Assemblages of well-being and belonging in young adults’ life-historical narrations: experiences from education and the labour market

Abstract

<p>This article provides an empirical study of assemblages of well-being and belonging in the everyday lives of young adults. Using a discursive-narrative reading, I analyse how a sense of well-being and belonging emerge in the life assemblages of the research participants. The article is based on an ethnographically grounded longitudinal life-history study (2019 – ongoing) with six Finnish young adults. The analysis is based on the notion that all the interviewees seemed to have given up some education or work-related dreams they had in upper secondary school and that some of the assemblages they had previously viewed as suitable or desirable no longer seemed right. What emanated from the data were narrations about the search for a new situation in life in which the participants sensed well-being and belonging. The results of the data reading suggest that the overarching element of the assemblages is that they should enable the participants’ sense of well-being and belonging. This meant neither an individually governed success story nor a materialistically rich life for the participants but instead meant enabling a softer, more ‘my kind of’ everyday life that included important social relations and a suitable tempo and support at work.<br></p>