Social investment as reciprocal becoming: Negotiating conditional employment support among young people

Abstract This article examines mandatory activation as a site where reciprocity, aspirations, and social investment logics are enacted and negotiated in practice. Drawing on qualitative interviews with young people subject to activation requirements in Norway, this study explores how participants experience and respond to expectations of participation, effort, and future-oriented change. Conceptually, the article combines perspectives on reciprocity, reciprocal becoming, and the capacity to aspire to analyse tensions between moral expectations and uneven capacities to meet them. The findings show that activation simultaneously produces spaces of belonging and social support, and experiences of control, coercion, and ambivalence. While some participants align with normative expectations of work and contribution, others negotiate or resist these expectations in light of constrained opportunities and resources. The article contributes to social investment research by foregrounding lived experiences and highlighting how activation policies shape both moral subjectivities and future aspirations.