limitations of human nature. Throughthis reduction of social complexity, the individual and collective subjects construct,on the basis of their needs for self-preservation and enhancement of their power,’objective’ realities, selecting those elements that are judged each time to be crucialfor their existence. In this way worldviews are produced: images of the world thatallow for the formation of stable identities and that are able to guarantee the

orientation of the individual and collective subjects within the social world ( Kondylis,1984).

In the context of pre-industrial traditional conditions, the issue of identity doesnot emerge in these terms. The individual is understood merely as a part of broadercollectivities, the estates, whose limits he/she is unable to disrupt in order to carve outhis or her own social trajectory This immutable social position is sanctioned and

secured in terms of values and norms originating from a religious worldview, whichreverts to a non-social principle in order to legitimise social stability and theconsolidation of the individual within it. It is only with the rise of the bourgeoisie andthe gradual predominance of industrialism that the preconditions for the appearanceof the processes of individualisation begin to emerge. It should be noted that underthe domination of bourgeois liberalism, individualisation lacks universality. While, ata nominal level, the principle of equality among individuals is emphasised - sincearistocracy is still a visible enemy - on the social level individual rights are notequitably distributed, i.e. the right to education or to vote.

The expansion of democracy and mass production, the need for mass consumptionand the intensification of the social division of labour permits equalisation ofindividuals without social and class limitations, thus permitting social mobility andthe breaking up of society into separate and ’autonomous’ individuals (Kondylis,1991). It is an extremely long-lasting process that contrasts not only with the traditionof pre-industrial societies but also with the tradition of bourgeois liberalism. Mlasssociety, with its special characteristics of individualisation and its gradual disruptionof individuals’ external overdeterminations, unfolds against these traditions. Wewant to suggest that Kondylis’s approach provides a broader framework for Beck’sview, which observes a break within modernity, an epochal change in advanced



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western societies which are now entering a new phase, namely, ’reflexive modernity.’A crucial marker for this transition is the categorical shift in the relationship betweenthe individual and society: in reflexive modernity individualisation emerges as a newform of socialisation.

According to Beck (1993), individualisation does not describe a phenomenon oran invention of the second half of the twentieth century. Already from the beginningof modern times the history of humanity has been characterised by waves ofindividualisation; that is, the constitution of the individual as a subject freed fromtraditional determinations and attachments. However, as Beck argues, a new wave ofindividualisation can be observed within advanced western societies, during the lasttwo or three decades. This wave is different from previous ones in the following:collectivities that survive as pre-modern remnants - if with other functions (family,local community) - or that appear as a consequence of the industrialisation process(class) have entered a process of decomposition. But the decomposition of collectivitiesdoes not mean the liberation and autonomisation of the individual. It entails a

qualitative difference concerning institutional domination: the prescriptions imposedby the educational system, the labour market and the state oblige the individual toorganise his/her biography. Within an antagonistic framework characterised by rapidtransformations, alacrity, flexibility, fast adaptability and inventiveness constitute thenecessary equipment for the individual. All engagements and obligations that comefrom traditions and collective determinations constitute a handicap and need to berejected. At the level of subjective consciousness individuals increasingly understandthemselves as the shapers of their own living conditions and social trajectories. Theother side of the coin, however, is that social crises and dangers are understood by thesubjects as individual/personal problems and failures. Thus, individualisation has atwofold character: coercion and possibility. In our time, when the collective sourcesof meaning, characteristic of industrial society, are exhausted and demystified,individuals are saddled with the task of coming up with definitions. This could alsomean the ‘invention’ of traditions-another aspect of the reflexivity that characterisesthe life of the individual.

Regarding our material we have focused on the internal point of view of thesubjects, and sensitised by Beck’s view, we have posed the following questions:

To what extent do the young in Crete understand their life as ’their own’, awayfrom traditional/collective determinations?

Have the collective forms of social getting-together lost their orientating powerregarding the shaping of life-plans?

How can we understand individuality in a society such as that of Crete, and whatis the importance of Beck’s view as a heuristic framework?

In the following, we refer to three indicative cases’ in order to expose the centralfindings of our inquiry: As far as the shaping of life-plans of Cretan young people isconcerned, ’the traditional frameworks of orientation’ - especially the family and thelocal community - continue to play a vital role. Even in the cases in which an



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individualised life-plan is possible, it must be articulated in the space allowed for bycollective determinations (family, community).

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Methodology ’

We shall attempt to answer the aforementioned questions on the basis of theempirical material collected in the context of a research project entitled Processes oftransition from the educational system to the labour market in the principality of Crete.

We believe that the biographical approach is the most appropriate one for theexamination of life-plans and their mode of constitution (see also Bertaux, 1981). Itis also for this reason that we chose the method of narrative interview for the collection

of the material (Schiitze, 1983, 1987). Regarding our methodological choices, we wishto highlight following points.

During the actual narrative interview, the subject thematizes his/her life course ora part of it, activating the narrative mode of exposition. Although the reconstruction- ’recapitulation’ (Alheit, 1990) - of the life course takes place within the context ofthe subject’s present point of view, it involves a three dimensional reference to time:the lived experience is reconstructed from the subject’s present point of view whichincludes anticipations and future orientations (see also Salling Olesen, 1996: 71).

The reflective function of the subject, according to which he/she understands andrepresents his/her life story that can become an object of narration, is decisive for theconstitution of his/her identity, but also for his/her orientation within the social world(see also Nassehi & Weber, 1990; Habermas, 1981: 206).

The life course - that is, the ensemble of positions, situations and events that theagent of the biography has lived and experienced should be seen as a social patternthat is nothing other than the product of the dialectical relationship among a) theobjective structural terms and determinations, b) the offered social models concerninglife conduct and c) the individuals’ calculations, plans and intentional actions.

Among all the elements that constitute a life course, the subject thematizesselectively only a part of them. The specific selection and the structuring of theseelements by the narrating subject offers us access to the specific way in which thesubject classifies and works out biographically important experiences and his or herprospective orientations in the social world (Rosenthal, 1995:13).

Thus we believe thatan interpretive structural analysis of the subjects’ biographicalself-presentations can disclose the specific logic that governs each individual life (seealso Bude, 1984, 1987). Such an analysis offers the possibility for the reconstructionof a conceptual framework and of a network of the subjects’ significations, as well asof their life-plans, orientations and objectives (see also Rosenthal, 1995: 218).

Regarding the analysis of the self-biographical presentations, we have chosen toutilize the structural reconstruction of meaning (Bude, 1984, 1987). The text is seenas a framework of interrelating and inter-referential meanings that exceed thenarrator’s communicative intentions. The analysis has to decipher these structures of



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meaning, to mark their internal logic, and relate them to determining social factors.The sequence of the particular parts of the text, their function within the structure,as well as the specific structuring of the different parts of the text (narrations,-descriptions, argumentations, ’theories’) are understood as important sources ofinterpretations (Rosenthal, 1995).

Three juvenile trajectories’NIKOS’: The family and the sense of ’belonging’ to the community overdetermine the life-plan.

Nikos (24) was born and brought up in A-town, one of the most touristed towns ofnorthern Crete. He is the oldest of 5 children and the only male (apart from the father)in the family. His father is employed in the transport sector and his mother is a cook.The family supplements its income with profits from agricultural activities. Nikos hasbeen working in a supermarket during his spare time since he was a student. As soonas he finished high school, he enrolled in a public technical school (to studymechanical engineering). At the same time he started working as an apprentice in acar garage, but he quit this job because of low pay and bad working conditions. Hewent back to work at the supermarket where he stayed throughout the three years hespent in the technical school. He joined the Greek army and as soon as he finishedhis military service he went to Athens where he enrolled in a (private) computerscience school because his parents urged him to do something in order to secure hisfuture. Two weeks later he abandoned the school and returned to his native town

because he didn’t like life in Athens. Last year, along with the eldest of his sisters, hestarted a small business (a tobacco and newspaper kiosk) where he still works, withthe aim of saving some money to take advantage of future opportunities.

The interview begins with the interviewee being unable to form a narrative. Theinitial retrospection of his childhood was restricted to superficial and brief referencesto his native town, friends, neighbourhood and peer-groups:

Right... I remember the town, it wasn’t like today... it was more... the streets were not as they arenow... you see...it was some time ago...you know... I remember my friends... the different

neighbourhoods...We moved all the time from house to house until we settled in our own placeFriends, strolls, that’s all.

The interviewer did not achieve much in his attempt to stimulate the narrative byreferring to school. The school was mentioned by the interviewee as the meeting-place of his peer-group and as a place to have fun.

The first time Nikos forms a narrative, taking more time and supplementing thedescriptive elements of his discourse with evaluative ones, occurs when the interviewermentions the his sisters:



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I: You said you have four sistersN: Yeah...four sisters, I’m the oldest. My sister... she’s a year younger than me. The other one mustbe around fifteen... and there is one year age difference between the others. The first one, was a

very important thing for us, you know, for me and my sister. My mother was working so we had towatch her all day. My sister...she was at school Itil noon, and me...from noon ‘till the evening. Mymother was working all day and we had to take care of our little siscer, basically it was us, my sisterand I, that brought her up, and that was something... you know...we were very young and webrought up a child. When I was in high school I was also working and during the weekends I wasworking in a supermarket...all weekends... ’cause I wanted to be more independent from myparents, ’cause could see them... they...we didn’t have much money ... it was difficult to make endsmeet and I wanted to have my own money. I didn’t want to ask them for money. I was working atthe weekends and in the afternoons. When I had free time I was a(ways going to work - that wasin high school... And then our sisters arrived... They came all of them when I was in high schooland they changed our life. I mean they made us more responsible, you know we had to take careof them all... It wasn’t just going out to play, you know like all the others did - instead we had tocome back at noon and look after them... you know...they were babies...

The morphological change in his discourse, which signifies a transition for the firsttime from a superficial descriptive level to a more narrative one, when the intervieweerefers to the theme of family relations, leads us to search for the particular importancethat these relationships may have for the way he understands himself and his

positioning in the social world. In the above extract the family context within whichNikos places himself is presented in a lively way. The family has seven members andboth parents work because of quite serious financial problems. As a consequencecertain responsibilities that traditionally belonged to the realm of female/maternalcare (such as the childcare) have now been handed over to the eldest children of the

family due to the lack of a reliable institutional network of social services (daynurseries etc).

Let us look at the wording: ’the first one was a very important thing for us, youknow...’

Nikos refers to his second sister - the third child in the family - as the ’first one’.How can we explain this peculiar counting? At the same time, he uses a collectivedesignation in plural - ’for us’ - indicating himself and his eldest sister. These twoelements may indicate that soon after the birth of the third child an important changetook place in his biography, a change that relates to the transformation of his role inthe context of his family. We understand that the strong family bonds and the peculiarrole assigned to Nikos, even from the time of his childhood, are important factors forboth his biographical constitution and his shaping of his future life-plans (as we shallsee further on). Nikos enters the realm of employment quite early. He starts workingfrom his first years in high school. We can understand his premature entry into theworld of employment as the result, on the one hand, of his family’s financial

difficulties and the narrator’s need to be ’financially independent’ from his parentsregarding not so much the satisfaction of his primary needs but of his secondary ones(buying a bicycle and later on a motorbike etc) also important, however, for his equalparticipation in his peer group. On the other hand, there is the particular work culturethat is common wherever the main economic activity is tourism:



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’[My friends] they were working all summer... They were working in pizzerias, things like that, aswaiters, assistant waiters, things like that...’

Thus, in high school, Nikos starts working, while at the same time he is assignedadditional responsibilities in the context of the intrafamilial allocation of work(looking after his younger sisters).

Let’s see now how he himself evaluates the interweaving of different roles:

...t’was, you know, the combination of work and school... and all this was very good education forus because you’d meet people and you’d come to get to know people... their fancies, you know,their kinks. It was something good then, work makes you more responsible... working... Everyweekend, you know, I knew I had to go to work. I couldn’t leave him stranded, my boss, he was

expecting me every weekend... cutting work and...going to the sea every weekend and all that, Ihad given it all up.

Work is assigned its meaning in relation to its pedagogical rote/function. It is

understood as both a process of schooling, of educating people and society throughlived experience, contact and interaction and at the same time as the realm ofresponsibility. For Nikos, in its institutional role school is replaced by work: the schoolis presented as the realm of leisure and fun, the space where the peer group meets.It constitutes a kind of a counterbalance to the increased responsibilities that he hastaken upon himself within both family and work.

Work is positively evaluated not only for its gains and educational function but alsobecause of the good ’fatherly’ relationships between Nikos and his employer.

...We had very good relations with him, with the guy who had the super market. We stayed togetherall day long. He hadn’t any children at all and he liked me a lotI mean you know his mother and father had died, they had died, all of them, from cancer. And hewas afraid too. And then he wanted to sell everything he had. And he treated me as if I was his son...

Nikos’ transition from high school to the technical college is accompanied by hisdecision to work as an apprentice in a car garage. This decision -which was quitecommon among the male members of the peer group - can be understood as a

consequence of the high status of technical education in social groups with loweducational capital4. This status is related to the visible, realistic and realisable, andquickly rewarding prospect of employment that technical education offers and to thefact that this prospect bears the possibility of transforming an apprentice into a smallbusinessman and not into a wage-earner.

’

However, Nikos could not bear the peculiar status of the apprentice and quit hisjob at the car garage. He refers to the low income, the bad conditions of work, but

mainly the pressure on him by the ’head workman’ as the reasons behind his decision.The evaluation of the new situation in which he found himself as opposed to hisprevious work experiences - i.e., his work in the super-market where relations offriendship and trust with the owner were predominant - as well as the existence of



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alternative occupational opportunities in trade and tourism, were the main factorsbehind his decision to quit his job at the car garage.

After that, Nikos continues for a while to work in the trade sector, but as soon ashe completes his military service he sets up, together with his sister, a small business(a newspaper and tobacco kiosk). The knowledge and experience that Nikos hasaccumulated during his ten year-long work experience in the trade sector, along withthe social capital (connections and acquaintances) he possesses are now invested ina family business in which, in addition to himself and his sister, his father (in his freetime) and his mother (who has meanwhile quit waged work) could be occupied aswell.

We didn’t let my mother work, all these years she had been working, but this year we d idn’t let her.‘Ve cold her to come and help us in the kiosk.

The strong familial bonds determine the narrator’s occupational choices to a significantdegree. The individual maps out a particular strategy, always having in mind theneeds of the group (here, the family). The subject does not understand himself as anautonomous unit, bearer of an individual biography, but relates to and binds himselfto the common ’destiny’ of the family. This familial bond is also extended to includehis relations with the broader community and native town.

It’s not the same if you leave, if you go away to a place where you know no-one... then, you are allalone, while here, I know everybody. If I need something I know I can go to someone and ask forhelp and I am closer to my parents, to my own people. It’s a more pleasant life.

The narrator’s strong relations with his family and the wider community, in additionto the relatively open occupational opportunities offered in the area, cancel all

alternative life-plans that would presuppose his emancipation from the family homeand his parting with the community. These are also the causes of his failure to achieveanything in his only attempt to leave his native town, when, after his military serviceand following his parents’ advice, he went to Athens to study Computer Science ata private institution for occupational training.

When I returned from the army, I went to Athens to attend an information technology school. I wentthere and registered and I attended a couple of classes. I rented a house in Athens and I stayed therefor a couple of weeks. But, you see, I dropped out and I left.Q: How?A: ...I couldn’t, I didn’t like Athens, to stay there although I was with my girlfriend in Athens. I don’tknow, I miss my place, my friends, all these things... I packed it in and I left...

However, in order for our interpretation to be thorough enough, it is necessary to takeinto account Nikos’ scepticism towards the worth (that is, the value and the cost) ofcontinuing his studies, an attitude common to groups with low educational capital,who see education as an investment of low and uncertain return. The followingextract is characteristic of such an attitude:



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N: I knew I didn’t want to continue my studies; I just wanted to finish high school and stop there.I didn’t want to continue my studies and I never thought of going to a university.I: What made you decide not to go on with your studies?’N: How can I explain that? I saw the others, my friends... no-one among my friends wanted to go.onto higher education, to go on reading books and stuff. We weren’t very good in school; we alwaysused to get B in primary school... and we saw the others, you know, the elder ones among our friends,they had finished their studies and they were going to work with their parents orwith their relatives.So we thought it was better to finish with school, to go to the army and after that to find a job, thanto spend three or four more years studying and then do what?

Regarding his future life-plans Nikos does not have any clear expectations:

We don’t think of the future at all. It’s the present that we have to care for, now that there’s somebusiness going on...

He is, however, concerned with saving some money with which he could, in thefuture, take advantage of opportunities that might crop up.

...to create something for all of us... something will come up, and if I like it and I know how to doit, I’ll do it.

It is, however, characteristic of his attitude that Nikos continues to speak in firstperson plural, thus including in the common strategy the other members of his family.How Nikos composes and organises his life-plans is articulated on a three axes basis:

on the existence of strong familial bonds which are not in any way challenged bythe subject nor are they understood as limiting or restricting the development of hisindividuality;

on the under-evaluation of the formal abstract knowledge offered at school; heconceives of education as a kind of low return investment;

on a positive evaluation of work and on the optimistic view of the future, especiallywith regard to his occupational prospects. His optimism stems from his trust in hiscapabilities, in the practical knowledge that he has accumulated during his ten-yearold experience in trade and in the relatively open possibilities for development in thebroader geographical area due mostly to tourism.

’SOPHIA’: The demand for a differentiated life-plan as a stake in front of the dominant rules of thelocal community.

Sophia (18) was born brought up and still lives in a coastal village of eastern Crete asa member of a middle-class family. Her father has high educational capital (law schoolgraduate), worked as a member of the executive staff in the mail service of a nearbytown and is today the general manager of the local branch office. Her mother worksas a housewife, her main duty being the upbringing of her children (Sophia and herthree-year younger brother). Following an unsuccessful first attempt to enter university,Sophia is now preparing for her second, her aim being to study psychology.



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I’ve liked psychology since school. I’ll try to... and... The main reason I want to continue with

university studies is... because I don’t want to stay here in the village, mainly because things aredifficult here. There... there aren’t enough opportunities. If we stay here in the village... if a girlstays in the village... she looks to getting married. They say, you know, ’she has to get married’.:. :.

she has to make her own family... And I don’t... The main thing is this, to getaway from the village.Then... to get away somehow from home, from my father. To live the student life... to enjoy myself.To do... To be free and independent. That’s the main reason.

Sophia’s narrative shows that her life-plans are determined by her need to escape fromher home and from her father figure; the small community and her family in theperson of her father constitute a restraining framework that has to be broken through.Entering university represents the necessary condition for the articulation of a life-plan different from the one imposed by local custom and allowed for by the objectivematerial conditions.

This social imposition does not refer to Sophia as a person but as a young woman.This conclusion can be drawn from the morphological facts of the extract ci ted above.Thus, for example, in the first four lines where Sophia refers to her own interests andplans, she talks in the first person (’I have liked’, ’I’ll have a go’, ’I want to continue’,’I don’t want to stay’). When, however, she refers to the undesirable possibility ofstaying in the village, she uses the first plural person (’if we stay’), hypotheticallyenrolling herself in the common destiny of village women, a destiny that has to dowith the subject’s gender (’if we stay in the village’), while in the end she turns to thethird person singular (’she intends to get married’, ’she has to get married’). Hertalking in the third person and the use of the noun ’girl’ rather than the personalpronoun ’I’ or ’we’ as the subject makes explicit the gender co-ordinate of the subjectand shows that Sofia has definitely realised that inside the community, women’strajectories do not differ according to personal interests and individual programs, butare informally, yet definitely, pre-determined on a gender basis.

This dependence is twofold: it comes, on the one hand, from the male figure ofa father-master who controls and restricts personal life, entertainment, interactionsand friendships, relations with males and performance at school; and on the other,from the community, Mlead’s ’Generalised Other’ (Mead, 1934), which forms a netthat predetermines the individual trajectories of those that remain within it. The aim,thus, is individual independence, a movement towards a break with the restraints thatmicro- and macrocosms impose. Here personal experience is interwoven with thecollective one as this is registered in the person of the mother.

My mother is... a quiet character... she tries to make my father understand that I’ve grown up, thatI need to go out more often. That I must have my own friends. Eh... She understands me quiteoften. Ofcourse she can’t do much because... he’s the ’big-boss’. She’s too... She too is eh... I mean,in her marriage with my father... neither she could have had many opportunities. She got married,you know, she didn’t manage to go Out to work. She stays in the house all day. And maybe it’s becauseI see all this, that I don’t... I want to do something else [...] I want to live my life differently.



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The issue that constantly recurs in the narrative is that of the existence, or better, ofthe non-existence of opportunities: ’there aren’t many opportunities’, ‘Neither couldhave had many opportunities’. Women’s destiny within marriage is experienced as acondition of dependence that limits the opportunities for personal freedom. It is alsothe result of the limited opportunities that the place offers; ’opportunities’ - personalindependence in this case - are mainly experienced in contradistinction to therestraining and controlling context of the small rural community:

In the village, people have other occupations. They work the land...or in the hot-houses...there areno opportunities to do, let’s say, somethingelse... there are no jobs. If you live in a village, you knowthat, if you don’t have something else to do, you know that you have to work the land, or in the hot-houses, or do something similar. There isn’t anything else you can do... well...if you want

something else you have to go to the city. There isn’t anything else to do in the village. What couldI do? I have two choices: I will either stay here to wait for the’groom’ (taughs)or!’)) work in the landand in the hot-houses. If want something else... I have to get out of here. There are no

opportunities. You can’t find anything else here.

The ’groom’ or the rural occupations or both are the alternatives if ’you don’t haveanything else to do’. For Sophia an alternative life-plan seems impossible within theboundaries of her small rural community. Thus, a life-plan that would allow her to exitthe community needs to be formed. The acquisition of a university degree, and theconsequent increase of svmbolic capital and of the status that this entails, expands thepossibilities for an individual existence differentiated from the one that is prescribedby the community’s norms and standards. The university degree constitutes a valuerecognised by the community, which allows its possessor to move relatively freely inspace and to change his/her lifestyle without openly breaking with the community’svalues and norms.

This is not a purely individual strategy but a familial one regarding both thereproduction of the father’s status and the female destiny, a common acknowled-gement between all the members of the family in this socio-cultural context.

What my father keeps saying is that I detinitelv have to continue my studies. Because a boy, mybrother for example, even if he is not good at school, he can always do something else in his life. Hecan work in a facton-... Something. White I ... if I don’t... if I don’t manage... to enter university,to find something stable... I won’t have these opportunities. Then, the only option left for me isto get married. The only one. That’s it regarding... my gender.

The university, the degree, the prospect of a profession, conditions that correspondto urban space and to Sophia’s plans for geographical mobility, are experienced mainlyin their imaginary dimension compared to the possibilities that they offer in reality.They correspond to an imaginary construction that seeks to cope with the femaledestiny within the small rural community. The knowledge of the problem ofunemployment among the university graduates in Greece (’We see... thousands ofuniversity graduates having nothing to do. They don’t have any stable work. They areunemployed’ Interview: ’Sophia’) does not seem to influence the family and individual



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strategies. The reproduction of the cultural capital of the family and the intention ofgetting away from the community, sidestep the empirical recording of an ominousreality.

The dealing with known problems such as the issue of unemployment aftergraduation is transferred to the future and is almost dismissed/cancelled as a factor inthe rational planning of the individual’s trajectory. The relationship that becomes thefocus of the individual’s interest by directing and determining the formation of theobjectives is that between city and village. We will now attempt to show that thedifferentiated significance of social space contains significant displacements, mainlyconcerning the field of culture (i.e. culture as way of life).

You don’t have equal opportunities in... nor have you got the same possibilities. Either in

entertainment or in employment [...] Also... here in the village, rhe community is much too smalland the people... what interests them is to...gossip about each other. If they see you withsomconc... they start spreading rumours that you’re engaged or that you got married [ _ ..J It’s a vervclosed society. While in the city ... in the city ofcourse it’s more... In the city the other people don’tspend their time with you...and maybe you get lonelv. But I prefer that to having to stand the otherstalking about everything I do.

Behind the apparent distinction city/village, mainly in terms of the openness of theformer and closedness of the latter, a broader issue is posed: the kind of sociality thatcorresponds to two different worlds.

For Sophia, everyday life in the village seems to be still, rigid, subject to anembarrassing transparency of relationships. Every member of the community posses-ses a certain position that prescribes explicit obligations and abiding rules regardingits possessor’s performance.

The familiarity among the members of the community, the face to face relationships,and the personal acquaintances allow for the penetration of the collective into thedomain of the individual. It is a form of social control that leaves no room for thoughtsand actions that could lead to its transformation. It seems that the awareness of this

situation, or better, its perceptive schemes, are produced from a position external tothe community. Sophia can observe the life of the village because she feels alreadyoutside it. Her father’s cultural capital and social position as well as the specificexpectations regarding her individual trajectory seem to allow for such a vantage

point. Identity and self are being ’constructed’ against a recognised opponent, theOther, who, in our case, is the Generalised Other. The kind of sociality thatcorresponds to the community becomes unbearable for the individual who wants todelimit his/her own individual space in relation to the public one. Sophia’s desire tostudy psychology is formed in the context of a different understanding of suchconcepts as existence, individuality and social communication.

I’ve always liked psychology... I have always been thinking about it. I’ve always liked... to talk topeople, to understand their feelings, to try to help them in certain problems they might have.Manly, I chose psychology because I like to communicate with people, to be in a position to offer



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help. You see... I like to try to understand the one next to me - from their moves, from what theysay, to understand things about their life and character... how they feel. How they act...everything.

As we have seen earlier, life in the city may also mean loneliness (see the previousextract). However, in addition to the prospect of employment, it opens a differentfield of sociality that corresponds to a different cultural paradigm. The generalisedacquaintance of the ’person’ within the community and the strict determinations onit are replaced by intersubjective communication within a context where individualitycan be defined and recognised as such. Life-plans and identity construction are joinedtogether with the forms of experience that correspond to communal life, and also toSophia’s anticipations or to her images regarding relationships in urban space.

‘MIANOLIS’: Life-plans are overdetermined by the demand for the reproduction of the symboliccapital of the family.

Mlanolis is a third-year student in medical school. He was born in Athens when hismother was still a university student. His father, who comes from the same place ashis mother, has a trading business, which he inherited from his parents. Mlanolis, asa child, lived in a relatively small provincial town, his parents’ home town, which theychose as their permanent residence after his mother’s graduation and because of hisfather’s occupation. The family environment on his mother’s side is characteristicGreek provincial upper middle-class. His maternal grandparents have managerialpositions in a bank. Apart from the economic comfort their social position entails, thefamily’s symbolic investment is directed towards cultural capital. It is an orientationthat forms the family’s strategies up to and including the grandson.

I started Icurning English, French and German when I first entered high school... from five in theafternoon till eight or nine in the evening I was in language schools everyday[...] Now, let meremember. I had a very special relationship with my grandfather... who was very educated andcultured...so that... ever since I can remember, I remember myself being with him, him readingme stories [...] Unti) the age of three of four he must have read me at least 500 talcs... we used tolisten to classical music together... I was able to read before I went to school ...

Llnder such conditions, l~Ianolis’ experience of the educational institutions wasidyllic, something that is in accord with the sociology of education. Excellence inschool performance constitutes an expectation whose point of departure is the

environment; it is internalised by the subject not as a command but as a naturalcharacteristic of his being. The primary socialisation process within a family that, atleast as far as the mother’s side and her kinship network are concerned, emphasiseseducation and culture, functions paradigmatically not only for the understanding ofsocial rules but mainly for the internalisation of given cultural values and attitudesthat are later experienced as natural for one’s individual existence.

Thus, school does not emerge as a threat or an obstacle, but as the continuation ofa certain process of education and as a medium for an academic career. This career



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will, in turn, pay back in status and financial ability, thus affirming the choices of theindividual. These seemingly ’individual’ choices are nonetheless integrated withinan explicit family strategy.

In Nlanolis’ narrative, whenever the question of his choice to study medicine isposed, all reference to lived experiences is absent; there is only a rough interpretationthat justifies his decision in retrospect. The main influencing factor seems to be thestatus of the medical profession and not the financial prospects opened up by a careerin medicine.

I believe I had many interests, very many interests, so I could easilv have chosen something else... ..

and it’s very probable, to be honest, that I will do something else....It may be that this is somethingof a chullenge for the present and that later on I will end up doing something altogether different[...] The decisions was not something... you know... It was not the result of serious considerationand thought ... It was the result of a kind of autosuggestion and I believed I wanted to do it ... Iwas influenced by the status (of a medical career, he means) but not by the money... no, not at allby the money ... I will never try to combine my occupation with moneymaking ... To do what Ilike...virtually for free ... To join the Doctors of the Wortd.

The feeling of financial security leads to an idealisation of medicine and of the bearerof this idealisation. All these attitudes towards medicine as a public service are revivedhere in a context where everything is still fluid, where the final decisions have notbeen taken and the possibilities seem endless: ’[oo.] it’s very probable ... to dosomething else...’. Existence is understood and placed within a framework where itis not so much the final goal in itself that is critical, but the process of its achievement.It is not, for example, clear if the specific choice corresponds to behaviour directedtowards an absolute value or towards a rational objectives. The economic and culturalcapital of the family seems to offer its heir a seemingly loose identity - ‘loose’ in thesense that it remains open in time, ’seemingly loose’, however, due to the presenceof an already shaped kernel of being that guarantees an equilibrium in the plethoraof emerging possibilities:

Generally, in my life... I ... I... I was always stimulated by competition... that is, I would alwavsdo something better if I knew I had to compare myself to someone else doing the same thing... I

mean... If I was running with someone else... I would try to run faster. If I was running alone, Iwould be more relaxed... I mean... I can see this in a variety of my activities. I was taking privatelessons together with a girl... therefore...you know... I was very much concerned to at least... dobetter than her.

The internalised knowledge of social distinctions as the result of the existingantagonisms within the economic and cultural fields guarantees the coherence of theManolis’ biography.

Manolis’ life-plans remain relatively open mainly because of the opportunitiesthat the environment of the family offers. However, the contingency that characteriseshis life-plans is not produced within a culturally defined context of freedom thatcorresponds to his family’s social position and, more generally, to that of the well-off



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social groups of Greek provinces. It mainly corresponds to the experience of a familycrisis, which challenges the continuity of the existing economic opportunities. It isabout a new situation that threatens to reshape the structure of opportunities andcompels the revision of life-plans.

The central figure in this rearrangement of familial equilibrium is the father, whilethe mother seems to play the role of a ’victim’, of a player whose freedom resideswithin narrow boundaries. In this case, it is the economic capital that defines the rulesof the game and imposes its own terms - gender playing always its part nonetheless.

The last two years... the period of family harmony and all that ended and certain problems arose...family problems between my parents and... caused by numerous things... Nly parents were veryyoung... 1BIy mother married when she was 19... after that she started university Studies ... Also it’sthe fact that... my mother comes from a family...[which was] very educated ... [her parents’ family]was opposed to my parents’ marriage... because my father’s family was to a great extent devoted tobusiness and oriented to money-making ...all these things... were... kind of held back while I wasliving with them at home... the momenc I left home they came up... now the situation has reacheda breaking point ...

What is recorded here is a characteristic attitude of the middle-class family; that is, toinvest mainly in matters concerning the upbringing of children and to devote oneselfto the nominal values of the institution of the family. Whether this is a residue oftradition or a moral, cultural model of the middle-class nuclear family is an issue thatremains to be clarified. What is certain is that such targeting places on second footingthe communicative interactions within the family- mainly those between the parents- thus producing a deficit that becomes, at some point, explicit in the form of a familycrisis. The consciousness of such a crisis creates a kernel of uncertainty regarding thelife-plans of all the members of the family. More significantly, it brings about a certainre-orientation of the biographical trajectory, particularly for those who experience thecrisis from a relatively weak position. Characteristic of this is the introduction of

Manolis’ mother’s experience in his narrative:

What upsets me... is the way my father treats my mother ... You see, the thing with my mother isthat... and it’s not because she’s my mother or because I have a close relationship with her ... Shecould have achieved great things..., besides her education... She follows on the steps of mygrandfather... She is an ingenious person ... The whole situation has cost her a lot ... My father...has an inferiority complex in relation to her... both because she is educated and because of herfamily... Whenever you cannot equal something you try to reduce it to your own level.

What is presented here is an experience and understanding of the relation of powerbetween the economic and the cultural capital which, as we have already seen, isreflected in Manolis’ life-plans regarding the practice of the medical profession as apublic service, or the possibility of other still unidentified prospects. However, hislife-plans are not related to a fluid identity; on the contrary, they presuppose a typeof stable identity, which corresponds to the internalised value of a common logic thatruns through the normative frameworks of economic and cultural capital. The point



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here is the element of synthesis that is attempted by second generation individuals.According to this synthesis, the ’irrational’ elements of the action of the agent bearingthe economic power are rejected, while their common territory is ’discovered’:

rationality in both its axiological and instrumental dimensions. ,

MIy father, isn’t a man of argument ...he derives his power from money... He has become rough,his behaviour has changed a lot... He feels... he is very... powerful... Whatever he says... it willbe...’I’ll buy this, I’ll do that’... Whenever if comes to our relationship... the only thingthat mattersis ... that ’I have bought you the car...’ that ‘I have paid for your studies...’ ,’

The rejection of the father’s logic, without its leading either to a rift and his

renunciation, or to conformism, reveals a disdain coming from a modern culturalcontext that permits the identification of the cohesion of different power structures.The point of departure (rejection) and the value (positive) allow for the understan-ding of the father’s attitude (representative sample of a whole world) as irrational: ’heis not a man of arguments...’. Rationalisation, exchange of arguments, communicationconstitute a qualitatively elevated context and content for action, which, withoutabolishing the characteristics of antagonism, attempts to overcome and to synthesisethe detected contradiction that runs through the family relationships.

Conclusions

With regard to the constitution of identity and the formation of the life-plans of thecases under examination here, it seems clear that family and place of residence arefactors of great influence.

In the case of both Nikos and Sophia, the family is presented as being instrumentalin their past, present and future choices to such an extent that important questionsare raised concerning the degree to which their individual identity is absorbed by acollective one, that of their family. In the case of Manolis the same can be said ingeneral; however, there is a certain differentiation concerning the overdeterminationof his individuality by the strong bond with his mother and the relatives on her side.This overdetermination can be attributed to the breach with his father which is

’recognised’ only after Manolis has left the narrow boundaries of the family.In Nikos’ case, the reconstruction of his biography on the axis defined by the

question ‘Who am I’ has proved to be a quite difficult venture. The answers are givenin first person plural (we, us, referring always to the family) and only the experiencesof work and employment present the characteristics of a distinct self. The importance,however, of this dimension is minimised since the self quickly appears, even in thecontext of employment, as merely supplementing a collective planning and strategy.

In Nikos’ discourse the pursuit of independence is related less to the establishmentof the subject’s autonomy than to that of an anticipated relation of equality andcomplementarity within the family based on the recognition of his economicindependence and his contribution to the family income.



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For Sophia, the family constitutes the main field for the observation and experienceof the inequality of gender relations. Her father and mother constitute two differentexamples of biographical trajectory around which she attempts to build her life-plansand identity. Sophia’s choices for her future correspond to the family plans regardingthe existing alternatives and possibilities: either in terms of the reproduction of thefather’s position through the acquisition of a university degree, or in terms of thereproduction of her mother’s role in case the former alternative failed to be

accomplished. For Sofia, the family, mainly in the guise of her father, constitutes anunchallenged agent of coercive imperatives. Her pursuit of independence does notchallenge the role of dominated person that she possesses within the family. It doesnot lead to a breach with the parental models and imperatives. On the contrary, thesemodels and imperatives are reproduced through the adoption of the most propitiousplan offered to her, by the family perception of the ’realistic’ alternatives regardingher life-plans and identity.

For Mlanolis, the family mainly constitutes the space for the transmission ofcultural capital between generations and of the rules and practices that function as thepreconditions for social recognition and success. On the basis of already securedeconomic comfort, l~Ianolis shapes his identity and his life-plans, conforming absolutelyto his family’s imperatives, which, however, are not imposed authoritatively, but havealready been internalised during the primary stages of his socialisation. In this case,it is the whole of the family (mainly the mother and her kinship network) that isexperienced as a field of free choices - on the condition, of course, that certain termsare satisfied: efficiency, competitiveness, the struggle for distinction are some of theconstitutive elements of a framework that is accepted as a precondition for theestablishment of each member’s autonomy.

On another level, the place of residence constitutes an almost impenetrable limitregarding the movements of these young people. Especially in Nikos’ case, the moveto another geographical area has been registered as a traumatic experience that nearlythreatens the stability of the individual existence. The origin and the place of thefamily’s residence constitute factors offering security as they provide knowledge ofthe environment and of the people within it. Everything here is already orderly,arranged and expected. A move beyond known boundaries is unthinkable. Even inthe case of Nikos’ attempted departure from his place of origin for educationalpurposes, the situation is experienced traumatically and disruptively. The possibilityof leaving the realm of communal familiarity is irreversibly blocked off. For Nikos, theplace of origin equals the presence of familiar people, relationships of reciprocalacquaintance which bend and by-pass every sign of social distinction and

differentiation. What prevails is common origins, shared values and rules of behaviourand action: a kind of idealised world, an ’imaginary community’, where the commonorigin degrades and conceals existing social and class divisions.

For Sophia, the place of origin encapsulates a communal Generalised Other, thatposes explicit limitations to personal life, while simultaneously attempting to enforce



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common modes of perception and thought on everyone: imperatives that do notfunction in a uniform way but are differentiated according to age and gender. Morsespecifically, young women enter the field of these close communal relationshipsalready in a dominated position because of their specific (and socially constructed)characteristics. Being a priori confined within the domestic sphere (even when theyactively offer productive - mainly rural - labour), they are always faced with theirmother’s social destiny. It is a double subjection: to the male and to the place of originsince the latter is institutionalised through the community. Sophia’s life-plans,regarding education and employment, are built around one central objective: departurefrom the communal framework. This exit from the community, however, is attemptednot through a rejection of and a break with it, but through the acquisition of thoseresources (the university degree and the symbolic status that it entails) that allow forand guarantee both Sophia’s exit from the community and her acceptance by it.

At the other end, Manolis presents his relationship with his place of origindifferently. His choices appear to be independent of his place of origin and they donot register any kind of confinement deriving from it. The narrow local horizon isbroken up mainly due to the subject’s adherence to the dominant values of individualachievement, of rational choice and action, and of competitiveness, but also due to theunhindered access to cultural goods.

In all cases examined above we observe the following :The shaping of life-plans is overdetermined by the subject’s membership in

collectivities.

The capacity to articulate an ’individualised’ life-plan based on self reference andself reflection by the subject i) is related to his / her social position (possession ofeconomic, educational and cultural capital), ii) does not constitute a self evident andgiven right but one that has to be claimed against the social demands set by collectivedeterminations (family, community). Individuality is not constituted within a frame-work in which the collective sources of meaning have been exhausted or dried up.The articulation of an individualized life-plan has to be realised through calculating,widening, or even overcoming, the obligations and the margins that are imposed bythe collective forms of coexistence. To the extent that the formal channels permittingit have already been established within the community, this requirement does notnecessarily lead to a breach.

Apart from the heuristic importance that can be attributed to Beck’s generalscheme regarding individualization as the central distinctive characteristic of late

modernity, we believe that the construction of individuality in each specific socialformation is overdetermined by the particular way in which modern and traditionalelements are articulated within it, in accord with to its socio-historical structuring.Adopting Beck’s scheme as a universal interpretative framework risks eclipsing theadded weight of certain social determinations (membership in collectivities, socialclass, or gender) in the constitution of individuality within specific social formations.



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Notes1 The project is being carried out by the Sociology Department of the University of Crete. Co-ordinator of the project is Prof. Skevos Papaioannou.2 More specifically, regarding the region of Crete, we need to point out that it diverges to acertain degree from the rest of Greece. We can trace a trend of urbanisation and tertiarisationof the economy complemented by a dynamic primary sector and agricultural production.The population of Crete numbers approximately 537,000 and represents 5 percent of the wholeGreek population. Since 1951, when the population was 462,000, it has increased by 74,856 (16percent), or at a rate of 0.38 percent per year. The overall demographic changes are indicativeof the trend of internal migration of the population of Crete towards both the urban centres ofmainland Greece and the city Herakleion on the island itself. The population of the county ofHerakleion represents approximately half of the entire population of Crete. On the other hand,the region of Crete as a whole presents a higher rate of rural population than the rest of Greeceand a respectively lower rate of urban population.We should also point out certain peculiarities regarding the age distribution of the population.In Crete we find a relatively high proportion of youth as well as a high percentage of old people.The first can be attributed to the relatively high birthrate in Crete after the Second World War,while the relatively high proportion of old people can be attributed to the comparativelyhealthier conditions prevailing in the whole of the region of Crete, which are related to the localnutritive/dietary customs.According to certain estimates life expectancy in Crete in the age of 65 is higher than all theother regions and 4 percent higher than the whole of Greece. The consequence of this is thatthe proportion of the productive section of the population is lower (by 3 percent approximately)than the respective proportion of the whole population of Greece (Papaioannou et al.: 1998).Crete has one of the most rapidly developing economies in Greece and is distinguished for itsincreasing contributions to the Gross National Product (GNP) of Greece. During the 80s anddespite the high decline of the real national rate of development (from a 4.9 percent during the70s to a 1.8 percent during the 80s) the decline in Crete was lower, leading the economy of Creteto a different course from that of the Greek economy as a whole. This development cannothowever be attributed to all sectors of the economy. While during the 70s all productive sectorshad developed rapidly, during the 80s the primary and secondary sectors developed at a lowerrate than the tertiary one. The tertiary sector retains its primacy regarding its contribution tothe increase of the Gross Regional Product (GRP) during the 70s and the 80s (Papaioannou etal., 1988). This peculiar articulation entails the coexistence of traditional and modern trends,both at the level of the economy and that of culture and everyday life. The young men andwomen of Crete especially experience strongly the contradictions that are produced by themodernising trends of the economic, social and cultural life of Crete. In this sense, Creteconstitutes a preferential field for the observation of contemporary social transformations,offering good opportunities to understand their complexity.3 Regarding the selection of the material for this study, a double procedure was employed:A large number of cases (50 interviews) was selected on the basis of social characteristics thatcould constitute factors of differentiation vis-à-vis the main issues of the study (gender, origin,educational and economic capital of the family, level of education, occupation, full/part-timeemployment)Following an initial analysis of all the 50 cases, we chose those that could support theformulation of initial hypotheses regarding the central issues posed by the study. Next, usingthe permanent comparison method and that of maximisation/minimisation of the differenceswe chose those cases that could help in the transformation of our initial hypotheses and in the



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final formulation of our theoretical findings. This type of elaboration goes together with thelogic of theoretical sampling, as developed by A. Strauss and J. Corbin (1990).The cases presented in the text, although differentiated both in respect to the subject’s aimsrelating to his/her access to higher education and to future occupation, as well as in respect tosocial characteristics (gender, economic and educational family capital, agricultural vs. townorigin) show our basic finding: the shaping of life-plans are overdetermined by the subject’sincorporation in collectivities.4 On the concept of ’capital’ and its different types, see Bourdieu (1982).5 On this distinction, see Weber (1922).

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Biographical trajectories and identity: Traditional overdetermination and individualisation