Mental Mapping as a Method for Studying Borders and Bordering in Young People’s Territorial Identifications

This paper analyzes and compares two mental mapping studies – one with young people (aged 16–19) in Finland and one with Finnish and Russian young people (aged 9–15) in the Finnish-Russian borderland. These studies show that mental mapping is a valuable method which can illuminate crucial aspects of how borders and bordering are related to young people’s territorial identifications. We argue that it is important to pay special attention to the research methodology, including the mapping scale and the complementary data collection methods, as these determine what aspects of borders and bordering in young people’s territorial identifications can be discovered, and how profoundly identification processes can be studied with mental maps. This paper contributes to the theoretical discussion on borders and territorial identity by visualizing the complexity of how borders and territorial identifications are intertwined, and how young people engage in the social, cultural and mental construction of borders and the negotiation of territorial identities. The paper enriches the mental mapping methodology by demonstrating two different ways mental maps can be used for studying young people’s territorial identifications.