Research project In the moral periphery. Youth culture, values and political subjectivity in rural spaces
About young people's cultures and everyday life in the Swedish countryside.
This research project centers on the everyday lives of young people in the Swedish countryside. The study examines place practices, gender relations and subject formation from an intersectional perspective. The dissertation is an ethnographic study based on a ten months long fieldwork among 14-16 year old’s in a small community in rural Sweden. Participant observations have been conducted with youth in school and during leisure activities.
The analysis is further based on a large number of qualitative interviews with youth and adults living in the community. In addition, the material also consists of media representations such as news articles and TV-productions that in different ways express normative understandings of what the rural is, have been, or should be.
Project description
The aim of the study is to examine rural youth culture and young people’s negotiations of their cultural and material situations, as well as understanding of how these are related to broader societal processes. The youth’s different place practices are read through an intersectional lens, highlighting how gender, sexuality, class, race and age are manifested in their everyday lives. A specific focus is put on the power relation between the urban and the rural and how youth negotiate and resist the stereotypical articulations often directed at the countryside, which are often reproduced in media, politics and everyday discourse.
Project members
Project managers
Susanna Areschoug
Forskare
More about this project
Main supervisor: Lucas Gottzén
Supervisor: Elias Le Grand
Research area: Child and Youth Studies, youth and gender