Material culture after text: re‐membering things

Bronze Age finds in Norway have recurringly generated discussion throughout 150 years of Norwegian archaeology. This article outlines the history of attitudes towards the Bronze Age in Norway, and attempts to identify paradigmatic features. In general, the same basic analytic concepts have been employed since Christie's and Worsaae's days until the present. This is somewhat surprising, especially in light of general archaeological postwar research efforts in Norway and international developments in theory and method. The article examines some of the contemporary social mechanisms that have hampered rejuvenation of Bronze Age research, and outlines basic positions the author believes to be valuable.     

“Brain Drain” or “Brain Gain”? Students’ Loyalty to their Student Town: Field Evidence from Norway

In the global economy regions fight a two-front “war” to attract young people. On the one hand, they compete against more urban areas because young people leave home to study and do not return to their home region (“brain drain”). On the other hand, they struggle to attract new residents, students and entrepreneurs to their local region (“brain gain”). The context is a student town of a strong industrial region characterized by a net export of young people and an increasing demand for highly qualified labour. The purpose is to gain insight into how student loyalty to a student town may be enhanced. A partial least square path modelling approach is used to estimate a structural equation model of student town loyalty. One finding is that the creation of student town satisfaction has more influence on student town loyalty than reputation building. “Social activity” is the most important loyalty driver. This antecedent is mediated through student town satisfaction and reputation, as well as university college reputation. The town municipalities and the university college should thus be coordinated in their effort to increase student town loyalty to bring down the “brain drain” and increase the “brain gain” in the region.     

Typologie et vitalité des communautés francophones minoritaires au Canada

La vitalité des communautés francophones minoritaires du Canada, souvent expliquée par les conjonctures démographique et institutionnelle et par le contexte politico-juridique, souffre encore d'une relative rareté de travaux empiriques illustrant l'action de ces facteurs à l'échelle des communautés. Cette rareté n'a pas permis jusqu'à maintenant d'élaborer une véritable analyse de l'effet de milieu sur la vitalité communautaire des minorités francophones. Notre étude se propose de mieux caractériser la présence francophone dans l'espace canadien hors Québec et, ce faisant, les milieux dans lesquels se construit la vie française au pays. Elle se fonde sur l'idée que la présence francophone, caractérisant un lieu donné, profite également d'un contexte plus large dont les ressources ne peuvent faire autrement que de rejaillir sur la communauté locale. À l'idée de présence localisée , nous ajoutons l'idée de présence contextualisée pour mieux faire le lien entre présence et vitalité communautaire. Une méthode originale est présentée ici qui permet de mettre en application cette complémentarité entre ces deux types de présence. Prenant la forme d'une typologie des milieux francophones minoritaires, elle fournit un nouvel éclairage sur la situation des populations francophones du Canada. Une analyse exploratoire des comportements linguistiques de ces populations selon les milieux issus de la typologie montre qu'une telle approche est susceptible d'ouvrir la voie à une meilleure appréhension de la vitalité communautaire en milieu minoritaire.     

ON FUTURES AND ENDINGS: NARRATOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF CRISES*

The article examines the changing relationship of the present to the future from a narratological perspective. It argues that three dominant narrative schemas structure the contemporary experiences of temporality in the Western social imaginary: the modern crisis narrative, the apocalyptic narrative, and the chronic crisis narrative. In its first part, the article shows how the modern sense of crisis, which emerged in the late eighteenth century, sedimented into a powerful narrative template by knitting together the past, the present, and the future into a unified plot. The second part focuses on the resurgence of apocalyptic stories in the Western social imaginary and humanities discourse. The final part highlights the special contribution of aesthetics of precariousness to the Western imaginary of time and temporality. It argues that the “chronic crisis narrative” deflates the teleological narrative arc of the modern crisis paradigm while also shunning the end-time discourse of the apocalyptic narrative.     

Gone to smelt iron in Courland: technology transfer in the development of an early modern industry

SUMMARY: In the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, corresponding to the southern and western parts of present-day Latvia, an iron industry based on blast-furnace technology, mainly using local bog iron ore, existed in the 17th and 18th centuries. Transfer of knowledge and skill through the recruitment of specialists from other countries of Europe was crucial to the development of this industry; technology was also re-exported to Russia and elsewhere. Recent archaeological and archaeometallurgical investigations supplement the written evidence, highlighting the specific local conditions that influenced the development of ferrous metalworking here in the early modern period.     

Review

Anders Hagen, Bergkunst. Jegerfolkets helleristninger og malninger i norsk steinalder. (Rock Art. The rock carvings and paintings of hunters in the Norwegian Stone Age.) J. W. Cappelens Forlag A.s. Oslo 1976.