Abstract
The study of life courses remains subordinated to methods wedded to linearity, in which present, past and future are linked together in a sequential chain. Social structures, however, are increasingly maze-like, and life courses are written out in hypertextual networks, guided by metamorphosis, multiplicity and reversibility. The future has unchained itself from plans that sought to tie it down (defuturizing it), and the corresponding horizons of possibility have broadened. In order to deal with this changing situation, we will probably have to think in terms of a 'post-linearist sociology'. The maze-like structures in which 'life dilemmas' are lived out also suggest that we should discuss the hypothesis of 'defuturizing the future'. 'Biographical research' into Portuguese young people (n=14) suggests that the future is not defuturized as a result of being under control, given that, in reality, the principle of uncertainty rules. On the contrary, the defuturization of the future occurs through 'utopization' (imagined or open future) or 'atopization' (the banalization or absence of the future).
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