Staying away: Narratives of young adults in Bali

This paper is about young adults and their identity work in a context of a globalised world in which travelling and staying abroad for longer periods of time have been possible. Questions studied in the project are: How do young adults experience their everyday life? What kind of individual choices do they make? What do social and cultural life and relationships mean to them? Why do they choose to travel and stay away? A case study has been made about a reality show (Away Bali) about Finnish young adults who talk about staying abroad, and what living ‘far away’ means for them. These young adults have been given the possibility to talk about their experiences and about living in a social context where they have chosen to live. The narratives of these young adults show some essential aspects about a neo-nomadic way of life, living abroad in a context of ‘a paradoxical paradise’, which affects their social and cultural
identities and their contemporary everyday life in several ways. The personal narratives describe a lifestyle including thoughts about living conditions (work and leisure), social relationships (family and friendship), perspectives of family life, life philosophy, as well as reasons for travelling and for staying.