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. |