This exploratory research focus on rural youths Neither in Employment, nor in Education or Training (NEET). Rural areas are at risk of becoming places of nostalgia, not fully understood neither by the urban population, nor by the younger generations that grow up in these territories and seek for alternative contexts. In Portugal, the proportion of NEETs is higher in rural areas when compared to (sub)urban areas, bringing up questions on how to address territorial inequalities regarding access to education and employment opportunities. We discuss the involvement of rural NEETs in the labour market, paying special attention to the agricultural sector as a job opportunity, as well as meaning-making business/ occupation. We explore the challenges and the possibilities of the European Green Deal in rural geographies, in order to understand how “Green Jobs” (typically present and mostly created in urban centres) could repurpose rural everyday life and function as vectors for settling younger generations in rural territories. Finally, we will try to apprehend how rural youths envisions agriculture as a vehicle for socio-ecological change.

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