ABSTRACT
Geographic research on youth has shown how public space is produced mainly as adult space (Skelton and Valentine 1998). But the street or similar ‘third spaces’ (Matthews, Limb, and Taylor 2000) provide spaces for youth to claim as their own, often in resistance to adults who see young people gathering in public places as problematic. In rural areas in Norway the petrol station is such a space, adopted by young men popularly known as the ‘råners.’1 The råners, known for ‘hanging out’ at the petrol station and driving up and down the main road, constitute a minority of young men in the countryside, yet the image of the group is signifi cant in popular constructions of rural youth (Bjaarstad 2001). The råners are associated with rural areas that are understood as backward and boring, and as a dull rather than idyllic space for young people. As a group the råners often feel stigmatized and excluded in the local communities. However, by adopting the petrol station as a meeting place and cruising around the main roads, they work within their rural contexts to make space for their own identity.
