This chapter has grown out of a ethnographic study of young people pathways and sense of belonging aged between 14 to 25. The study is taking place in a small village of the Portuguese inlands, close to the Spanish border and provided an opportunity to become acquainted with particular perspectives about bordering processes. The pivotal point of this paper is the anchorage that the village located in a border region and the borderlands represents to these young people, including perceptions about the border and the two sides. These perspectives are both coming from memories about how it was to grow up close to the Spanish border as well as from meanings and engagements that the borderlanders, mainly children and young people, still construct after Schengen Space. This border, does not disappeared symbolically, not only because some signs are still there, but also because Douro River still physically separate Spain from Portugal keeping memories about smuggling and borders inspections. With this contribution we aim to discuss how borders are present in memories of childhood and how children constructed their memories in what concern growing up close to borders.  The aim is to understand how the boarder is conceptualized. The argument that I want put forward relates to the belief that understanding how borders are conceptualized, in this case from children perspective, we can understand wider phenomena as globalization, national or transnational identity and cultures, mediated by transnational patterns of communication (Morley, 2001). Donnan (2001) definition of borderlands are useful to understand this discussion as she defines it as “zones of cultural overlap characterized by a mixing cultural styles. They are liminal spaces simultaneously dangerous and sites of creative cultural production open to cultural play and experimentation as well as domination and control” (2001: 1290). 

Due to the fact that since 1985 Schengen Space physical border controls were abolish  between subscribing member states, movements of people are more fluid. However, in the region where the study is taking place, Douro river and old marks remind inhabitants and foreigners about a past doing “borderwork” Rumford (2006, 2008). Some retrospective memories of childhood about borders lead us to different meanings and relationships with heritages, collective memory, local history and narratives from the border, which means that there is spatiality and a temporality of borders (Coopers & Perkins, 2011).

This study is taking place in regions that has been considered as suffering from depopulation, often viewed as stagnated and isolated. This contribution explores ways in which living in a border region is inscribed in everyday life or if we can find a sense of remoteness.

The multi-sited ethnographic research is taking place in a small village of the Portuguese inlands, close to the Spanish border, also considered a remote rural area. We bring together different aspects of young people’s lives, travelling through some of their memories as children in order to understand how social and spatial dimensions are articulated in their experience of growing up in a borderland region.  

We aim to contribute to improve the knowledge about the diversity of experiences of children and young people in these regions, challenging stereotypes about what does it means to grow up in a rural border region (Matthews et al., 2000). For one side there is the feeling that people from these regions have less access to opportunities as education or jobs, for the other side there is the romantic idea about the sense of community, protection and healthy life style and quality of life due to the relationship to nature. 

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