Creating connections for expansive learning in crisis-laden times of long-term unemployment

Abstract

This paper deals with the crises of long-term unemployment using subject theory, biographical research and critical theory as the framework. Based on narrative-biographical interviews with long-term unemployed people, I identify the factors and conditions that turn long-term unemployment into a crisis, arguing that expansive learning processes and the competence of utopian thinking are essential for creating visions of one’s occupational future as well as (social) utopias, thus, being a way out of these crises. The findings of the data show that subjective crises in times of prolonged unemployment are not always caused by unemployment itself and that existing visions of the occupational future cannot always be pursued.