Paper short abstract:

In this paper I analyse the concept of "Residential Rural Areas" as a tool to describe living in today's rural areas in Finland. I compare this concept to the descriptions of daily life given by families living in the countryside. The fieldwork data I use is collected for my dissertation work.

Paper long abstract:

Finland is a country of vast rural areas, with over third of the population living permanently outside the cities (2005 census). Differences in lifestyle between rural and urban dwelling are diminishing on a level of daily life. However, in the current public and political discourse, the rural areas are often seen either as containers of agrarian heritage or as an exotic holiday-resort for urbanites. These perceptions may lead to ignoring the daily needs of inhabitants in rural areas - for example not providing the public services that citizens of Finnish welfare state are justified.

To describe the reality of living in today's rural areas the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture have proposed the concept of "Residential Rural Areas", indicating to the permanent housing and urban-like lifestyle. In my paper I analyse this term and its usability when studying the every day life of families living in rural areas. I compare the contents of the idea of "residential rural" to those descriptions of daily life I had during my fieldwork among families living in countryside. Paper is based on my dissertation work in ethnology in which I study the life and welfare of rural families. The main research data is collected from villages in three Finnish municipalities and consists of interviews and participant observation. My aim is to add one more perception to wider discourse of living in today's rural Finland - the one of the inhabitants.