Metaphor and ‘career’

This article provides a series of readings of a young man’s career—a career that was shared in the context of a research project. Although similar, each reading is qualitatively different in the sense that new material is introduced on each occasion. This, in turn, highlights the limitations of the word as a form of representation. The article argues that in order to encapsulate the irreducible hermeneutic characteristic of a ‘career,’ a non-linear form of representation is required. The article moves on to show how metaphor can be utilized to represent ‘career’ in both words and images. This includes a detailed examination of the notion of metaphorisation—a constructionist term that denotes the relationship between metaphor and consciousness. The article concludes with a discussion of the methodological possibilities offered by metaphor for conducting research.