‘It is hard for me to live in the city’: local identities and place attachment among young rural Russians

Nadezhda A Nartova,Yana N Krupets

doi:10.14515/monitoring.2019.1.17

Abstract

The contemporary youth studies are mostly metrocentric. As a result, rural youth often find themselves outside the focus of researchers' attention being marginalized in comparison with urban youth whose experience and lifestyle are perceived as a normative model. In these conditions, rural space is labeled as illegitimate and structurally depriving for youth. This approach is criticized by researchers who work in the tradition of the cultural geographies of childhood and youth and take into account complex, often contradictory but still unique and autonomous experiences of today's young people living in rural areas. The article is based on 59 biographical interviews and describes how Russian rural youth comprehend belonging to places in three rural localities. The authors single out three types of prerequisites defining the place attachment and local identities among young people: rational choice, biographical rootedness, and community rootedness. Acknowledgments. The study was implemented in the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2015-2016. We thank our colleagues from the Centre for Youth Studies at NRU HSE in St. Petersburg who participated in interviewing the respondents and whose excellent and professional work was indispensable for writing this article.

Highlights

Contemporary scholars point out that the global urban imagination is becoming central to the present age [Madden, 2012: 784]
Rural youth often find themselves outside the focus of researchers' attention being marginalized in comparison with urban youth whose experience and lifestyle are perceived as a normative model
Despite the fact that there are different types of settlements in the Leningrad Oblast — cities, towns, villages — in the stable metacultural Russian narrative it is perceived as a suburban and rural area compared to the metropolitan city of Saint Petersburg

Summary

МОЛОДЫХ СЕЛЬСКИХ РОССИЯН

«МНЕ ДОВОЛЬНО-ТАКИ ТЯЖЕЛО ЖИТЬ В ГОРОДЕ»: ЛОКАЛЬНЫЕ ИДЕНТИЧНОСТИ И СОПРИЧАСТНОСТЬ МЕСТУ МОЛОДЫХ СЕЛЬСКИХ РОССИЯН ‘IT IS HARD FOR ME TO LIVE IN THE CITY’: LOCAL IDENTITIES AND PLACE ATTACHMENT AMONG YOUNG RURAL RUSSIANS. В данной статье на основе 59 биографических интервью авторы показывают, как российская сельская молодежь мыслит свою сопричастность месту в контексте трех сельских локальностей, и выделяют три типа предпосылок, определяющих принадлежность месту и конституирующих локальные идентичности молодежи: рациональный выбор, биографическая связность и социальная укорененность. Rural youth often find themselves outside the focus of researchers' attention being marginalized in comparison with urban youth whose experience and lifestyle are perceived as a normative model In these conditions, rural space is labeled as illegitimate and structurally depriving for youth. Мы благодарим наших коллег из Центра молодежных исследований НИУ ВШЭ в Санкт-Петербурге, которые приняли участие в сборе интервью, и чья отличная и профессиональная работа сделала возможным написание этой статьи

Introduction

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