Assembling places, technologies and young people – becoming rural youth with vehicles and digital technologies in Finland

ABSTRACTIn this article, we explore the meanings of different technologies, especially vehicles and digital technologies, in the lives of young rural people. This article combines two different qualitative longitudinal data collections from rural areas of Finland. We employ a new materialist framework, especially the Deleuzo-Guattarian assemblage theory and the theoretical concept of becoming. We ask how rural places, youth, and technologies assemble in everyday life. We argue that rural youth becomings assemble not only with traditional technologies, such as mopeds, snowmobiles, and cars, but also with digital technologies, the internet, and social media. In this article, we suggest that rural youth research would benefit from theoretical and methodological reiterations of different rural materialities and human and non-human fluxes.KEYWORDS: Rural youthtechnologyassemblagebecomingDeleuze and Guattari Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Päivi Armila and Mari Käyhkö participated in the data collection.2 Due to ethical reasons (see Ristaniemi Citation2023, 71–78), we have not read each other’s transliterations.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by My Countryside: Intergenerationality, Place and Gender (Kone Foundation 202006219), Northern Rural Youth in Flux (University of Oulu strategic funding) and The Future of Nordic Youth in Rural Regions: A Cross-national Qualitative Longitudinal Study in four Nordic Countries (University of Jyväskylä).