Transitions during and between different phases of the life course have long captured the attention of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. They are central to understanding the organization and experience of life in every society. In pre-modern societies, this was particularly visible as life trajectories were structured by a few highly ritualized transitions such as birth, initiation, marriage, and death. In late modern societies, in contrast, differentiation and flexibility have led to more, and more diverse, life course transitions. Transitions are not simply “given” but instead emerge from how lives are organized differently across and within societies. In the opening chapter, we introduced Doing Transitions as a new framework for understanding life transitions (see Walther, Stauber, & Settersten, Chap. 1, this volume). This framework, inspired by a praxeological perspective, questions, reconsiders, and recasts some traditional ways of viewing transitions in the life course. We hope to offer a more comprehensive approach to understanding life course transitions, crossing the boundaries of age groups, life domains, and disciplines that so often segregate inquiry.

It is common to interpret transitions as individual experiences that are largely the result of personal choices and individual behaviors, even if they are framed and stimulated by institutions and structured by differential access to socioeconomic resources. A foundational tenet of the Doing Transitions framework is to question the separation between the constitution of transitions and individual processes of coping with and progressing through transitions. In fact, “doing transitions” means that transitions are shaped and produced through social practices. As transitions emerge, they are constantly reproduced and transformed through the interrelation of different modes of constitution and associated practices – or, more accurately, “bundles” of practices (see Schatzki, Chap. 2, this volume). The prior chapters, which have dealt with very heterogeneous fields, have explored how various transitions are being done and are nurturing a shift in theorizing transitions: instead of viewing transitions as fixed entities, they are handled as processual, dynamic, situated, and interwoven.

In the Doing Transitions program, from which most of the empirical contributions in this volume are derived, we have for heuristic reasons distinguished three different modes of constitution and associated practices: First, a discursive mode, with practices related to “articulation,” “attribution,” and “responsibility.” Discourses establish situational definitions, provide interpretive frameworks, and represent symbolic orders that contribute to the constitution of transitions. They articulate the conditions under which experiences are referred to as “transitions,” make attributions about their causes and consequences (especially “successful” or “failed” transitions), and assign responsibility to people for transition outcomes (see Boll, Chap. 11, this volume; Krumbügel, Chap. 13, this volume).

Second, an institutional mode, with practices related to “marking,” “processing,” and “gatekeeping.” Institutions can be viewed as expressions of social discourses, playing roles in regulating and processing transitions – setting expectations, routines, requirements, and procedures. Institutions mark the conditions, times, and duration of transitions; process individuals by preparing them for and assessing them as they make transitions; and assign gatekeepers who are responsible for guiding people in transition (see especially Walther, Chap. 3, this volume).

Third, an individual mode, with practices related to “positioning,” “learning,” and “decision-making.” Transitions involve individual practices, even as they are actively negotiated with other actors. Individuals position themselves towards expectations which are addressed by others; the way they do so is not determined and could also vary from expected pathways. Individuals become subjects in a double sense: they are subjected under these expectations, but also turn into subjects, enfolding agency in new ways (Butler, 1997). They acquire skills and knowledge related to the new status and integrate the new status into their idea of the self. They make decisions that affect the likelihood and experience of the transition, and which correspond to the ethos in neoliberal societies that individuals determine their life outcomes (see especially Eberle, Lütgens, Pohling, Spies, & Bauer, Chap. 9, this volume; Hirschfeld & Lenz, Chap. 4, this volume; and Krüger, Chap. 5, this volume).

At the same time, research in the Doing Transitions program has revealed that processes that constitute transitions are even more complex than the interrelation between discursive, institutional, and individual practices; or better: social practice is not only to be distinguished in terms of modes but also in terms of the dimensions of the social world. Some of these cross-cutting dimensions are reflected in the very structure of this volume.

First, the section on institutions and organizations reflects the finding that the regulation of transitions in many organizations in modern societies occurs through norms and expectations that are at once persistent across time and space and constantly being reinterpreted, translated, and negotiated (see Heinrich, Klevermann, & Schmidt-Hertha, Chap. 6, this volume; Riach, Chap. 7, this volume).

Second, times and normativities are inseparable because the time perspective inherent to a life course approach (e.g., sequences of transitions that permit distinctions of “before” and “after”) fosters normative assumptions about the “right” timing or duration of transitions. A Doing Transitions perspective reveals that beneath the chrono-normative structure of the institutionalized life course several “layers” or “levels” of time are at work in constituting transitions, such as historical and biographical time (see especially Sánchez-Mira & Bernardi, Chap. 8, this volume; Wanka & Prescher, Chap. 10, this volume).

Third, a practice perspective opens the view to the roles of non-human actors – or better, the materialities – involved in constituting transitions, such as bodies, spaces, and artifacts. Transitions emerge from discursive marks of physical and psychic development and at the same time are embodied by human actors; discursive, institutional, and individual practices are situated and at the same time contributing to the structure of social space. Transitions not only represent practical bridges between discursive, institutional, and individual modes of practice, but doing itself influences how transitions evolve (see Nägler & Wanka, Chap. 12, this volume; Freutel-Funke & Müller, Chap. 14, this volume).

A Doing Transitions framework therefore underscores the notion that transitions are not individual as much they are relational – constantly co-produced or shared with, conditioned by, or otherwise involving multiple others who are constructing and enacting roles and relationships and interpreting behavior in a social world. As such, this framework may be interpreted in connection and consistent with a “relational turn” in the analysis of life course transitions (Dépelteau, 2018b). It makes visible how social interactions and processes reify or create individual and group differences (“doing difference”), including how transition processes and outcomes are entangled in dynamics of power and empowerment, inequalities, politics, and the welfare state.

In this chapter, we aim to make an innovative contribution to the field by systematizing this shift in observing and analyzing transitions from a relational perspective. We will first recall some core aspects of the theoretical turn in the social sciences offered by relational approaches. Against this backdrop, we suggest five different patterns of relationality and, drawing upon chapters of this book, show how the science and practice of transitions can be advanced by leveraging these patterns of relationality. Finally, we outline some important implications for future research on transitions that emerge from this perspective.

A Brief Recapitulation of Social Theories on Relationality

Relational approaches represent a heterogeneous field of thinking and research but are united in distancing themselves from approaches that tend to substantialize social reality by addressing social phenomena independently rather than as interwoven. They are driven by an interest in the dynamic and multi-factored constitution of “the social,” accounting for the fact that “whatever happens comes from social relations between interactants. The world is relational and processual” (Dépelteau, 2018b, p. 4). In his “manifesto for a relational sociology,” Emirbayer (1997, p. 281) states:

Rational-actor and norm-based models, diverse holisms and structuralisms, and statistical “variable” analyses – all of them beholden to the idea that it is entities that come first and relations among them only subsequently – hold sway throughout much of the discipline. But increasingly, researchers are searching for viable analytic alternatives, approaches that reserve these basic assumptions, and depict social reality instead in dynamic, continuous, and processual terms.

Even if relational approaches are currently viewed as fashionable, they nonetheless look back on a long history of social theory that has not always explicitly referenced “relationality.”

The different research currents and theories (see Emirbayer, 1997) associated with the “relational turn” can be distinguished as follows (see Dépelteau, 2018a, p. v): First, they include network research, which analyzes “multilayered, fluid relational structures” that “are based on attributions of meaning and generate meanings themselves” in which “identities emerge from efforts to maintain and position (control) fundamentally only in relations” (Fuhse & Mützel, 2010, p. 15; cf. White, 1992). Second, they involve interdependence-oriented approaches such as symbolic interactionism, pragmatism, and practice theories (Alkemeyer & Buschmann, 2016; Reckwitz, 2003), and Elias’ sociology of figuration: “The question [...] of what actually binds people together in figurations [...] cannot be answered if one first considers all individual people alone” (Elias, 1970, p. 176). Third, a relational perspective draws on approaches based on power, inequality, and differentiation (Bourdieu, 1982; Butler, 1997, 2009; Foucault, 1972; Hirschauer, 2017). The type of transition research represented in the chapters of this book most often takes inspiration from the second and the third of these currents.

Relational social theory is a heterogeneous field, so it is perhaps no surprise that there are differences in the degree to which relations are understood as the unique or dominant mode of social realities. Dépelteau (2013) distinguishes three streams of relational thinking: (1) a “deterministic relational sociology,” in which social structures shape individual action; (2) a “co-deterministic relational sociology,” in which individuals have agency in existing relational structures; and (3) and a “deep relational ontology,” which rethinks notions of interaction in the direction of transactions (Dewey & Bentley, 1949). A Doing Transitions framework, with its focus on power, inequalities, and differentiation, is located between the “co-deterministic” and “deep” relational perspectives and is critical of substantializing thought. At the same time, some argue that a relational perspective is banal because analyzing social relations has obviously been central to its development from the very beginning (cf. Schatzki, 2019). Another concern is that relational approaches compromise the analytic rigor of the social sciences in trying to single out and understand specific identifiable elements of social relations.

Why Relationality Is Central to Understanding Transitions

Much transition research has analyzed the factors that influence transition “states” and their subsequent effects on life trajectories. This research has revealed the significance of dynamics related to how transitions reflect and contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities. But it has focused on one direction of the relationship: the effects of these factors on how transitions evolve. However, conceiving of transitions as social constructions or “doings” implies that transitions are not (just) entities that affect individual lives but are practices that are done while individuals pursue or are subject to transitions. In addition, a “doing” perspective involves reciprocal relationships: all processes involved in constituting a transition and influencing an individual’s experiences moving through it are at once affected by the emergence and the process of a transition.

At the most basic level, understanding transitions calls for a relational perspective because transitions simultaneously separate and link distinct life phases and status positions. However, in contrast to the normativity underlying an “institutionalized” life course, transitions most often are not linear and unidimensional but are instead complex and involve interpersonal and nonlinear processes. Linear conceptualizations of educational, occupational, or other types of life trajectories too often attribute or reduce those trajectories to individual choices, obscuring the complexity of life course transitions (see Bernardi et al., 2019). In addition, particular transitions cannot be understood in isolation of other transitions – for example, transitions into and out of employment are connected to family transitions, such as marriage and family formation, and vice versa – and are therefore also intertwined with other people (e.g., the principle of linked lives; cf. Elder Jr., 1994; Settersten Jr, 2015).

This leads to the question of decision-making, which as noted above tends to be attributed to the individual undergoing the transition – for example, individuals making choices about whether to enter or leave education or to join or separate from a partner. Whether decision-making is being conceptualized as being done individually or jointly in negotiation with others in specific situations depends on how their “agency” is conceptualized. A relational perspective understands agency as inherent to social practices, as affected or even fostered by power and responsibility in situated phenomena, and as inseparable from discursive frames in which individuals are recognized and addressed as someone (and not someone else). Through these “addressings,” individuals become subjects and, in the same moment, are subjected in being addressed in a specific way – for example, as mother, widow, pensioner, or person with special needs (see Walther, Stauber, & Settersten, Chap. 1, this volume). In fact, if we interpret transitions as processes of becoming – which means they entail a dialectic of internal identification and external ascription – this implies that transitions must be analyzed as processes of subjectification and in ways that overcome the dualism of structure and agency. The above question of decision-making could be framed accordingly.

Also, social relations empower and enable individuals – and disempower and disable others (Burkitt, 2018; Butler, 1997; Ricken et al., 2019). Transitions involve powerful processes of subjectification: People are addressed differently, bringing differential access to subject positions and different configurations of agency based on their unequal statuses and resources. Relationality is therefore crucial for an intersectional research perspective on social inequalities: “doing difference” is to be regarded as a complex feature of interwoven social differences, partly reinforcing and partly modifying each other. The reproduction of inequalities can also be analyzed through the interplay of discursive, institutional, and individual modes of shaping transitions described earlier, and the material, temporal, and interpersonal relations that contribute to this reproduction.

Relatedly, transitions occur in larger socio-political contexts and are significant to the welfare of societies. This means becoming conscious of the social divisions through which modern societies are structured and how institutional regulation reinforces genderism, bodyism, racism, classism, and ageism. Thus, the ways in which transitions are regulated through policies of many kinds (e.g., social, educational, labor market) – even where they respond to precariousness, exclusion, discrimination, insecurity, and anxiety – necessarily reproduce the normativities and normalities of the life course and the transitions regimes in which they are embedded.

Finally, analyzing transitions from a relational perspective requires the incorporation of history and discourse perspectives, which help illuminate how transitions are constituted in changing social contexts or, more precisely, how they are differently situated. What does it reveal about current societies if social processes increasingly refer to, shape, and are understood in terms of life course transitions? A relational perspective on transitions is therefore poised to account for and reveal the practical and institutional consequences of dominant discourses such as activation, lifelong learning, or optimization. However, the transformative character of transitions also applies to transitions themselves, as they are constantly reconsidered, reproduced, and modified, and constantly enacted and reenacted. The distinction between apparently “new” and “old” transitions, from which some transition research begins its inquiry, risks obscuring these ongoing processes.

Patterns of Relationality in Transitions

Relational thinking implies analyzing social phenomena – like transitions in the life course – by reconstructing their constitution through relationships and the social practices that reinforce them. When we say that relationships constitute transitions, this implies that relationships are the cause or are one cause among others. Although a relational perspective requires that one cease or ease the tendency to think about causality in linear ways, it does not mean that causality does not exist or is unimportant. However, “constitution” is not the same as “causality,” at least not in terms of linear causality. There are many different relationships that can be potentially attributed to the constitution of a transition; there is not one ingredient but a set of dynamics that help it emerge. In this section, we explore some of these patterns of relationships. Following Barad (2007, p. 176), there are forces (normally referred to as “causes”) that leave marks on bodies (normally referred to as “effects”). Referring to such a relationship in terms of linear causal determination results from identifying and separating phenomena as clearly defined entities. Therefore, such “agential cuts” need to be included into the analysis. Causality needs to be understood in terms of agency dispersed across different actors, materialities, space and time.

One concept inherent to such an understanding of agency, and that describes the constitution of transitions through relationships, is power. Some relationships may be more central to a phenomenon than others, and relationships vary with respect to the power differentials that structure them. A relationship that is both central to the constitution of a social phenomenon (for example, the relationship between age groups) and characterized by unequal or differential power (such as that between adults and children) will have a discernible effect on transitions (in this case, within childhood or adolescence). Power works in different ways, such as through knowledge (e.g., how phenomena are articulated in discourse and interpreted by actors, which are also shaped by normative messages about “how things should be” or “how transitions should look”); resources (e.g., socioeconomic resources and “materialities,” such as the qualities of bodies, spaces, or artifacts that permit or limit certain activities), and time (e.g., such as practices that are entrenched in institutions and hegemonial versus those that are found in single actors and specific situations).

Power constitutes relationships in different forms. We now turn to five patterns of relationality, which we approach theoretically as well as empirically through the chapters of this volume, and how they constitute transitions: (1) determination, (2) coincidence, (3) interactive spiral, (4) genealogy, and (5) demarcation. Before going deeper into these concepts, an important remark is in order: rather than representing distinct forms, these patterns might be imagined as a continuum marked by the extremes of determination and coincidence, with interactive spiral and genealogy in between while demarcation represents a cross-cutting aspect or function of such relationships. These relationships operate simultaneously and even interactively, but for reasons of clarity, we present them separately, offering what we hope will be compelling illustrations from the chapters and recognizing that it is sometimes difficult to isolate one category from the others. In examining relationships in this way, we do not mean to essentialize them.

Determination (“Because”; “Resulting from”)

One type of relationality, which we call determination, is activity that directly affects changes in the world. This is reflected in language to explain the existence of phenomena in terms of “because” or “resulting from.” Determination comes closest to the idea of linear causality. In practice, however, the complexity of social reality tends to be reduced by interpreting relationships in linear causal terms: B happened because of A. While the social sciences are accustomed to accepting social complexity, social practice itself is often structured and constituted by beliefs in and ascriptions of linear causality.

For example, according to the dominant construction of the life course, children are addressed as school-age students when they reach the expected age because their later roles in society as adults require specific skills and knowledge, and the taken-for-granted space for such learning is school. Based on assumptions about children’s cognitive, psychological, and social “maturity” and “readiness” for school, age becomes a quasi-natural yet normative determinant of entering school.

However, it is not age per se that determines this transition but instead the law, which regulates this transition through age. Law empowers authorities to direct a transition by enforcing compliance and exerting sanctions. Even if there is a need to deconstruct why the law encodes a particular age through social processes (see below), deconstruction does not weaken the power of the law. In this way, welfare states make participation in certain institutions compulsory (e.g., school, work, retirement). This includes the transitions associated with them, to which individuals must position themselves.

Welfare regimes therefore become “transition regimes” (Walther, Chap. 3, this volume), attributing a certain causality to the constitution of transitions. Welfare state institutions are powerful distinctive frameworks not only in addressing individuals as having to make a transition but also as having to do so at a specific time and in a specific direction. For example, curricula and training seem determined by the (shifting) necessities of labor markets while educational tracking and performance in school are often seen as “determining” later educational or life course transitions. Even if the meritocratic logic of school systems or the labor market suggest that “getting the best qualification will bring the best job,” it would be naïve and even ignorant to deny that some relations have a more powerful effect than others on how transitions are being done. For example, Hirschfeld and Lenz (Chap. 4, this volume) show that young people with low qualifications in their transitions from school to work cannot defy being addressed as disadvantaged – they must position themselves in this respect. Similarly, Krüger (Chap. 5, this volume) shows that young people on the upper end of the performance spectrum need to either take opportunities or legitimize not doing so. Although education and welfare are powerful in addressing individuals in terms of the expected timing and sequencing of life course statuses, individuals may make meaning of and position themselves in relation to those statuses in unique ways. Yet, the possibilities of positioning oneself differently are not determined but enabled or narrowed by the power resources individuals have at their disposal.

A rather obvious case of causal relationships as determinants of certain outcomes is the spatial situatedness of social practice. Even when one starts from a relational understanding of space (Löw, 2016), which both structures and is structured by social practices (see Schatzki, Chap. 2, this volume), the material qualities of space impose some activities and exclude others. This is nicely illustrated in the case of retirement (see Naegler & Wanka, Chap. 12, and Wanka & Prescher, Chap. 10, this volume), which is often linked to changes in space. One way of coping with the leaving (or being expelled) from the workplace upon retirement is to travel to avoid being home. These changes can also be related to the functionality of space, such as the specific material or emotional qualities of a house or flat (e.g., after the death of a beloved partner) that can force an older person to make the transition to other housing (Freutel-Funke & Müller, Chap. 14, this volume). Spaces can also have a facilitating function – for example common housing projects that offer alternative ways of sharing, caring, economizing effort, and working together. Space reveals itself as a complex net of interdependent relations of people and material features that play inhibiting or facilitating roles in transitions.

There is sufficient evidence from studies of social inequality that some relationships are more powerful than others, whereby their effect is primarily notable in one direction – for example, the power of an employer to hire or fire workers, the power of Western nations to open or close their doors to refugees from the East and South, the power represented by legal documents or specific diagnoses. These examples make it evident that what we may understand to be determining causalities are often complex and multidirectional rather than linear. However, the closer research is to the logic of its fields, the bigger the challenge of distinguishing “natural” or “factual” from social causality; the more research is distanced from the logics of its fields, the clearer these determinisms reveal themselves as powerful social constructs where other relations also matter. We will show that what often seems like linear, deterministic causality often implies a multiplicity of relations working together.

Coincidence (“While”)

Coincidence, in contrast to determination, captures a more contingent set of dynamics that can in many cases nonetheless be understood as a softer and de-centered form of causality. This is reflected in language that relates phenomena in a temporal perspective without making clear assumptions of causality. In the social sciences, for example, the move away from deterministic language, which has been replaced by softer language such as “while,” reflects the fact that positions of structural determination have been losing ground.

We envision a continuum of types of coincidence from what appears as pure (or accidental) coincidence to coincidence in which reciprocal effects lessen its accidental quality. A looser version of causality in constituting transitions are coincidences of different processes that occur at the same time, in the same place, and/or involve the same actors without the possibility of foreseeing them (such as the relationship between the biographies of two people who meet once on a train and have conversation that affects how one or both sees the world or themselves thereafter). However, it is not always easy or possible to distinguish coincidences from structured interactions. These may emerge from coincidences as they prove viable and successful according to the norms and interests of the actors involved. In fact, there are no examples of purely accidental coincidence in the chapters in this volume, which may be the exception rather than the rule in constituting transitions. Instead, it may be fruitful to assume that constitutive effects of many relationships are difficult to foresee but – in their reconstruction – reveal themselves to be less accidental than previously understood.

Interactive Spiral (“Adding Up”; “in Exchange”)

One of these intermediate patterns is what we call an interactive spiral, which probably occurs most often relative to more rigid conceptions of determination or pure forms of coincidence. However, here the challenge of complexity arises, which is why in everyday language less frequent expressions such as “adding up” or “in exchange” would be used to refer to the diversity of actors and processes involved and their effects over time, creating loose relationships or indirect chains of activities (see Schatzki, Chap. 2, this volume).

Heinrich and colleagues (Chap. 6, this volume) analyze reciprocal processes constituting transitions of two (or more) actors involved in a relationship of subjectivation. The transformation of organizations into gatekeepers in the life course, and the life course transitions of the individuals they process, follow different rationales and reflect different states of aggregation of social practice. Yet, they are not linked in an accidental way. For example, migrant organizations are addressed by state institutions as well as by migrants themselves as actors to facilitate their integration processes. At the same time, the subjectivation is structured by the organizations’ objective of distinction and self-sustainment in an institutionalized, politicized, and competitive environment.

Freutel and Müller (Chap. 14, this volume) show that transitions are situated but at the same time can link different places, pointing to the fact that transitions of one generation can induce transitions of another. This is reflected in the example of common housing projects, where housing is linked to transition-related experiences or prospects: the death of a partner, the fear or experience of one’s own vulnerabilities, the need for belonging. Artifacts are similarly relevant in that things create, furnish, or establish social situations for doing transitions (Nägler & Wanka, Chap. 12, this volume).

Sànchez-Mira and Bernardi (Chap. 8, this volume) depict biographic time as highly relative time. Especially while experiencing and undergoing transitions, time becomes multidirectional, elastic (the same number of weeks could be experienced as rush hour or as endless waiting period), and telescopic (which refers to biographical horizons/prospects and is viewed as highly relevant for the activation of agency, see Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). At the same time, life course transitions (and above all the so-called normative and highly institutionalized transitions) have linearity and strict time frames. Frictions, stress, and failure could result from the simultaneity of different temporal orders.

Interactive spirals have long been a focal point of transitions from school to work. We have discussed the power expressed by educational institutions in determining opportunities and outcomes in later stages of educational and life trajectories. However, this spiral evolves in different ways. One aspect is how young people position themselves in being addressed as disadvantaged or are expected to use exclusive career opportunities. Hirschfeld and Lenz (Chap. 4, this volume) have analyzed how disadvantaged young people use support and counseling in transitioning to vocational training, which reflects prior experiences of support and needs to be compatible with family and peer relationships. For example, the poor health of family members or the end of friendships may affect how young people interpret and make use of support and/or engage in supportive relationships with professional staff. On the other end of the spectrum of inequality, Krüger’s (Chap. 5, this volume) analysis of young people in elite schools shows that making transitions into prestigious positions requires translating family capital and institutional selection into subjectively relevant life perspectives to mobilize available resources.

Genealogy (“Building on”; “Following from”)

In the interactive spiral, causalities are dispersed over a diversity of relationships, even if in retrospect a narrative is imposed to make them appear less accidental. What we refer to as genealogy is even more complex because it brings a longer time frame into view and involves more institutionalized rules, leaving power even more dispersed across a greater variety of actors, dimensions, and times. This is reflected in language referring to sequences of events and relationships as “building on” or “following from.” Like the interactive spiral, genealogy does not single out specific aspects as causes of transitions but instead reflects a more macro-historical perspective where larger processes of social structuration build on each other and create sets of conditions that favor certain consequences or reduce or exclude the possibility of others. The key feature of genealogy is that it requires attention to both historicity and institutionalization.

This perspective is especially influenced by discourse theory, according to which representations do not determine certain consequences but create conditions for what can (or cannot) be said and thought (Foucault, 1972). Discourses are inherent in all practices and processes involved in constituting social phenomena, especially through language, and are thus powerful in contributing to the emergence of the social as seemingly self-evident. Thus, the idea of “building on” or “following from” strongly reflects an understanding of transitions as bundles of practices that are the consequence of chains of previous practices (see Schatzki, Chap. 2, this volume).

Boll (Chap. 11, this volume) analyzes the historical evolution of normality as a mechanism of coordinating and controlling human action through the merging of normativity, typifying knowledge through statistical averages of how most others live, and ongoing social practice. The “normal” life course emerges as the sequence of doing and undoing membership in age-based categories and the doing and undoing of other types of difference. Thus, transitions are the expression of distinction and typification according to time and membership in different social groups and categories. Normality is not the cause but a necessary condition of their constitution.

In an institutional perspective, genealogy is expressed through the concept of path dependency (North, 1990), referring to the narrow scope for organizational change resulting from the accumulation and interdependence of practices of institutionalization across historical time. The welfare state plays a role in producing transitions, and the concept of “transition regimes” (see Walther, Chap. 3, this volume; cf. Walther, 2017) allows an analysis of pathways of societal development in which different actors have interactively contributed to the emergence of a particular normality of transitioning. Transition regimes can be seen as constellations of doing transitions – as discourses prepare who is addressed (and how and when in the life course), as institutional forms of regulation bring these discourses to life, and as individuals then position themselves and make biographical meaning from them.

Riach’s (Chap. 7, this volume) analysis of “older workerhood” shows how different genealogies intersect. First, there is the grown generational order and life course regime according to which adulthood is construed as the productive life phase and old age marks pension eligibility. Second, there is the flexible and dynamic development of post-Fordist labor markets with specific orders of performance for each occupational sector. And third, there is the body memory of techniques needed to perform certain practices. Together, these create discrepancies of bodies being out of time and space, discrepancies which both mark and induce transitions.

However, genealogy also involves processes that occur at the micro level, such as in biographies – which evolve from a foundation of earlier experiences and identity-building but at the same time limit the scope of individual agency in given situations. Eberle and colleagues (Chap. 9, this volume) reconstruct how processes of individual positioning in different transitions – becoming politically active, making up missed school qualifications, or speaking about experiences of sexual abuse – become turning points in a life trajectory while also reflecting the accumulation of experience that makes them possible. Historical and biographical time also intersect: the specific conditions of individual lives are coupled with discursive practices that allow for such turning points – in the case of one of the studies addressed in the chapter by Eberle and colleagues, where increased public attention to sexual violence increased the probability that people who suffered sexual violence would raise their voice (and participate in the study). Similar dynamics emerged in the #MeToo movement. This is a good example of genealogy as it occurs across multiple interrelated layers of biographies, social life, and history. It is composed of coincidences that are regularly institutionalized into notions of how the world is and then revised in an interactive spiral of ontogenetic and phylogenetic development.

Coming back to young people’s transitions through education and into work, genealogy helps us see that forces that are apparently determining the constitution of transitions, like legal ages, are the result of ongoing struggle, debate, and negotiation, which at a certain point are institutionalized in a law and implemented by bureaucratic rules. This gives way to new debates which may lead to changing the law later. At the same time, law maintains the power to sanction. Hirschfeld and Lenz (Chap. 4, this volume) show how young people are not simply subject to institutionalized rules but try to negotiate the application of those rules. How they do this reveals a genealogical pathway of mobilizing support in their life history and family history. Thus, genealogies are not necessarily working together in a direct, progressive way but could also imply cycles of de-institutionalization and re-institutionalization.

Demarcation (“Before/After”; “Not Yet/Already/No More”; “Into/Out of”; “From/To”; “Other Than/Different from”)

Finally, demarcation cuts across the prior patterns and has a distinct quality. It reflects the fact that transitions are expressions of marking individual and group differences. Such marking of boundaries and transitions is reflected in the fundamental representation of transitions as movements from state A to state B, thus reproducing the difference between A and B. This means that doing transitions coincides with both doing and undoing membership in groups, institutions, and/or social categories based on specific status, including age, gender, educational credentials, employment positions, and the like. It also implies that the structural differentiation is reflected in life trajectories in linguistic figures such as “before/after,” “not yet/already/no more,” “into/out of,” “from/to,” or “other than/different from.” Once a transition occurs, the life of the individual is qualitatively different than it was before, whether in its objective conditions or in how they see themselves or how others see them.

In all these processes, the difference between A and B is not only reproduced but also creates dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that must be navigated and negotiated. The person becomes something new and often leaves behind what they once were. Membership occurs under specific conditions, and these processes of doing difference are both momentous and fraught with consequences. Deviations from the “normal expectable life,” to use Neugarten’s (1969) phrase, are marked as “otherness” while pathways that do not deviate reveal the “remarkable power of the unmarked” – for example, the male position, the north-European or “Western” position, or the heterosexual position (Zerubavel, 2018).

Boll’s (Chap. 11, this volume) analysis of the relationships between normativity and normality refers to such differentiation as it signals the boundaries that individuals need to pass to live their lives and participate in society according to the existing order. Normalcy (and deviance) are categories that function as (changing) framings and doings of transitions as (not) “normal” are attributed to the individuals concerned. Power becomes visible and highly productive in processes of human categorization: we are constantly becoming through our ongoing changing categorical affiliations (i.e., through dynamic processes of subjectivation). Some of these categories, even age or sexual orientation, are inherently dynamic and transitory. Boll argues that “we move differently through different kinds of categories. Some are sticky and have rigid boundaries, some have revolving doors and slippery floors” (p. 171).

Changing membership and categorization are intertwined, for example, through the gatekeeping of organizations, which reproduces pre-existing differentiation of employees/non-employees, employees with/without children, migrants/non-migrants, integrated/not yet integrated migrants, and the like. This is especially visible regarding transitions in education, work, or welfare, where status passages include becoming (or ceasing to be) a member of a particular organization (see chapters in this volume by Nägler & Wanka, Chap. 12; Hirschfeld & Lenz, Chap. 4; Riach, Chap. 7; Heinrich et al., Chap. 6; Walther, Chap. 3). In most cases, the differences between members/non-members includes further differentiation in judgments about the capabilities or achievements of these groups.

Transitions can also entail performances of these categories, such as how “growing up” or being “retired” are explored or expressed through bodies, spaces, and material things or ritualized in ways that announce them as transitions. Wanka and Prescher (Chap. 10, this volume) illustrate how both “youth” and “old age” are revealed through rituals that transform everyday life as individuals enter a new life phase and exit the prior one. Ritual or institutional staging ensure that both individuals and others involved as witnesses understand and confirm the transformation. Especially when they are highly institutionalized, rituals also become important mechanisms to help individuals or groups cope with the change and uncertainty associated with transitions.

In contrast to the construction of a transition as a single demarcated experience, Krumbügel’s (Chap. 13, this volume) analysis of the transition to parenthood instead illustrates a series of demarcated experiences. “The” transition cannot be reduced to the culminating event of the birth of a child but must be conceptualized further back in time, beginning in puberty when young people (and young women more explicitly than young men) are confronted with the possibility of pregnancy and becoming a “parent.” However, discursive practice ensures that the focus throughout the pregnancy is on the growth of the fetus and on the mother’s behavior through distinctions of “risky” and “healthy” pregnancy, “normal” and “abnormal” development, “responsible” and “irresponsible” motherhood. The knowledge transported via parenting advice literature reflects an assemblage of discursive practices involving “experts,” the publishing industry, and a whole market of birth preparation courses, nutritional supplements, and other products that direct and mark the pregnant woman and her body. These discursive practices subject women becoming mothers to a certain knowledge order of natural causality and “healthy behavior” constituted by the relationship between expert and body knowledge.

Having recalled the theoretical turn in the social sciences offered by relational approaches, we developed five distinct patterns of relationality – theoretically, as well as empirically through the chapters of this book. We have shown different ways that relationships have an impact on the constitution of transitions. But even where causal relationships at first sight seem to be deterministic, they prove to be multifaceted and dynamic. Genealogy, especially, explains how coincidental relationships become institutionalized over time.

Conclusion

Relationality matters for research and practice on transitions in at least four major ways. First, relationality forces reflexivity. Adopting a relational perspective entails critical self-questioning of how transition research is involved in the very constitution of its “object.” Once we acknowledge transitions as being constituted by social processes and practices, we must come to terms with the fact that researchers are part of and contribute to the social world and play roles in shaping the very subject matter they seek to understand. This means that researchers must reflect on their disciplinary, political, biographical, even corporal situatedness. These things affect what we understand as a problem and why we are drawn to it, the questions we ask, the types of data we gather, the methods we use for gathering and analyzing those data, and how we interpret what we find. This matters because we may in the process inadvertently perpetuate knowledge orders, reify normativities, contribute to social inequalities, and more.

Second, relationality makes clear that transitions cannot be understood as the individual-level phenomena they are so often construed to be. The Doing Transitions framework underscores the reality that transitions are never purely “individual” but are instead constantly co-produced or shared with, conditioned by, or otherwise involving multiple others who are constructing and enacting roles and relationships and interpreting behavior in a social world. This puts a premium on social relations, forces, and experiences, which must be present, if not occupy a central position, in transition research. Reflexivity demands that the wide range of disciplines involved in transition research critically reflect on their assumptions and myopia – and that they work in greater partnership on interdisciplinary inquiry to transcend the limits of their epistemologies and methods. This will foster the ability of researchers to treat transitions as processual, dynamic, situated, and interwoven, and to reveal the “bundles” of practices associated with them (see Walther, Stauber, & Settersten, Chap. 1, this volume; Schatzki, Chap. 2, this volume). A relational perspective should be built into empirical designs for analyzing transitions. Even where destinations and effects of transitions are the main concern, these need to be related to the emergence of transitions as much as the research questions and indicators. Here, the challenge is keeping accounts and reduction of complexity in a feasible balance.

Third, relationality demands that we develop a systematic perspective on transitions and not essentialize them. One risk of a relational perspective is that everything seems as if it must be in view, and everything seems potentially interrelated. Relations are manifold, but they are of different quality and strength. Our attempt to begin generating patterns of relationality in the context of transitions – from determination, to coincidence, interactive spirals, and genealogy, all of which can include processes related to demarcation – is just a first step. We are not suggesting that these different patterns automatically imply greater or lesser rigor in prescribing transitions, or that they automatically diminish or enlarge scopes for personal agency. But it seems helpful to recognize that on the one hand some relations have a more direct effect on the constitution of transitions than others, while on the other hand apparently singular aspects can emerge and be constantly reproduced through multiple relationships across time and space. Here, especially , we note the danger of essentialism and reductionism in research on transitions.

Finally, relationality makes more visible the socio-political relevance of transitions and, in understanding how transitions are shaped, practiced, and performed, brings the opportunity to improve transitions for the wellbeing of individuals, groups, and societies. The social pressure to regulate and treat the precarity of transitions has increased enormously, whether in early childhood, in the education system, into and out of work, in the context of migration, or in advanced age. These insecurities – and their regulations – bring complex questions of belonging and integration, which in both government and public discourses are too often individualized and translated into questions of individual competencies and responsibility, the need for and the access to help, and judgements about success and failure. In this way, migration policies, labor market policies, educational policies, social policies (down to regulations and practices of social work) very often reinforce exclusive forms of doing difference in transitions even as they try to address exclusion. Relationality counteracts these trends by revealing how transition processes and outcomes are entangled in dynamics of power and empowerment, inequalities, politics, and the welfare state. Reflexivity at the institutional level can help to formulate integrated policies related to the regulation and pedagogical configuration of transitions – which also brings the possibility of better managing social conflict and advancing social justice and democracy in an ever-changing world.