Affective practices in transition(s) – learning as becoming in the transition into retirement

Wanka, Anna (author)

This paper explores how affects shape life course transitions and processes of learning and becoming. Life transitions involve shifting self-world relations, changing social positions, and reconfiguring boundaries, which can be understood through transformative learning and theories of becoming. Drawing on a qualitative longitudinal study with 29 older adults experiencing work-related transitions (unemployment, retirement, encore careers), I analyse episodic interviews and photographic diaries spanning over a period of three years using constructivist grounded theory and situational analysis. The findings show that out-of-work transitions evoke a queer, erratic affective attunement, moving from exhaustion to restlessness, and eventually to calm and joy. Affects are inherent to transitions, emerging within transitional assemblages and as properties of practices like repetition, recognition, and novelty. They act as connective tissue between practices and practitioners, co-constituting the entities undergoing transition. Affects also materialise in bodily perceptions and specific transitional temporalities. The study highlights how examining affective practices enriches the understanding of transformative learning and becoming in work-related life transitions.

• Language: English
• Keywords: adult education, affects, work, transitions, becoming, transformative learning
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2025
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 97-115
• Numbering: Letn. 31, [št.] 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-178414
• UDC: 374.7
• ISSN on article: 1318-5160
• COBISS.SI-ID: 256022019
• Publication date in RUL: 27.01.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Andragoška spoznanja
• Shortened title: AS. Andrag. spozn.
• Publisher: Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 1318-5160
• COBISS.SI-ID: 45586176

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Afektivne prakse v prehodu(-ih) – učenje kot postajanje v prehodu v upokojitev
• Keywords: afekti, delo, prehodi, postajanje, transformativno učenje