“I think that they should go. Let them see something”. The context of rural youth's out-migration in post-socialist Estonia

Highlights

• Rurality in Estonian media is constructed via marginalisation or idyll.

• Youth workers contribute to the discourse of out-migration as self-realisation.

• Mobility is considered as a natural part of transition to adulthood.

• Constantly changing rural social context contributes to the non-fixity of life course decisions.

Abstract

This article aims to provide insights into the topic of rural out-migration in Estonia. By looking at media and in-depth interviews with rural youth workers, narratives surrounding young people are examined. These narratives enable rural youth to ground their choices of migration. Rurality is constructed in media through two powerful templates: one of structural marginalization and the other of the “pastoral idyll” based on the stereotypes of nation construction. Youth migration is often explained in media as self-realisation or inevitable moves. Rural youth workers are concerned about young people leaving their home areas, but at the same time they rationalise their leaving by contemporary narratives of self-empowerment and self-expression. Thus, leaving is depicted as moving “forward” rather than “away”. In addition, the constantly changing rural context in post-socialist Estonia contributes to a notion of non-fixity in life course decisions and the perception that it is always possible to come back.

Introduction

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, post-socialist Estonia has gone through remarkable demographic and regional changes. In recent decades, the development of Estonian rural areas has been accompanied by a diminishing birth rate, urbanisation and dissolution of the Soviet agricultural structures. The restructuring process from collective farms to private farming has been far from smooth. This has resulted in the marginalisation of some rural areas, structurally as well as in discursive fields. The diminishing size of the rural population has led to the closing down of many vital social structures in some regions. Along with shops, pharmacies, libraries and local pubs, schools have been closed. Many argue that the closing of schools in particular may result in the extinction of the rural population altogether, since young people will not come back to their home areas after studying elsewhere. Thus, closing schools can be perceived as a “loss of a new generation” (see also Haartsen and van Wissen, 2012, p. 489; Kovács, 2012, p. 113). Those who leave are also potentially most useful to the area, being educated and active (Demi et al., 2009, p. 326; Stockdale, 2004, Stockdale, 2006), and therefore migration can be defined as one of the most critical issues related to rural youth (Auclair and Vanoni, 2004, p. 103; Gibson and Argent, 2008, Thissen et al., 2010, p. 428). The problem is acute even in countries where counter-urbanization has otherwise been a strong trend in recent decades (e.g. in Britain; see Woods, 2011, p. 179).

This article looks at the question of rural youth out-migration from somewhat novel angle. Instead of concentrating on the opinions of the young people themselves, a glance at media discourses and youth worker's opinions are offered, relying on a qualitative content analysis of the biggest daily (Postimees) in Estonia during 2010 (N = 157 articles) and 17 qualitative interviews with youth workers¹ conducted during several fieldwork projects in 2010–2012. By leaving the voices of the youth aside, this paper does not imply that young people have little agency in their migration decisions. However, it suggests that young people operate in complex discursive fields, and studying those fields from the viewpoint of youth migration is often neglected in rural youth research. The paper advocates that studying the contexts young people deal with, may be as crucial as researching the dispositions of the youth. Looking at the Estonian media and youth worker's discourses, for example, has shown that there is more to it than just closing down the infrastructures that may influence the migration decisions of the young people. The discursive constructs surrounding youth tend to normalize the practices of leaving by conceptualising leaving as moving forward rather than moving away.

The article begins with a discussion of the research background concerning rurality and youth. Then, there is a brief look at the Estonian rural context, and demographic and geographical conditions. After describing the methodology and data of this article, an analysis of media discourses and the interviews with the youth workers follows.