Empowering marginal lifescapes: the heritage of crofters in between the past and the present |
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Authors: | Eva Svensson Hilde Rigmor Amundsen Ingunn Holm Hans Hulling Annie Johansson Jan Löfgren |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Life and Environmental Sciences (Risk and Environmental Studies), Karlstad University, Karlstad, SwedenEva.Svensson@kau.se;3. Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU), Oslo, Norway;4. Directorate for Cultural Heritage, Oslo, Norway;5. Department of Political, Historical, Religious and Cultural Studies (History), Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden;6. County Council, V?rmland, Karlstad, Sweden;7. V?rmlandsarkiv, Karlstad, Sweden |
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Abstract: | There is a rich, but unacknowledged, heritage of rural subalterns, crofters, in Scandinavia. A Swedish-Norwegian interdisciplinary research-network investigated the most prominent category – the remains of crofts. Due to industrialisation, urbanisation and the modern welfare state, the institution of crofting was abolished, and many crofters left for opportunities elsewhere. The welfare state transformed a landscape of living and working people into a one filled with relicts mostly from the nineteenth century. Although numerous and important to local citizens, these sites fall outside the authorised heritage discourse (AHD) in terms of both research and heritage management. This paper takes an environmental justice perspective to challenge the AHD. Three themes are in focus: (1) bringing out the history of a subaltern and marginalised group of people; (2) promoting crofts as heritage of importance to local citizens and demanding complex management due to the various historical narratives and risks; (3) considering the crofting landscapes in relation to the (economisation) framing of heritage in development processes, especially in relation to fair development in present rural communities. |
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Keywords: | Environmental justice bring out subalterns crofts as heritage framing heritage in rural development |
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