摘要：This article examines how much of qualitative research in gerontology in the United States is undertaken in the context of life course theory. Some critics, such as Gubrium and Holstein, have criticized the naturalism in life course studies, particularly how such realism might divert attention away from the activity whereby persons constrict their lives. Nonetheless, critics continue to use metaphors to describe how a life is constructed that are consistent with this underlying naturalism. As a result of retaining this idiom, the life course can be easily reified. In this sense, this paper focuses on the likely problems caused by the use of these metaphors, while invoking some more recent theories, such as phenomenology, to demonstrate alternatives to constructing personal biography
