A CRISIS OF DEFINITION: CULTURE VERSUS INDUSTRY IN ODDA,NORWAY

This article addresses the influence of dominant and traditional ways of grasping the reality in social and economic processes of change. Our point of departure is how the perception of crisis in Odda, a small industrial community in Norway, influences the course of the process of change. The analysis focuses on a heated debate over the exploitation of a large site in the centre of Odda, left after the closure of the key factory. Rather than the economic and social consequences of the closure, the main challenge that arose from the crisis was related to the emergence of ambiguity in the local conceptual framework. Coming to terms with the situation stimulated various attempts to rearticulate the discourse of local development, with the result that industrial and culture‐based perspectives on development came into conflict. The economic crisis became a crisis of definition. In Odda, the industrial discourse finally domesticated the competing cultural discourse, ending years of conflict and inaction. In its explicit focus on the importance of local struggles and the way discourse structures such processes this story about recent developments in Odda complements literature on post‐industrial development.     

‘It’s fun in the legs’: children’s dwelling in garden trampolines

ABSTRACT

Physical activity is critical for children’s current and future health status. Understanding how children’s everyday outdoor environments encourage movement could help progress the health-environment debate. In response to this, and adopting a theoretical focus upon dwelling, skills and the haptic engagement, this qualitative case study explores 25 Danish 10–11-year-old children’s everyday use of garden trampolines. Three principal methods of data generation were employed in the fieldwork: photo-elicited interviews, group interviews and participant observation at children’s important outdoor places. Findings suggest that garden trampolines are important everyday outdoor places for children that – among other things – can spark a vigorous physical movement in abundantly meaningful and joyful ways. Further, findings indicate that trampolines are places of inexhaustible movement opportunities, which operate through haptic sensations, feelings of skilfulness and attunement, expansions of the range of motions available to the body, and interactions between children. Implications for future research and design are highlighted.     

Job polarization in the new economy in Danish cities: location,size, and the role of the public sector

ABSTRACT

In this paper we examine the geographic patterns of employment growth and employment polarization in small and medium-sized cities (SMCs) in Denmark during the rise of the new economy. The geography of employment polarization in Danish cities is examined using register-based employment data on occupations and wages divided into the public and private sectors in the period 1993–2006; it therefore covers a long period of transformation and growth in the Danish economy. We conclude that employment growth is characterized by employment polarization combined with growth in low- and high-wage employment and a decline in medium-wage employment. However, these patterns of polarization differ across the public and private sectors, as well as by geography. While local labour market (LLM) size, city position and city specialization influence the geography of private-sector employment growth and polarization, municipal population and composition influence the geography of public-sector growth patterns across wage levels. Finally, public and private employment are positively associated within SMCs, predominantly driven by the positive association between public employment and private-sector low-wage employment. However, public employment is not associated with an increase in private low-wage employment in more remote areas.     

Industrial Location as a Bargain: Iceland and the Aluminium Multinationals 1962–1994

This paper conceptualizes industrial location, specifically in the form of foreign investment, as a bargaining process to provide a framework within which to examine Iceland's deals with aluminium multinationals between 1961 and 1994. These deals involve one actual and one planned investment in aluminium smelters. Conceptually, it is argued that the interpretation of industrial location as a bargaining process can be readily incorporated within the geography of enterprise tradition by explicitly recognizing that location factors are not given datum but are created by negotiations among parties whose interests may overlap but do not coincide. In this paper, the main parties are the Icelandic government and aluminium multinationals. While both parties were interested in investments in smelters which would ultilize Iceland's power resources, the initial agreement in the 1960s depended on Iceland's acceptance of foreign investment as an appropriate vehicle of development and the ability of the parties to agree on power supply, power rates and taxation, location, and some jurisdictional issues that had not been anticipated. This deal has since been revised although the impact of the obsolescing bargain is not noticeably evident. The Iceland government has brokered another deal with other multinationals although this project has been put on hold due primarily to unforeseen events in the global economy. Still controversial, the actual and potential structure of Iceland's aluminium industry results directly from these bargains.     

Lines of Landscape Organization: Skovbjerg Moraine (Denmark) in the First Millennium BC

This paper presents a comparative landscape perspective on the Late Bronze Age landscape boundaries in southern Britain, obtained from Skovbjerg Moraine, Denmark. Using Delaunay triangulation as well as classic distribution analyses, it demonstrates that some forms of landscape division articulated already established use‐patterns, while others intercepted the central lines of movement and conflicted with previous ways of organizing the landscape. This pattern is interpreted as a new form of large‐scale landholding in which livestock played a dominant role and boundaries were used to confiscate land in the zones bordering suitable pastures. This situation shows obvious parallels with southern Britain centuries earlier. The paper discusses how the study of these physical boundaries provides new insights into the organization of pre‐Roman landscapes, not only demonstrating a continuing engagement with landscape lines, but also pointing to new concurrent and potentially competing social and economic strategies.