Learning to Leave and to Return: Mobility, Place, and Sense of Belonging amongst Young People Growing up in Border and Rural Regions of Mainland Portugal

This article examines how mobility is incorporated into the lives of young people growing up in rural border regions of continental Portugal. It also explores how municipalities are dealing with the contemporary imperative of mobility and its consequences. Young people from these regions are affected by decisions to leave to continue studying in higher education, or to find a job. Combined, these lead to an outward migration trend and thus loss of human capital. This paper is based on a multi-method research project carried out in the border regions and involves young people and other stakeholders from 38 municipalities. The data were selected from a questionnaire completed by young people (9th–12th grade; n = 3968), 38 semi-structured interviews with local policymakers, 50 biographical interviews, and 5 focus groups with young people. Results indicate that although most young people aspire to further education and do not fear leaving their region, they nonetheless tend to integrate the necessity to be mobile into their biographies. Hence, they do not associate it with displacement or as being tantamount to abandoning their region, and to which some of them want to return. We consider that in parallel with learning to leave local sentiments, policies, and actions are emerging towards coalescing a trend of learning to stay and returning. We propose an interpretation of this tendency as indicative of new understandings around these peripheral territories and which are shaped by young people’s experience of reconciling a sense of belonging to place and any associated mobilities.