Peripheral Futurities. Emigration Plans and Sense of Belonging among East Central European Youth

Abstract Peripherality is a matter not only of politics and geography but also self-identification. One important measure peripherality as lived experience the desire rural youth to emigrate—it future imagined elsewhere, coupled with denigration those unwilling relocate (as Miggelbrink has shown, see Meyer Miggelbrink, Peripheralization: The Making Spatial Dependencies Social Injustice. Springer VS, Wiesbaden, 2013 Raumforschung und Raumordnung, 73(1): 17–30, 2015; Leibert, Geographische Rundschau 67: 34–41, 2015). Based on grounded theory, this chapter provides comparative analysis focus group discussions conducted students 11th grade in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania their visions future. It comes down two findings: young people largely articulate expectations emigrate, they talk about great deal ambivalence. Most want live within European Union, seeing option chance seek fortune elsewhere greatest achievement EU citizenship. And so, secondly, think citizenship an tool manage futures. They thus functionalist rather than affectionate relationship EU.