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Paper short abstract

In depopulating small towns, staying is often seen as failure. But how do those who stay imagine a good life? Analyzing parental aspirations, we show how class, ethnicity, locality-derived values and shifting political-economic trajectories inform alternative visions of good life beyond migration.

Paper long abstract

Most parents, when asked about their aspirations for their children’s future, ultimately want them to be happy and to have a good life. What constitutes a “good life”, however, is shaped by broader societal ideals as well as structural possibilities and constraints linked to class, ethnicity, locality and wider political-economic trajectories. In slowly depopulating peripheral towns in Hungary, the dominant view inextricably links social advancement and a “good”, stable middle-class life to migration to larger cities. This is also evident in Csendes, where we conducted ethnographic fieldwork. Nonetheless, not everyone can or wants to leave. Our paper explores the alternative imaginaries of a “good life” articulated by local parents in relation to their children’s future. We argue that these alternative imaginaries, on the one hand, are rooted in values and forms of capital embedded in the locality, such as dense social networks, care relations, locally attainable relative middle-class positions, and a sense of security. Given the presence of a considerable Roma population, ethnicity also plays an important role in local aspirations, albeit in different ways across ethnic groups. On the other hand, alternative imaginaries are also influenced by broader political economic trajectories, such as re-industrialization, the prioritization of technical education, and the devaluation of certain higher-education professions. Our analysis demonstrates how these structural processes translate into local possibilities and constraints for attaining social advancement, shaping parental aspirations. By examining alternative imaginaries of a “good life”, we highlight local forms of social mobility that in dominant views often appear as “immobility”.