The Inevitability of Leaving and the Impossibility of Staying Away: Rural Youth Migration in Flores, Indonesia

Abstract This paper examines why, despite greater numbers of youth out‐migration, connections to rural land remain strong for young people in a remote farming village on Flores Island, Indonesia. Following recent geographic work on the development of rural young people's aspirations and how the imaginings of “elsewhere” support navigational practices, I explore how rural young people migrate to pursue their aspirations that lay well outside of a farming village. Drawing on household survey data and the life experiences of young and middle generations moving between a rural village and Indonesian cities, I show why many migrate, and why many have retuned, or plan to return, to the village. Their reflections share a common narrative: that the livelihood limitations present in the village made it inevitable young people would leave, while the relative social and economic security of land, along with kin ties, make it seemingly impossible not to return.