Based on a meta-ethnographic analysis this submission explores the challenges and possibilities of an ethnographic synthesis from translocal research connected to a particular research network: Youth and social exclusion - Identity , learning and territorial stigmatization in the Nordic countries. It explores and tries to illustrate how a synthesis of ethnographic studies may produce more general insights than primary studies are able to do and what methodological challenges are involved in this. The research demonstrates common dimensions in the emergence of a post-industrial society that is characterized not only by a progressive form of lifestyle experimentation in the middle classes, but also - even in the relatively advanced democracies of the Nordic (post-)welfare States - by segregation, social inequality, marginalization and processes of extensive social and economic exclusion. The analysed research was directed toward youth responses to this situation. It focussed particularly on youth from ethnic minority backgrounds and showed key characteristics of youth culture in relation to two aspects of the Marxian class concept (class in itself and class for istself). The significance of place and territorial stigmatisation were other key common themes identified from the research. Keywords: Place, territorial stigmatisation, meta-ethnography, social inclusion, creativity