scholarly journals Radically Ordinary Lives: Young Rural Stayers and the Ingredients of the Good Life in Finnish Lapland

Young ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 110330882110646
Author(s):  
Ria-Maria Adams ◽  
Teresa Komu
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
General Tendency ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Career Plans ◽  
Home Town ◽  
Finnish Lapland

This article focuses on young people who, despite the general tendency towards youth outmigration in rural areas, have decided to stay in their home town. We explore the agency of young, conscious stayers, as well as the process of staying in the northern Finnish town of Kemijärvi. The stayers’ values and perceptions of the constituents of a good life could be taken as an alternative to the prevailing Western ideal that emphasizes mobility and ambitious educational and career plans, and is, in part, driving young people to leave their rural hometowns. The stayers in this study are active participants in their own fate and are content with their choice of staying. Applying ethnographic methods, we undertake to learn what rural stayers consider the building blocks of a good life in a small-town setting, one offering comparatively limited options in terms of jobs, education and leisure activities.

Justice Seeking is Joy Seeking: The Formation of Faith-Informed, Community-Focused, Critical Consciousness in Adolescents

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
David Anderson Hooker ◽  
Elizabeth W. Corrie ◽  
Itihari Toure
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Community Development ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Intentional Community ◽  
Game Of Life ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Generational Identity ◽  
The Church

Abstract Seeking justice, understanding what makes for peace and pursuing it, these are integral aspects of the pursuit of the Good Life. In this chapter three youth and community development experts make the case that 1) a vital aspect of development is empowering adolescents with a faith-informed, community-focused, critical consciousness; 2) young people are formed in community and joy cannot be fully experienced except communally and in the pursuit of JustPeace; and 3) the church has opportunities to intervene at critical junctures in youth formation to help them see the importance of pursuing communal JustPeace for their own ability to live the Good Life. In support of these claims, a framework of radical Identity is postulated and two practices—the Eight Bowls of Life Ceremony for generational identity marking and the Game of Life, part of a three-week intentional community of the Youth Theological Initiative (yti) – are presented. Each practice contributes to formation of justice-seeking identities in adolescents as integral aspects of preparation for the life-long pursuit of God’s joy, God’s good life, and even God’s salvation.

scholarly journals Let’s talk about sex: Discourses on sexual relations, sugar dating and “prostitution-like” behaviour in drug treatment for young people

2021 ◽  
pp. 145507252110180
Author(s):  
Ditte Andersen ◽  
Ida Friis Thing
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Drug Treatment ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Sexual Relations ◽  
Exchange Economies ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Alternative Discourses ◽  
Recurrent Theme

Background: Sexual relations are a recurrent theme in drug treatment that aims for a holistic inclusion of concerns considered important in young people's lives. Nevertheless, it remains understudied how counselors attend to this theme Aim: To investigate the discourses on sexual relations in drug treatment for young people provided by the Scandinavian welfare state of Denmark Analysis: Drawing on qualitative interviews with 16 counselors the analysis first identifies three discourses that legitimize sexual relations as a theme in drug treatment by linking the theme to a) pleasure, b) risks, and c) problems. These discourses legitimize the theme by constructing sexual relations as part of the good life, as potentially harmful, or as related to past trauma triggering present problems. Second, the analysis identifies a gendered storyline on sexual relations in exchange economies, e.g., sugar dating, described by some counselors as “prostitution-like” behavior. Findings: The gendered storyline is almost exclusively linked to young women's behavior and produces a gendered shame by indicating deviant femininity. Simultaneously, the storyline taboos how the young men may experience vulnerable sexual relations in exchange economies Conclusion: Alternative discourses can provide a broader repertoire of subject positions to the benefit of all genders.

scholarly journals The good life in rural and urban Senegal: A qualitative and quantitative study

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0252134
Author(s):  
Priscilla Duboz ◽  
Enguerran Macia ◽  
Amadou H. Diallo ◽  
Emmanuel Cohen ◽  
Audrey Bergouignan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Satisfaction With Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
North East ◽  
Rural And Urban

Very few studies have analyzed the influence of the environment, rural or urban, on the notion of good life and subjective well-being in sub-Saharan Africa and none, to our knowledge, has combined qualitative and quantitative methodologies for this purpose. The objectives of this interdisciplinary study were: a) to understand the emic representations of the good life in rural and urban Senegal and; b) to compare the levels and determinants of satisfaction with life between these two populations. This study was carried out in Dakar and in a very isolated rural area in the North East of Senegal: the sylvo-pastoral zone of Ferlo. A total of six focus groups were conducted for the qualitative phase, while the quantitative phase was conducted on representative samples of the populations living in Dakar (N = 1000) and Téssékéré (N = 500). Our results indicate that, against all expectations, life satisfaction is better in the Senegalese Ferlo than in the capital, Dakar. This difference may be the joint result of less meaningful social comparisons and a relationship with nature as a source of stress restoration in rural areas. However, the lifeworld of the rural Fulani of the Ferlo is being undermined by global climatic disturbances, which imposes rapid adaptations of pastoralism; otherwise this activity, that is not only subsistence but also identity-based, may disappear.

scholarly journals Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Anita Hardon
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Psychoactive Substances ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Shared Understandings ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Abstract The everyday lives of contemporary youth are awash with chemicals to boost pleasure, energy, sexual performance, appearance, and health. What do pills, drinks, sprays, powders, and lotions do for youth? What effects are youth seeking? The ChemicalYouth ethnographies presented here, based on more than five years of fieldwork conducted in Amsterdam, Brooklyn, Cayagan de Oro, Paris, Makassar, Puerto Princesa, and Yogyakarta, show that young people try out chemicals together, compare experiences, and engage in collaborative experiments. ChemicalYouth: Navigating Uncertainty: In Search of the Good Life makes a case for examining a broader range of chemicals that young people use in their everyday lives. It focuses not just on psychoactive substances—the use of which is viewed with concern by parents, educators, and policymakers—but all the other chemicals that young people use to boost pleasure, moods, vitality, appearance, and health, purposes for using chemicals that have received far less scholarly attention. It takes the use of chemicals as situated practices that are embedded in social relations and that generate shared understandings of efficacy. More specifically, it seeks to answer the question: how do young people balance the benefits and harms of chemicals in their quest for a good life?

scholarly journals Philosophy and the good life

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy

This paper considers the implications for education of a reworked ancient Greek ethics and politics of flourishing (particularly as found in Plato), where ‘flourishing’ comprises the objective actualisation of our intellectual, imaginative and affective potential. A brief outline of the main features of an ethics of flourishing and its potential attractions as an ethical framework is followed by a consideration of the ethical, aesthetic and political requirements of such a framework for the theory and practice of education, indicating the ways in which my approach differs from other recent work in the field. I argue that the teaching of philosophy in schools and philosophical approaches to the teaching of other subjects are ideally suited to meet the pedagogic requirements of individual and communal flourishing so understood, contributing greatly both to the understanding of what a well-lived life might be, and to the actual living of it. I further argue that these requirements are not only derived from ancient Greek philosophy but are in turn especially well-served by the teaching and deployment of Greek philosophy itself. My claim is not that Greek philosophy has all the answers, or that other philosophers and philosophical approaches should be excluded; it is simply that Greek philosophy offers rich resources for those seeking to introduce children and young people to philosophy and to foster thereby their flourishing in both childhood and as adults.

scholarly journals Collective imaginaries of caring landscapes for rural youth: a concept mapping study in northern Sweden

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Frida Jonsson ◽  
Monica Christianson ◽  
Maria Wiklund ◽  
Anna-Karin Hurtig ◽  
Isabel Goicolea
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Concept Mapping ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Rural Youth ◽  
Youth Participation ◽  
Northern Sweden ◽  
Mapping Study ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis

Abstract Background In the current study, the approach of ‘utopia as method’ was combined with the concept ‘landscapes of care’ to explore collective imaginaries of caring landscapes in relation to young people living in rural northern Sweden, while focusing specifically on what such landscapes should ideally look like, and how various strategies could help to realise the visions. Methods The research was conducted using a modified concept mapping methodology comprising three phases of data collection and analysis. This facilitated the integration of tacit knowledge and utopian visions of young people, professionals and policymakers living and working in various parts of northern Sweden. Results The results indicated that caring landscapes should: ‘provide services responsive to young people’s wishes and needs’, ‘be organised around values of safety, equity and youth participation’, and ‘rework metro-centredness’ in order to care for, with and about rural youth. Conclusions The findings can be viewed as an imaginary reconstitution of communities in rural northern Sweden, but also as hypothetical building blocks to be used for developing caring landscapes and a ‘good countryside’ where young people have the possibility to live a good life in decent health.

Towards a new narrative on successful ageing

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Clemens Tesch-Römer ◽  
Hans-Werner Wahl ◽  
Suresh I. S. Rattan ◽  
Liat Ayalon
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Successful Ageing ◽  
Major Task ◽  
Conceptual Reasoning

The major task of this closing chapter is to strive for reconciliation between the very divergent positions and perspectives on successful ageing that have been outlined in this book. The building blocks enabling at least partial reconciliation are the emphasis of the need for pluralism in conceptual reasoning on the notion of successful ageing; the insistence that one must be aware of the full implications of choosing any particular model of successful ageing; and the claim that the discourse on successful ageing can only, to a limited extent, be driven by empirical data. Instead, illuminating the underlying normative conceptions of what it means to enjoy a good life in old age is key to arrive at a more holistic picture of successful ageing that comes with heuristic utility. At the same time, visions of the good life in old age need further elaboration, but remaining ambivalences seem unavoidable.

Ecosystem Services and Cultural Values as Building Blocks for ‘The Good life’. A Case Study in the Community of Røst, Lofoten Islands, Norway

2017 ◽  
Vol 140 ◽  
pp. 166-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjørn P. Kaltenborn ◽  
John D.C. Linnell ◽  
Erik Gómez Baggethun ◽  
Henrik Lindhjem ◽  
Jørn Thomassen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Lofoten Islands

scholarly journals The social contagion of aspirations: On the happiness of having a 'life style'

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (26) ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgitte Folmann
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Life Style ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Life Styles ◽  
Health Related

Discussions of health-related behaviors and lifestyle often become theoretical and morally laden owing to their individualistic view on risk factors and life choices. This article uses the analytical concepts of contagion and configuration to explore the spread of aspirations for the good life among young men in Northern Uganda. The potential social contagion of aspirations is unfolded to provide a deeper understanding of social processes not only as dynamics between people but also as processes between people and their surroundings in a society which is subject to rapid change. This understanding will provide a sense of the meaning invested in having a ‘life style’ and the significance of choice. Inspired theoretically by the Weberian concept of life style, it is found that young people in Northern Uganda, although they may be limited in terms of their life chances, live their lives as well as possible by taking advantage of the little space for choice that the reality of their resources and class circumstances allows. Young people in particular seek to engage in and perform what could be described as aspirational consumption in the form of ‘life styles’; and even though they rarely succeed, making some progress along this path seems important and fuels their ongoing aspiration for the good life. Having a ‘life style’ means being able to choose and consume, and getting a ‘life style’ reflects an aspiration for social mobility. Taking the emic approach helps to explain how social contagion occurs and how health-related practices are formed.

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