Dipping in to the North

Living, Working and Traveling in Sparsely Populated Areas

Linda Lundmark, Dean B. Carson, Marco Eimermann, Linda Lundmark, Dean B. Carson, Marco Eimermann

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9789811566226
• eBook ISBN:
  9789811566233
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Social Sciences

Dipping in to the North explores how changing mobility and migration is affecting the social, economic, cultural, and environmental characteristics of sparsely populated areas of northern Sweden (and places like it). It examines who lives in, works in, and visits the north; how and why this has changed over time; and what those changes mean for how the north might develop in the future. The book draws upon deep expertise and knowledge from a range of social scientists, presenting valuable insights in an accessible style for a broad audience.

© The Author(s) 2020

L. Lundmark et al. (eds.)Dipping in to the Northhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6623-3_1

Begin Abstract

1. Dipping in to the North: Living, Working and Traveling in Sparsely Populated Areas

Dean B. Carson¹ , Marco Eimermann² and Linda Lundmark²

(1)

Centre for Tourism and Regional Opportunities, Central Queensland University, Cairns, QLD, Australia

(2)

Department of Geography, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

Dean B. Carson

Email: [email protected]

Marco Eimermann (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Linda Lundmark

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

CoronaDegrowthMultifunctionalityPost-productivismRural idyllSustainable developmentThe north

End Abstract

If you have picked up this book, you are probably one of many people who are interested in ‘the north’. You may be a ‘northern development’ practitioner, you may be working in a community project, or at a local, regional, national or other level of government or you may be an industry stakeholder. Maybe you are part of a group of students or academics who shape and contribute to the various debates around northern development in Sweden or beyond. If you are interested in demography, economics, geography, history or political science, you will find that these topics are central themes in this volume.

Rather than solely indicating an area on a map, we use ‘the north’ for communities, places and regions that others would define as peripheral or remote in surroundings characterized by infrastructural and demographic challenges. However, we contest the idea that the scattered populations living there are disconnected from each other and the world, and reactive instead of proactive, for example because they live in timeless tranquillity amidst abundant nature or ‘wilderness’. Although we focus on northern Sweden, we also present similarities and differences with cases in the Nordic countries, northern Australia, Canada and beyond. The chapters thus position northern Sweden within a global context.

Dipping in to the North describes and explains how changing (im)mobility and migration is affecting the social, economic, cultural and environmental characteristics of various northern communities, villages, towns and cities. The volume is a collection of chapters structured around three themes: (i) who lives, (ii) who works and (iii) who travels in the sparsely populated north. Within each themed section, the chapters focus on different forms of mobility, migration and immobility, placing people who live, travel and work there at the centre of the issues at hand and within their historical and contemporary contexts. Together, these sections nuance the popular overall myths that portray SPAs either as perpetually struggling with a series of challenges or as timeless rural idylls.

Box 1.1 Municipalities in SPAs Under Pressure

Ingemar Elander

Regional and local policies in Sweden are strongly adapted to a social-liberal ideological framework stating that capitalist economic development is closely connected with a spatial concentration of population. Provided regional policy follows the perceived economic growth logic, technology and competition will prepare the ground for a higher living standard, and through redistribution result in more equal individual and collective consumption in terms of education, health care, social care and culture.

Symbolized by the Swedish parliament’s adoption of the ‘Sweden Plan’ (Swedish Government bill 1972:111), regional policies were then adapted to an ideological framework allowing for a more precise and flexible set of measures, including a classification of municipalities according to perceived welfare society needs. According to the official policy this way of constructing the regional question made it possible to handle the tension between ‘the necessary and the desirable’ in regional development, thus manifesting Social Democratic ‘consumption socialism’ (Elander 1978; Elander and Montin 1994). In line with this logic the meaning of life boils down to something like “work harder and more efficiently, to be able to consume more and better goods and services”.

Following a huge increase of refugees in 2015 and subsequent additions, many small and financially poor municipalities with declining population (not only in the north) took the opportunity to welcome groups of immigrants as potential resources in terms of future work force, social and cultural life, while other better off cities refused, instead arguing that these newcomers would only become a burden and a threat to ‘Swedish values’. However, for a poor municipality to provide basic social care for many newcomers lacking jobs and financial means may be difficult in the long run, especially with initial central government support fading.

Consequently, and accelerating over the last few years, regional differences between stagnating, small, rural municipalities and bigger urban agglomerations have grown significantly and at the time of writing emergency plans and actions are demanded by many local governments and the Swedish Association of Local and Regional Authorities (Dagens Samhälle 2019). Meanwhile, protracted investigations and debates considering a radical regionalization reform are still far from a political solution (Johansson et al. 2015). In February 2020, launching the result of a parliamentary investigation the chairman stated:

In our opinion, polarisation between Sweden’s municipalities is increasing, and it becomes ever harder for many of them to accomplish their welfare assignments since their economic conditions and labour force are ever more strained. Efforts are needed soon, but most of all we need efforts to strengthen the municipalities’ capacity to combat the challenges to guarantee equal elderly care, schools and other municipal services for all citizens in Sweden in the long run. (Karlsson 2020: my translation)

The population in Sweden’s 290 municipalities varies between less than 2500 in Bjurholm (northern Sweden) and almost one million in Stockholm. Together, half of all municipalities in Sweden comprise only 14% of the population. Calculations made in neighbouring Nordic countries estimate that there should be at least 20,000–30,000 inhabitants in a municipality to be able to deliver financially stable welfare output to their inhabitants (Karlsson 2020). Although the report suggests a number of reforms to improve the capacity of the municipalities to accomplish this, there is of course no quick fix in sight and the political preconditions for solutions are scant.

Since the 2018 elections the Swedish Government is based on a parliamentary coalition including Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Centre Party, the latter being the most market-liberal party of all in the Swedish political landscape. Paradoxically, an ‘unholy’ coalition consisting of the Left Party, the Conservative Party (Moderaterna), the conservative Christian Democrats and the retrotopian Sweden Democrats in early spring 2020 demanded financial boosts to the local and regional government sector. However, the suggested financial additions to the sector were modest, and they have to be related to substantial taxation cuts decided and implemented by the conservative-liberal government 2011–2014. As I will address in Box 20.1 the corona virus haunting most countries in Europe and the rest of the world since March 2020 added still more financial and political pressure on Swedish municipalities.

Myths Portraying SPAs as Dull and Struggling

When people think about northern rural development, they tend to think of social conflicts and problems (exemplified in Box 1.1, from a broad perspective). We do not deny that some rural areas (like urban areas) are facing socio-economic challenges, but we do argue that the complexity of these challenges has often been reduced for certain groups of people, for example indicating a ‘rural dull’ for youngsters to make migration decisions or other (political) solutions seem more straightforward (Forsberg et al. 2012).

For instance, many media coverages and migration studies in SPAs highlight outmigration, at times due to the downsizing of extractive industries. This leads to a situation in which the idea of rural exodus obscures all other mobility and migration flows (Carson et al. 2019). This idea is also guiding much practical work and rural development policies in rural municipalities. However, when researching this issue it becomes evident that other flows are also developing. There are many mobilities: from long-distance commuting, tourism such as second-home tourism and resort-based tourism (in the mountains or at the coast) to domestic and international in-migration to escape from hectic lives, oppression, starvation or war. This book addresses questions regarding who these migrants are, why and how they come to the north, where they settle and what the consequences and impacts of such migration flows can be. As such, we challenge the idea of rural exodus as the only discourse on population development in SPAs.

We rather view rural villages and areas as complex and heterogeneous spaces, often with their own unique challenges and opportunities. To address changes and developments in how (im)mobility and migration affect SPAs, we need to consider historical processes regarding population development, economic, agricultural and industrial diversity and natural resource use including production, recreation, consumption and nature protection. Considering the multifaceted realities of rural areas and where all activities are seen as complementary, the importance of diversity in how we portray rural areas becomes highly motivated and evident.

Myths Portraying SPAs as Rural Idylls

British rural geographers have described a typical rural idyll as “physically consisting of small villages joined by narrow lanes and nestling amongst a patchwork of small fields […]. Socially, this is a tranquil landscape of timeless stability and community, where people know not just their next door neighbours but everyone else in the village” (Boyle and Halfacree 1998: 9–10). This sounds like an adequate description of Swedish rural idylls as well. This concept was regarded as passé for a while, but it has emerged again over the past decade, often related to perceived possibilities for sustainable living (e.g. in contrast to polluting and crowded cities).

Tavelsjö and Rödåsel are thriving places (Box 1.2, with a local perspective). Yet their location in the periphery of Umeå municipality brings challenges. They struggle with decisions made around population, migration, housing, entrepreneurship and commuting, decisions made from urban viewpoints. The problem here is that urban populations may find it difficult to imagine the possibilities for development in a transforming rural space. A rural that is no longer synonymous with agriculture, forestry or manufacturing and where the possibilities are changing. The municipal planners and politicians are often living and working in central places like Umeå (in this case). Since the 1960s, this booming town has been attracting more and more people who find work in local or regional public administration, at one of the universities, or in forestry, the car industries, construction or elsewhere. The goal is to grow from its current 125,000 to 200,000 inhabitants in 2050. However, affordable housing is hard to find in central Umeå, so some new inhabitants purchase property in the surrounding villages like Tavelsjö.

Box 1.2 Civil Society-Based Local Developmen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Dipping in to the North: Living, Working and Traveling in Sparsely Populated Areas
• 2. Who Lives in the Inland North? Dynamic, Diverse, Fragile, Robust
• 3. Small Villages and Socio-Economic Change in Resource Peripheries: A View from Northern Sweden
• 4. The Myth of the Immobile Rural: The Case of Rural Villages in Iceland
• 5. The Changing Youth Population
• 6. Housing in SPAs: Too Much of Nothing or Too Much for ‘Free’?
• 7. Lifestyle Migrants and Intercultural Communication in Swedish Villages
• 8. Who Works in the North? Challenges and Opportunities for Employment
• 9. Tradition Is Essential: Clashing Articulations of Sami Identity, Past and Present
• 10. A Socially Accountable Health and Care Workforce in Northern Sweden: Who Should It Contain, Who Is It for and What Should It Do?
• 11. Is Downshifting Easier in the Countryside? Focus Group Visions on Individual Sustainability Transitions
• 12. Stayin’ Alive: New Associations in Southern Lapland Farming
• 13. Spicy Meatballs and Mango Sylt: Exploring Food Practices as a Means to Promoting Entrepreneurship in Rural Sweden
• 14. Who Travels to the North? Challenges and Opportunities for Tourism
• 15. Cities of the North: Gateways, Competitors or Regional Markets for Hinterland Tourism Destinations?
• 16. Strategic Objective? Contemporary Discourse on Russian Second-Home Ownership in Finland
• 17. Selling Greenness
• 18. Arctification and the Paradox of Overtourism in Sparsely Populated Areas
• 19. Tourism, Seasonality and the Attraction of Youth
• 20. Epilogue: From Growth to Decline to Degrowth? The Future of Northern SPAs
• Back Matter