Abstract
The main thesis of this article is that nations still form an essential socio-spatial unit in the worldviews and mind maps of contemporary youth. Borderlands - as loci of various(cultural, economic, etc.) forms of exchange - make an interesting context of study in this respect; this is where the forms of nationalist practices can be encountered in the most concrete occasions. In focus in this article are the youth of the Finnish-Swedish and Finnish-Russian borderlands (Karelia and Tornio River Valley) and their spatial identity frameworks. What is important is that young people are here treated as active agents instead of passive `consumers' of national identity, making identity political statements and choices that sustain and reconstruct nationalities and national identities. The article presents some examples of identity political practices, here categorized analytically as cultural and spatial. It ends with an exploration of some explanations for the persistence of national thinking and behaviour, even in current times of globalization and spatial restructuring.
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