The article analyses mobility and belonging to a place among young people living in rural areas in Finnish Lapland. Our focus is on the meanings of locality when young people make decisions concerning education, work and their living environment. The data consist of 24 interviews of persons in the transition stage to adulthood and in need of support in finding educational or training opportunities. The article highlights the diversity of young people's aspirations as regards leaving, staying in or returning to their home region. We challenge the cultural discourse urging young people to move to growth centres from sparsely populated areas. Locality was found to play an important role in their lives and transitions. The key factors identified in the decisions of young people were embeddedness in one's home region and local, social relations and the prospects of meaningful life choices in either the rural or urban context.
In this article the theme of human agency is approached from the concrete standpoint of independent living. Leaving the parental home at a young age stands out as a significant life event-one which brings about more freedom, but also new responsibilities. To frame the analysis of the age group in this study, youth, I use the concept 'emerging adulthood', which suggests an age from late teens through mid-to late-20s. The article draws on research, which data were collected in the Helsinki metropolitan area during the years 2010-11 in the context of an outreach project targeted for young people who have no place to study or work, and cannot find the services they need. According to this study, a general and significant challenge in independent living is to adjust to being self-reliant. This abstract challenge was manifested in the young people's ability to master basic daily living and routines, social relationships and broader cultural and social expectations and norms.
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