RURALIZATION Project. The opening of rural areas to renew rural generations, jobs and farms. D4.3 Inventory of futures dreams by the youth:technical report.
Skrzypczyński Robert; Ruuska Pertti; Kuhmonen Tuomas
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021102752625
Tiivistelmä
This report is a documentation for an extensive futures dreams inventory which was carried
out by the RURALIZATION team. A diverse set of 20 regions in 10 countries was selected to be
the study areas. A sample of young people (18–30 years) living in these areas was invited to
describe the personal dream future in about 15 years (year 2035). The dream futures
consisted of the livelihood recipe (how do you earn your living?), the accommodation recipe
(where do you live?) and the lifestyle recipe (how do you live?) as well as the obstacles for
realising the dream. The inventories were carried out in national languages and they followed
a shared format.
The inventories resulted in 2,208 responses. The responses were analysed per type of the
dream area, which made it possible to compare profiles of the dream areas. At the highest
feasible level of abstraction, the dreams targeted to the city centres could be featured as the
dreams of rather young people and people who dream about mobile, eventful, international,
creative, successful city life and the balancing effect of regularity. The dreams targeted to the
city areas outside the centre were featured by communal, cozy and stable life in the urban
fabric, which allowed mobility, internationality and personal development in diverse ways.
The dreams destined to the suburbs in the city areas tended to be characterised by a flexible,
responsible as well as peaceful and home-centric ‘basic’ form of living at the outskirts of a city.
The dream futures targeted to the rural areas close to cities were profiled by a clear preference
for the countryside as a living environment which included waters, animals, private space and
a garden – dream of a family life in which work life was a subordinate of the rural lifestyle.
Futures dreams targeted to the rural villages were manifestations of the local paradigm in a
rural fabric. Finally, the futures dreams targeted to the remote rural areas were flavoured by
the ideal of living in the nature and with the nature – and having agency to do this.
The futures dreams were studied also from the perspective of the professional status.
Regarding these results, the dreams of becoming a farm entrepreneur were dreams of very
entrepreneurial ‘seniors among the juniors’ who dreamed about farming and living in the
green with the animals, vehicles and community members. The dreams of becoming a nonfarm entrepreneur were featured by a flexible, self-determined life where creativity and
nature-based recreation were balancing the work duties; the personal capacity was a specific
challenge. The dreams of being not employed as an entrepreneur(but rather a salaried worker)
were essentially manifesting various forms of ordinary life with work and leisure added with
a social and developmental orientation.
In the next steps of the RURALIZATION project the findings of the dream inventory will be
assessed in various interactive engagements which are targeted to findings ways to make the
dreams come true in various contexts.
Kokoelmat
- Rinnakkaistallenteet [19207]