ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how changes in the local world of work are experienced and how they influence young men's choices, and lack thereof, in specific rural communities. It demonstrates how place matters in a study of social inequality within a presumably egalitarian and forward-looking Nordic country. The chapter focuses on interviews with young, unemployed men living in small places that can be termed the marginal edge of the northern periphery. The young men live in Finnmark, the northernmost and, by area, the largest province in Norway. Many of them are young, unemployed men living in small rural places in the northern part of Norway. Even though Norway, like the other Nordic countries, has a generous welfare regime compared to other parts of the world, unemployment entails severe economic, social and personal challenges.
