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Trajectories of belonging among Nordic rural youth: strengthening, weakening, or conflicting belonging over time
Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway.
Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Department of History and Ethnology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Umeå University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Education. (RECEUM)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5308-7002
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2025 (English)In: Growing up rural: qualitative longitudinal explorations of young people living in the Nordic countries / [ed] Kaisa Vehkalahti; Ingunn Marie Eriksen; Jeanette Østergaard, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, 1, p. 145-170Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This chapter investigates what constitutes Nordic young people’s sense of belonging—or not belonging—in their rural communities. Belonging is approached as a concept referring to a sense of connection, membership, and security, here infused with individual and collective histories and shaped by everyday practices. Despite the recent interest in the concept of belonging in youth studies (cf. Harris et al., 2021), longitudinal research on rural youth belonging is rare, and we know little about what shapes belonging over time. Drawing on extensive and comparable qualitative longitudinal data from Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark (n = 196), the chapter investigates what constitutes young people’s sense of belonging in rural regions, along with how belonging changes over time. Drawing on both the ongoing theoretical discussion and Nordic data, the chapter distinguishes between three central dimensions of youth belonging—the social, spatial, and cultural—while identifying three common trajectories of belonging: (1) In strengthening belonging, all three dimensions of belonging are balanced in supporting transition to adulthood in rural areas with ease: strong connectedness to local communities, place attachment, but also appreciation of values, traditions, and lifestyles characteristic of their region. (2) In weakening belonging, different dimensions of unbelonging work together to weaken belonging over time. This may be resolved by moving, but this is not always possible. (3) In conflicting belonging, some dimensions of belonging are in conflict with each other. Young people may express a strong belonging to nature but experience social unbelonging, which results in trajectories where easy solutions are not available. Longitudinal data allow for a reflection on the dynamics between different dimensions of belonging: Earlier bonds of belonging may loosen, while others are reinforced over time in different phases of life. The chapter contributes to the ongoing discussion of youth belonging by showing that the way different dimensions of belonging intertwine and change have consequences for the life trajectories of rural young people. Belonging is often partial, involves negotiation and struggle, and is a result of the continuous recreation and repetition of performative practices.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, 1. p. 145-170
Series
Studies in Childhood and Youth, ISSN 2731-6467, E-ISSN 2731-6475
National Category
Educational Work
Research subject
educational work
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-245525DOI: 10.1007/978-981-96-7127-4_7Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105019318369ISBN: 978-981-96-7126-7 (print)ISBN: 978-981-96-7129-8 (print)ISBN: 978-981-96-7127-4 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-245525DiVA, id: diva2:2006427
Projects
The Future of Nordic Youth in Rural Regions: A Cross-national Qualitative Longitudinal Study in four Nordic Countries
Part of project
Youth in transitions – a qualitative longitudinal study on education and career trajectories among young people in rural Sweden (2015-2024), Swedish Research CouncilAvailable from: 2025-10-14 Created: 2025-10-14 Last updated: 2025-11-03Bibliographically approved

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Rönnlund, MariaTollefsen, Aina

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
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