Embodied socialisation of youth in a depopulation-affected rural environment

This article examines how embodied socialisation unfolds among youth growing up in a depopulation-affected rural environment in Sweden. Grounded in ecological niche theory and the concept of sociocultural affordances (SCAs), the analysis conceptualises embodied socialisation as a process shaped through the interaction of place, family and social institutions under specific sociohistorical conditions. Particular attention is given to how demographic decline and structural dismantling influence the affordances available for physical activity and the forms of agency enacted within them. The study is based on repeated biographical interviews with six upper secondary school students raised in the same rural region. The interpretation is structured around three interrelated domains of SCAs: geographical place, intergenerational family structures and social institutions. The findings indicate that embodied socialisation occurs within a structurally constrained ecological niche characterised by demographic scarcity and institutional contraction. A limited range of organised activities produces a relatively homogeneous movement culture, narrowing the spectrum of embodied affordances available for exploration. Under these conditions, transformative agency encounters structural limits, while reflexive agency, through adaptation within existing opportunities, emerges as the more prevalent form. At the same time, digital media introduce new sociocultural affordances by exposing youth to alternative bodily ideals and practices beyond the local setting. However, while such affordances expand interpretative and aspirational horizons, the material and institutional infrastructures of the rural niche remain comparatively stable and slow-moving. Embodied socialisation thus unfolds within a tension between rapidly circulating sociocultural influences and more enduring, institutionally embedded values that produce embodied subjects shaped by traditional and nostalgically oriented value systems.