Austerity and Altered Life-Courses: Socio-Political Ruptures to Family, Employment and Housing Biographies Across Europe

自2008年以来，紧缩政策和全球经济危机对整个欧洲的年轻人的人生历程产生了直接和破坏性的影响。这对现在年龄在35岁及以下的人来说尤其严重，他们在整个成长时期都经历了严重的破坏（“社会政治破裂”）。这包括对家庭生育决定、就业机会和住房安排的相互关联的影响。这些都取决于上下文。为了调查这些问题，本项目以大曼彻斯特（英国）、巴塞罗那省（西班牙加泰罗尼亚）和撒丁岛（意大利）三个欧洲自治区为研究对象。越来越多的学术和政策相关研究关注紧缩和经济危机对年轻人未来的影响。然而，学术界和决策者较少了解的是青年人生命历程传记中社会政治破裂之间的相互联系。对交叉的社会政治断裂缺乏了解，也反映在政策和政府各自为政，住房、家庭和就业政策和部门很少整合。还需要将生命过程的观点纳入决策过程，以更好地考虑政策（如紧缩政策）的社会生活如何在执行后很久才能在实地感受到影响。作为一种补救形式，该项目建议不要将紧缩视为时间、社会或空间上的一个点，而是将其视为不断形成和重塑的过程，并与经验、历史和未来进行对话。该项目提供了必要的概念新奇和经验创新，以解决这些复杂的问题。它通过综合和扩展跨社会科学学科的概念方法，开发创造性的方法工具，并共同设计区域政策建议，将生命过程的观点嵌入区域政策。它将重现地理学中的生命历程方法所提供的长期视角，具有新的方法论扭曲，并将开发一种新的方法来理解政策，认为“政策的社会生活”在空间和时间上是偶然的。为了推进这一议程，该项目以以下研究问题为指导：1。根据当地严峻的环境，青年人在生活道路上经历了哪些重叠的社会政治破裂？2.年轻人如何表达和设想这些社会政治破裂对他们未来传记的影响？3.关于紧缩的生命历程观点如何塑造对政策的社会生活的理解和应用？为了解决这些问题，将在每个地点进行深入的创造性口述历史访谈（每个地点100人），记录紧缩对年轻人一生经历的影响，重点是社会政治破裂之间的联系。这将产生一个丰富的、创新的数据库，详细描述紧缩政策留下的活生生的、复杂的遗产。经许可，编辑后的采访将提交给每个地点的当地公共档案馆，并用于开发展览。比较经验要素还得到了系统的领域概况和文献综述的支持，这些文献综述汇集了该领域的多学科和政策工作，跨越了语言和背景。联合制作讲习班将利用通过每个地点的展览和网站介绍的项目结果，就如何将政策的社会生活的生命过程观点和想法纳入区域政策提出政策建议。在伙伴的支持下，将在政策执行讲习班上讨论这些问题，各级政府的决策者将参加这些讲习班。该项目还将建立一个实践社区，导致欧洲第一个研究和政策网络，重点是年轻人的生命历程传记和紧缩（ENYPLA）。

Austerity and the global economic crisis have had direct and devastating impacts on young people's life-course biographies across Europe since 2008. This has been particularly acute for those now aged 35 and under, experiencing significant disruption ('socio-political ruptures') throughout their formative years. This includes interconnected impacts on family childbearing decisions, employment opportunities, and housing arrangements. These vary depending on context. To investigate these issues, this project is focused on three European devolved or autonomous regions: Greater Manchester (UK), Barcelona Province (Catalonia, Spain) and Sardinia (Italy).A growing body of academic and policy related research on the lived experiences of austerity and economic crisis considers the impact on young people's futures. However, less understood by academics and policy-makers are the interconnections between socio-political ruptures for/within life-course biographies of young people. A lack of understanding about intersecting socio-political ruptures is also mirrored in policy and government silos, whereby housing, family and employment policies and departments are rarely integrated. There is also a need to embed life-course perspectives into policy-making, to better account for how the social life of policy (such as austerity) has impacts that are felt on the ground long after implementation. As a form of redress, this project proposes thinking about austerity not as a point in time, society or space, but as constantly being formed and reshaped, and in dialogue with experiences, histories and futures. This project provides the necessary conceptual novelty and empirical innovation to address these complex issues. It does so by synthesising and extending conceptual approaches from across social science disciplines, developing creative methodological tools, and co-designing regional policy recommendations that embed life-course perspectives within regional policy. It will reprise long-term perspectives offered by a life-course approach within geography, with a new methodological twist, and will develop a new approach to understanding policy that considers the 'social life of policy' as spatially and temporally contingent. To advance this agenda, the project is guided by the following research questions:1. In what ways have young people experienced overlapping socio-political ruptures to their life-courses, according to local austere contexts? 2. How do young people articulate and envision the impacts of these socio-political ruptures on their future biographies? 3. How can life-course perspectives on austerity shape understandings about and applications of the social life of policy? To address these questions, in-depth creative oral history interviews (100 per site) will be carried out in each site, documenting the impacts of austerity on young people's life-course biographies, focused on the linkages between socio-political ruptures. This will produce a rich, innovative body of data detailing the lived, complex legacies of austerity. With permission edited interviews will be submitted to local public archives in each site and used to develop an exhibition. The comparative empirical elements are also underpinned by systematic area profiles and literature reviews that bring together multi-disciplinary and policy work in the field, across languages and contexts. Co-production workshops, drawing on project findings presented via an exhibition in each site and a website, will develop policy recommendations on bringing life-course perspectives and ideas about the social life of policy into regional policies. These will be discussed at policy implementation workshops with the support of partners and attended by policy-makers from various levels of government. The project will also build a community of praxis leading to the first European research and policy network focused on young people's life-course biographies and austerity (ENYPLA).