This article connects rural sociology and personal life theory by considering how conceptions of love, childhood and family life are understood in Swedish rural contexts. Complex personal rural life narratives are presented from the perspective of the ‘ordinary’. Our result accounts for how imagined families and rural life arrangements are negotiated and how families that are happy with their personal lives conceptualise their choices in relation to their rural homes. Finding a partner and establishing a happy family impacts the choice of where to live and how to work. We argue that the informants’ attempts to negotiate their imagined family ideals and rural lives involve attempting to counterbalance contemporary ideas of gender equality within their rural everyday life practices. When they are unable to fulfil their imagined families successfully, they experience a ‘debt of love’ within their family.

Finding a partner and establishing a happy family together is a project intimately connected withchoosing where to live. The sense of place is often discussed in relation to belonging and to widernarratives of nation and culture (Yuval-Davis, 2011), but it is also a way to understand everydaypractices relating to personal life (Harris et.al, 2021). As May and Nordqvist (2019: 177) argue,‘personal life says something about both us as individual people, and the social context in which welive’. In our article, we explore the personal lives of individual people in the particular social context ofrural lives. In our study we have worked with connecting theoretical perspectives of rural sociology totheory of personal lives (Smart, 2007; May and Nordqvist, 2019) by considering how conceptions oflove, childhood, and family life are understood in rural contexts in Sweden. Our interview study ofpersonal lives for individuals have been explored in a rural context. Complex personal narratives onrural lives are presented from the perspective of the ‘ordinary’. Our results present accounts on howideals of family and rural life are negotiated and how families who consider themselves happy withtheir personal lives conceptualise their choices in relation their rural home. Finding a partner andestablishing a happy family together is a project intimately connected with choosing where to live. Ourfindings show how ideals of rural living and family life is negotiated by taking account of a bricolage ofnostalgic notions of the countryside, its freedom as well as more modern conceptions of gender equalfamily practices

We will present our project in an early stage of the research process. Our project investigates how the Natural Resource Use Programme in upper secondary school contributes to a resilient countryside. Recent societal challenges have shown that Swedish society is vulnerable in areas such as domestic food production.

Our project will study how social and economic sustainability are managed in relation to the natural resource use programme. Our study addresses individual as well as structural levels; students’ own perceptions; school curricula and education linked to these concepts; and register data of students’ participation in work and further studies. The project will use mixed methods (policy analysis, ethnography and quantitative analysis) to answer these research questions:How is the Natural Resource Use Programme constituted as socially important for skills maintenance and development in rural Sweden? How do students in the Natural Resource Use Programme consider their education, future careers, and working lives in the countryside? What educational pathways, income opportunities and career trajectories have been developed by students after attending the Natural Resource Use Programme and how have these changed over time for different ruralities?

The purpose of the project is to investigate the educational programme’s function in relation to skills maintenance and development, and to develop an understanding for the programme’s importance in relation to local rural environments as well as the everyday lives of individual students.

I denna artikel diskuterar vi hur handledare kan hjälpa doktorander hantera känslor av ensamhet, övergivenhet och karriärtvivel. I artikeln tar vi avstamp i quit-lit och stay-lit för att diskutera hur en kritisk syn på akademin kan hanteras i relationen mellan handledare och doktorand. Artikeln inleds med en bakgrundsbeskrivning av akademin i förändring. Granskningskultur, prestigekamp och en alltmer pressad akademisk arbetsmarknad är några av de aspekter som tas upp. Efter bakgrunden presenteras ett teoretiskt anslag som kombinerar sociologisk socialpsykologi med högskolepedagogik. Sedan ges exempel på quit-lit och staypieces som empiriskt material till vår analys.

In this article, we explore the theme of choice in relation to education and work by discussing the notion of “compromise” within career guidance. In particular, we analyse compromises related to career choice in regard to groups and individuals who are restricted — or belong — to a particular geographical place and how this spatial limitation is managed and discussed by career guidance counsellors who work with unem- ployed individuals. The article is based on the following questions: How are compro- mises and restricted choices considered in relation to place and belonging? How do career guidance counsellors and other professionals discuss compromises of choice? The qualitative interviews have been conducted with career counsellors working with unemployed individuals in rural Sweden. Four themes emerge: location as a given/non-issue, location as opposed to interest, location as personal life and location as an obstacle. We argue that belonging can be seen as more available to certain groups. For example, career counsellors view the claims of belonging by young people as less valid than for individuals who can present caring and family obligations as reasons for not being mobile.