Landscape Balance and Landscape Assessment. Understanding and Managing Urban Water in Transition. Heritage, Museums and Galleries. Farming on the Fringe. Engineering Geology for Society and Territory - Volume 5. The Sociology of Tourism. Transport and Climate Change. Strategic Environmental Assessment in Action. Tourism, Development and Growth. Urban Transportation Planning in the United States. The Theatre and the State in Singapore.
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Close Report a review At Kobo, we try to ensure that published reviews do not contain rude or profane language, spoilers, or any of our reviewer's personal information. Would you like us to take another look at this review? No, cancel Yes, report it Thanks! This propaganda had in his view led local people to neglect other and perhaps more innovative strategies for making a living, waiting instead for the one-off solution.
The same person also hinted that his own life had not been entirely pleasant since the debates started: I am of course nearly expelled from this community here for holding these opinions, which I have been trying as best I can to make heard. Another man had very serious reservations about the nature of jobs associated with the project: This was never my dream, far from it. And this means that if I were a young man here, then I would be looking for another place to live, certainly. I am here because I am a village person by nature, not a factory slave.
Critics of the project have often pointed out that, as such industrial jobs have traditionally been culturally coded as male, it is likely that the project will exacerbate already-existing gender imbalances. For some time, the male-to-female ratio has been quite skewed in many rural areas and smaller coastal villages of Iceland, but even more so in East Iceland than elsewhere. A woman observed that gender imbalance in local economic life was not exactly a new phenomenon, but had been a persistent feature of local culture for a long time: I argue that these coastal villages, they are really very male-centred communities, everything is somehow based on the male viewpoint.
One of their advertisements showed a young, smiling woman, with a toddler on her arm. Another prominent question was where the workforce for the plant was going to come from. A local politician scoffed at the suggestion that the new jobs would be filled by international labourers: But, see, this simply is not like that. Others recognized the staffing of the new plant by foreign labour as a distinct possibility and even likelihood, but saw it not as a problem but simply a healthy development towards a more diverse community.
Alongside the industrial processing of material resources, new attitudes, skills and practices geared for the processing of somewhat ethereal symbols and meaning would have to be developed. During the past few years, despite an overwhelming penchant for energy-hungry industrial developments, the Icelandic central government has, in its regional policy statements, in fact at least frequently referred to ideas of the knowledge economy. Some regional and local authorities have taken up the challenge of designing an institutional architecture appropriate to their knowledge needs. The new Knowledge Network was supposed to build on this, not least to broaden the possibilities for local people to undertake tertiary studies at the universities.
This initiative had generally been well received. Yet there was some scepticism aired by those who were interviewed in While nobody really suggested that increased tertiary education was a negative thing in itself, there was a pervasive sentiment that the move towards knowledge-based occupations and emphasis on university education had led to a serious devaluation of the forms of knowledge and kinds of jobs that were more commonly found in the coastal towns. The local politician referred to above forcefully expressed a feeling, which is common in regional towns and rural areas, that urban Iceland has lost its bearings: It is simply a fact that They have no idea!
The mollycoddling attitude towards university studies is becoming a societal disease, in my opinion. We live today in a society where we educate five plumbers against five hundred lawyers! This is pure nonsense! Meanwhile, our country needs thousands of skilled industrial workers. To wrap this up: Again, the local politician stated this clearly: This is very simple, really. I have always thought that it is the economic life which is the basis for everything, and if you really want to analyse and understand a development process, you start by looking at what is happening there.
And the economy was indeed limping. People realised that they needed something else — more vigororus, safer, bigger — in order to reverse the trend.
The Industrial Imperative and Second hand Modernity 27 Local development, in other words, is in this vision first and foremost about jobs; preferably industrial jobs that result in a material, tangible output. Apart from the sheer size of the aluminium project, which would provide hundreds of jobs in an instant, there was the expectation of multifarious spin-offs.
Into the Post-construction Period I must say — and I have thought quite a lot about this — that I can not at all predict what this community will look like in three to five years. When this is written, in late , the dust from the construction phase is now gradually settling. Most of the international construction workers have left. At the start of the megaprojects in East Iceland, the Icelandic parliament decided that a social impact monitoring programme should be carried out for six years, from to The completion of the smelter coincided with a drastic cut in fishing quotas and layoffs in some of the larger fisheries firms in the area.
The new, large industrial establishment undoubtedly softened the blow for the communities. Hiring of production workers to the smelter started for real in late Contrary to some predictions, nearly all who applied for these jobs were Icelanders. The impacts on education levels and on the gendering of the local labour markets are among the issues discussed in the monitoring report.
It is also pointed out, however, that this has coincided with a general trend towards higher education in the country as a whole. As described previously, the aluminium company explicitly tried from the start to recruit women. There has been some success in this regard: The new industrial employer has so some extent compensated for contracting employment in the fish processing sector, where women have held many jobs.
On the whole, however, the monitoring report found that women had not been involved nearly as much as men during the construction phase, nor indeed do they expect as much as men from the project in terms of local development impacts. There are also much more critical than men of its environmental impacts. The contours of the post-project communities are thus only beginning to emerge. This in itself was indeed a sudden and very welcome reversal of a persistent trend for these small towns.
The temporal duration of those impacts is open to question, however. Longer time is needed for judging whether these places, even if their economies are now more robust than before, have reinvented their images and identities in such a way as to be able to continue to attract new settlers after all available jobs at the ALCOA factory have been filled — and hold on to those who live there currently. The capital area still exerts a strong influence on all other regions of Iceland. These are, or were until quite recently, closely circumscribed local communities with strong identities.
Their response to uncertainty and stagnation was to unite in the drive for getting a large — very large — industrial establishment to settle in their midst. Following success in this regard, they have been rather slow in formulating a convincing image for projecting outwards to people who might want to visit or settle.
Perhaps there has not been that much real reflexivity. It would be more accurate to say that their reinvention strategy is aimed at finally entering the first one. Although large-scale introduction of stern trawlers and the standardization of fish processing in the s has sometimes been characterized as the belated entrance of Icelandic coastal communities into the Fordist economy of first modernity, the reliance on fisheries has continued to mean a large degree of uncertainty and risk.
Among some at least, these changes are viewed with a slight trepidation. But then again, there is not exactly anything new in such radical changes in this context. These are not communities that have existed in some unchanged form since time immemorial: On the contrary, before this last bout of reinvention, the towns had changed their complexions considerably since they were first formed in the late 19th and early 20th century.
As Scott Lash has usefully pointed out, first modernity involves individuals that are reflective, while true reflexivity is the product of second modernity. They are far from secure about themselves or their communities, but on the contrary are very much preoccupied with uncertainty. They are aware of their somewhat marginal position in a risky global environment, while quite correctly pointing out that risk has always been present here.
There are those who do see certain opportunities in tourism and in linking up with other parts of the cultural economy. But the industrial imperative of first modernity is still an irresistible prospect for most local people. To use the formulation of Lash , p. Nordic Council of Ministers. Viewed 6 November at http: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. British Journal of Sociology, 56 4 , — The Coming of Post-industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting.
Economies of Signs and Space. Journal of Rural Studies, 15 3 , — Geografiska Annaler, 80 B 1 , 29— Mobilities for the Twenty-first Century. Nilsson Introduction The physical relocation of the iron ore mining town of Kiruna in the very north of Sweden is the starting point in this chapter. In the s the town was depressed from declining mining activities and a decrease in the number of inhabitants.
Today, the high global price of iron has driven the mining company to extend the mine underneath the existing town. This in turn will cause ground deformation and necessitate a relocation of a third part of the town, including the city centre, during the next 30 years. Since the idea was launched in , Kiruna has had widespread media attention and authorities, professionals and tourists visit Kiruna to hear what is going to happen and also to be part of this experience. When Kiruna was established years ago it was designed and achieved the standing as a model town.
The current planning process is based on a political vision of a future model town, as a conception of a sustainable city. The various functions in the town are expected to be integrated to obtain good living conditions in an ecological, social and economical manner for all its inhabitants Kiruna The main question in this chapter is to explore the town image of Kiruna.
The relocation and the reinvention are seen in the theoretical perspective of institutionalism and urban regimes. Are the various stakeholders able to pool resources, build institutions and eventually a regime that has the capacity to produce a common vision of the future town — a reinvented Kiruna?
Empirical evidence for the chapter is based on activities concerned with the relocation of the town of Kiruna together with earlier documents presenting Kiruna and its development. The analysis forms a part of a larger research project which concerns managing of planning problems with sustainability visions and different stakeholders cooperating in the process. The investigation is carried out as a single-case study Yin and in an intensive methodological way Danermark et al.
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This intensive method combines interviews, together with an analysis of documents, records, plans and available statistics. Kiruna provides an extreme case. However, the type of great changes, filled with uncertainties for both planners and the local community, exist in most urban planning situations.
The Kiruna example provides a particularly obvious case that makes it interesting to 34 Place Reinvention illustrate the reinvention of a town caused by great physical changes — a spectacular make-over. The next section provides the framework for the analysis based on regime and institutional theories.
The third part presents the case study focusing on the issues in this chapter — images of Kiruna town. Fourthly, the reinvention of Kiruna is analysed and lastly the governance of the process is discussed. A theoretical perspective on regimes also concentrates on informal groups creating coalitions for carrying out decisions and plans. The concept of urban regime is frequently defined as consisting of three elements Stone In this type of regime you have a purpose for example, a better environment, conserving building heritage, urban aesthetics and new resources.
Another perspective on the activity of planning is through describing the institutions governing the planning processes or other societal changes. North gives a basic definition of institutions as the setting of boundaries of forms of human cooperation. Institutions reduce uncertainty by structuring everyday life, and they provide and limit the number of choices for the individual.
The institutions can be formal such as rules for people, or informal boundaries such as conventions and norms for behaviour. Both institutions and organizations provide a structure for human cooperation. The institutions consist of the basic rules for the game, which are human shaped; North argues that the most important task for societal institutions is to reduce uncertainties by creating a structure for joint efforts between human beings. These authors outline the key qualities of the capacity that can be seen in the institutional relations and qualities of new governance.
Broadening the stakeholder involvement is seen as a means to facilitate the flow of knowledge and helps building up intellectual capital and relationships of trust Place Reinvention by Real Changed Image 35 which can lead to the establishment of consensus. It can also enhance the capacity to act through opening up access to resources and sources of power Healey To be able to identify, analyse and compare the different images of the new Kiruna I have used discourse analysis of written documents and papers as well as some oral descriptions from interviews.
Foucault is one of the founding fathers of discourse analysis. According to him, discourse is a collection of statements governed by rules for the construction and evaluation of statements. Both discursive thinking and discursive practices create a discourse. Hajer , states that a discourse refers to a set of meanings, metaphors, representations, pictures, narratives, statements and so on, that in some way together produce a special version of expectations. The language is one important part of discourse building and analysis.
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The discourses in the study are interpreted as various images. Kiruna Relocation Kiruna is a small town, with approximately 20, inhabitants, located in the very north of Sweden at the timberline of the mountain area Kiruna a. The town was established in for the purpose of hosting the workers involved in mining iron ore.
Since then the mining and the number of inhabitants have increased and also fluctuated in response to the demand for iron. The iron mine has for a long time been run by a state-owned company, LKAB Loussvaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag , which is the main industrial platform of Kiruna. Approximately a quarter of the inhabitants in the entire municipality are directly employed by LKAB.
This gives the company a powerful position as the municipality is dependent on the prosperous development of LKAB. In some way the location is living in a symbiotic relationship with the iron company. In March the mining company LKAB , informed Kiruna municipality and the community about increased mine subsidence, caused by earlier mining activities.
They also reported their future plans for extensive mining activities which will mine the ore-body that extends underneath the existing town. This underground mining causes ground deformation making it highly unstable for buildings above the mine. A relocation of such a large part of the urban structure is something extraordinary that will demolish the heritage of the town in its urban grid and architecture. On the other hand the new situation provides an opportunity to rebuild a large part of the town and a completely new city centre in a sustainable way. Both these proposed developments were probably the reason why the municipality information office sent out a press release saying that the centre of Kiruna had to be relocated.
This news provoked an enormous reaction and Kiruna was invaded, not only by national mass media, but also by the European press. We can also imagine that parts of the population were proud — suddenly this small unknown town in the north was the focus of attention by many journals, TV and radio programmes. However, others were frightened about what was going to happen to their local environment. The expansion of the town has been and still is directly dependent on the ore mine and its fluctuating value on the worldwide market. The local planning administration has a process of comprehensive planning in progress, based on the assumption that it will be necessary to move or rebuild a large part of the built environment Kiruna The existing railway and the main European road, from the Baltic Sea on the east coast to the Norwegian coast in the west, will also have to be realigned as they both cross the unstable zones.
When Kiruna was founded years ago it was designed to be, and was in reality built as a model town. It has a recognized status as a national cultural heritage site because of its unique grid plan and its collection of buildings of high Place Reinvention by Real Changed Image 37 architectural value.
In addition, the urban area is surrounded by values of high national interest such as environmental significance, an abundance of unexplored mineral resources, national road, railway and airport infrastructure, as well as important pasture areas for reindeer herding of which is undertaken by the Sami, the indigenous people of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia. All these various interests of the territory are often over-lapping and interrelated and sometimes also compete with each other. With the national interest concentrated on Kiruna the possibilities to find new locations for the new urban area have been a challenge.
The major changes in Kiruna are planned in cooperation with several important actors. There are obviously also some stakeholders who are not taking part in the process, but some of their interests are taken care of by others. The stakeholders are competing for the territory in, around and even below the existing town. The largest stakeholder groups in the development of future employment and the living environment are of course the local community of Kiruna as well as nongovernmental organizations. There is a broad time span between the different activities.
On the one hand there is a political long-term vision. The town has existed for more than years. The municipality looks both backwards at the original model town and envisages forwards for a similar period of time. This is the reason why the planning administration and the leading politicians have worked out the vision for as long a period as the next years. On the other hand, there is a short-term reality in the location of the new railway line, which had to be decided in and the railway must be physically rebuilt before All this, together with major global, regional and local uncertainties, expectations of a long-term sustainable development, and tight deadlines, create a very complex situation.
The complexity is based on the large amount and variation of factors interwoven as a multi-dimensional web. However, since the real world is infinitely complex, it is also inevitably analytically inexhaustible. Images of Kiruna According to whom you speak to or for what purpose Kiruna is described, the town is given several types of images. These various images are interesting to analyse and compare for the understanding of what is taking place in Kiruna today. The images are interpreted by analysing interviews, written documents and media news from the perspective of discourse theory Hajer The examinations of both oral talks and written texts provide stronger discourses than others you can find among the population, among the authority officers and in contemporary 38 Place Reinvention documents and media.
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The four main images found are; the dark mining Kiruna, the space age Kiruna, the deformed Kiruna and new Kiruna. The dark mining Kiruna This image is here called the dark mining town since it is based on the mine as the dominating industry and employer. The town is located approximately km north of the Arctic Circle and is in fact dark during most of the winter time. The decades of s and s illustrate how the mining activities within the space of a few years have gone up and down and, concomitantly, so have the number of inhabitants.
The down periods with unemployment and empty houses also support, metaphorically, the dark designation. For the duration of the s and early s the town extended greatly. In the mine was at its height and the town had almost 25, inhabitants. This decade made it possible for a large part of the population to move from the central parts of the town, which had poor sanitation standards, to modern standards in the then newly-built Lombolo area.
This new large residential area was built up with apartments in multi-family houses and in single-family houses Kiruna However, a few years later iron ore production decreased to only a third of the best years. With a reduction of the iron market, the Kiruna ore could not compete with the price of ore from the open cast mines in Brazil. The town was shrinking and some of the newly-built residential areas in Lombolo became empty. Many houses had windows covered with boards, and 14 multi-family houses were even pulled down — parts of the area looked like a ghost town.
These depressive times are still part of the memory of a majority of the local community. The selfconfidence of the inhabitants reached its lowest point. However, the area acquired a new role; at that time Sweden had accepted many refugees and immigrants and some of them were placed in Kiruna and Lombolo Kiruna During these years Kiruna had an image of a deprived town.
Both the mining company and the municipality had to be supported by the state to survive. Many people left the town for jobs in the southern part of Sweden, at least the younger ones. The town looked even physically depressed with the empty buildings and residential blocks. This image was widespread and, today, it still is attributed to the town.
Esrange, Kiruna Space Centre is located approximately 40 kilometres out of town. The centre is the base for launching and the control of satellites and tests of space vehicles. IRF is a national authority exploring the space and atmosphere, and constructs instruments to measure the northern lights and sun wind.
The municipality of Kiruna has also started a space education programme for upper secondary school level at Esrange. All the space activities have been strategically located in Kiruna because of the high regularity of clear skies, the northern lights, proximity to the North Pole and large unsettled areas.
All this facilitates communication with satellites in polar circuits. Additionally, Esrange is also enticing other space activities. The Swedish military force will use the Space Centre to test unmanned aircraft. From this place communication and data exchange takes place with the European satellite Envisat. There are also future visions for strengthening the image of high technology and space activities, for example the development of space tourism. The facilities are open to the public and part of the local tourism 40 Place Reinvention programme.
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In , the British company, Virgin Galactic, plans to start flights from Kiruna, bringing tourists out into space. The reason the company chose Kiruna seems mainly related to the skills that are to be found in space operations and tourism at Esrange Swedish National Space Board Place Reinvention by Real Changed Image 41 The space discourse was supported by a press release with images of this space age place. The space age image is also highlighted when Kiruna is presented as having something more than its mining industry. Surprisingly, also officers at LKAB show off the image of space age Kiruna, which I perceive as a way of challenging the image of the town as centered around the strong relationship and responsibility between the mining company and the municipality.
The deformed Kiruna The global demand for iron has given a new belief in the future for the mining company to extend the mine and be able to increase the production of iron ore. In LKAB decided to invest in a new pellets plant in Kiruna which was finished in , one of the greatest investments ever for the company. As a consequence of the mine extension, there are on-going investigations to clarify the spread of the ore bodies for future mining and how these can influence the existing and future urban structure. The plans for extension of the mine will, as presented in the introduction, threaten the built-up parts of the town.
As presented above, there are manifold and often over-lapping and competing interests in terms of land-use of local, regional and national importance. The railway lines are managed and financed by the National Rail Adminstration that has conducted a Railway Plan Banverket The National Board of Housing, Building and Planning Boverket have a ministry assignment to support the regional board and the municipal planning administration and have reported their examination Boverket The mining is controlled and receives exploration permissions from The Mining Inspectorate of Sweden Bergstaten.
The municipality of Kiruna is, by the general municipal planning monopoly, the planning authority and is responsible for managing all of these various interests and conflicts in a comprehensive plan, although, as we have seen much of the Place Reinvention by Real Changed Image 43 infrastructure planning is advocated by regional and national authorities in consultation with the municipality.
The national planning authorities also visited Kiruna to be informed. This has resulted in a lot of meetings, seminars, consultations and workshops to manage the complex conditions in the plan for the relocation. The national authorities have to handle all the various consequences of the deformation. The authorities have produced several documents that point out the national interest in the resources and heritage that are threatened by the ground deformation.
In , as part of the comprehensive municipal planning process, a local questionnaire survey was conducted. People were asked to highlight the qualities of the buildings that are to be developed or buildings that should be protected in the present Kiruna and moved if necessary. A large part of the respondents 94 per cent responded by saying that the most important place with an obvious Kiruna atmosphere was the church, the town hall and the outlook over the surroundings.
A viable interpretation of this result is that a large part of the local community probably does not approve of the deconstruction of the existing town. The answers are seen by the municipality as an important foundation for the spatial planning. The new Kiruna The massive event that the relocation of a large part of this small town will be, has provoked amazing reactions.
First of all the media, both national as well as international, went to Kiruna to report on this extraordinary project of relocating almost a whole town. The aim of the project was to envision a new post-modern town in an area where the urban structure would not hinder further extension of the mine. The proposal illustrated a townscape with winding streets along the mountain slopes, a tropical garden and an in-door skiing hill under a glass roof. The visionary and well illustrated proposal was attractive to the local community.
The proposal has also been presented and intensively discussed and criticized in national architectural journals and in a design programme on television. The consultants phrase it this way: Some parts of the local community are excited about the new Kiruna.
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From the questionnaire survey mentioned earlier Kiruna kommun one can deduce that several inhabitants are looking forward to the new Kiruna. For the future shape of the town some respondents mentioned that the planners should look at international examples: Others see that there can be a future Kiruna without the mining company LKAB as the driving force, which is exemplified with the quotation directed to the local planners: Times can change quickly!
All national authorities are apprehensive of, and keep up-to-date with, what happens in Kiruna. Besides the officials involved in the planning there have been study tours from the authorities as well as consultant companies. It seems as if all people in Sweden concerned with planning and architectural issues have visited Kiruna since the ideas of town relocation was launched. These study visit groups, are by and large, expecting to hear about and discuss a new Kiruna city shape. Images Discourse Groups The four different images of Kiruna exist side by side and are not divided by definite borders.
The images are initiated and promoted by different groups in the town and among authorities at different levels. The power of the images varies in accordance with the hierarchical or political positions of the stakeholders cf. As illustrated above the Kiruna population and economy have fluctuated, with the most recent down period in the s. One can still identify the image of the small, deprived and dark town in Norrbotten County — a part of the country identified with harsh climate and high unemployment. This perception is particularly in circulation in southern Sweden, has existed for decades and is probably not easy to get rid of.
However, it is not an accurate representation of Kiruna. The current high conjuncture in the mineral market has made Kiruna an economically wealthy town. Surprisingly, the idea of relocating the town has not severely antagonized the local community. One could expect adverse reactions, but in Kiruna the people know how important the mining and LKAB are. A great deal of the local community remembers the situation during the critical economical periods when a large part of the miners risked losing their jobs.
A hundred years ago, when the town was established, the mining company LKAB took responsibility for the entire locality. It was necessary to have a functional society. The first director of the mining company LKAB, Hjalmar Lundbom, became a legend and both the longest street as well as a school is named after him and his charming residence is a tourist attraction. Hjalmar Lundbom was a great friend of art and gathered the well-known Swedish and international 46 Place Reinvention artists from that time in his own home. He was convinced that a strong social and cultural society would create a well-functioning town.
He was also interested in educational issues and started a school to improve the education of the sons of the miners. Even if later managing directors have not felt the same personal responsibility for the local society, LKAB has always shown an interest in a well-functioning local community. This is probably the reason why people have always trusted the mining company and still seem to be trustful, despite the dramatic scenario envisaged. Also the authorities have always had a strong economical interest in maintaining civilian society and stimulating industry and trade in Kiruna.
So the inhabitants have not had to take the same responsibility for the industrial development as other urban communities in the region. The big changes will break the settled structure both physically and socially.
The questionnaire survey conducted in Kiruna , demonstrated that people highly appreciated the Kiruna urban grid and the monumental buildings such as the church and the town hall. For the authorities and town developers the challenge will be to build a new town and at the same time preserve the character and most of the environments and buildings that are considered as architecturally valuable.
As this discourse is supported by the municipality and authorities on various levels and geographical location, it could be interpreted as an institution Healey ; Cars et. However, even if the people in and outside Kiruna share a view of what could be destroyed in the town, they have not agreed on solutions for the future. This contrasts with the more intellectual and technical cooperation between the authorities. This group has formal power Lukes by legislation, national policies and societal positions. In this sense, together, different groups build up power to influence the future shape of the town.
The common discourse is here interpreted to strengthen the forms for human cooperation in correspondence with what North calls an institution. However, institutions are connected to the ability and power to make a difference. Place Reinvention by Real Changed Image 47 The image of the space age town is based on an expansion of the Space Centre at Esrange which will exert even more influence on the Kiruna town and its future development.
There exists a small discourse that space activities in Kiruna territory could be even more prominent. This discourse is rooted in a sincere and factual cooperation of many institutes, departments and schools at Esrange — a cooperation that, from a practical viewpoint, forms a new organization. They have already organized the actors in a collaborative effort to strengthen the Centre. LKAB had the economic capacity to engage a well known and notable architect. This cooperation can be seen as a coalition, a term used for groups searching other like-minded partners in order to realize a common goal.
The ways of cooperation in coalitions are often conceptualized as partnerships Peters A coalition, as I see it, is a shorter form of cooperation than an institution, with the objective of realizing something in the near future. So, the new Kiruna image has had and still has a strong position among the Swedish public. Today the economic situation for the mining company is at the top due to the high global price for iron.
LKAB, is still the main industry and the main employer. The inhabitants are used to ups and downs and know that the mining company only does what promotes the mining interests. And not much has happened. In , the only visible result is a newly-constructed electricity transformer station. The local community seems to mistrust the local planning administration, the leading politicians and the mining company.
The citizens think that they just talk about great changes and nothing has happened! You could hear reactions from people that LKAB had exaggerated, that the situation is not that serious. This was also felt when, two years later, the company was not willing to talk about the sketches. Nevertheless, when it was presented, the attractive illustrated proposal confused the municipality, who in fact is responsible for urban planning.
And there has been some opposition. As a consequence, there are speculations that even if the urban structure is successively depleted as a result of ground deformation, the rest of the town will accommodate the displaced population. The outcome would be a smaller town without any new parts built. From this we can 48 Place Reinvention identify an on-going competition between the image discourses that will always change. From the above presentation and analysis we can perceive several images of Kiruna carried by diverse groups.
Some of the images are connected to each other and others are contradictory. At the same time these two groups of images are contradictory to each other. The first two represent pessimistic or realistic views while the second pair reveals a more visionary development view. This image is influential and connects different groups that have the courage and power to introduce new ideas. As claimed above the institutions can be formal as rules for people, for example the Planning and Building Act that has to be adhered to when the urban structure of Kiruna is re-planned.
They can also be informal restrictions as, for instance, conventions and norms for behaviour.
Societal discourses can be so strong that other aspects are hard to bring in. Both these types of institutions and organizations give a structure for human cooperation in society. The relocation of Kiruna town is extremely complex concerning all overlapping, competing and interrelated interests as a base for the spatial planning. The variety and large amount of basic data creates uncertainty rather than a more definite foundation.
In such an uncertain context it is probably a natural response for the citizens to accede to image discourses that a majority of the local community supports. An institution can reduce uncertainties by creating a structure for joint efforts between human beings North These image institutions can reduce the uncertainty enforced by structural factors influencing everyday life, and they provide and limit the number of choices for individuals. The various images of the existing and prospective Kiruna can only be grasped as discourses and no one knows today what the future town will look like. Today only an imagined reinvention of Kiruna is present.
Since there is no complete enduring movement supporting a particular collective image, no regime can be identified, in the way it is defined by Stone However, as one can understand from the future plans for Kiruna, a spectacular make-over will take place in this small mining town. There is no doubt a reinvention is going on. The main actors involved in the planning processes, consisting of the planning administration of the municipality, the Regional Road Administration, the Regional Rail Administration, LKAB and Vattenfall the electricity company , Place Reinvention by Real Changed Image 49 have conducted a joint information brochure in both Swedish and English which concludes as follows: The Future is Uncertain — but Exciting!
The transformation of the city has begun and a great many important decisions will be made over the months and years to come. But no one knows exactly how great the transformation will be. Their extent will be guided partly by the development of the mine and future technical conditions. Just imagine if a technique emerges in the future enabling ground stabilization, thus stopping the ground from cracking?
But one thing is certain; it will be exciting to follow the development of Kiruna over the coming years. For, within ten years, the city will not be as it is today, no matter what happens! There is probably a capacity to make changes. However, the ability or will to work together and to agree on the aims have so far been limited. In this sense the local actors have insufficient capacity to bring about any real differences. I interpret the situation in Kiruna as that of various groups of actors and population supporting a variety of images that are competing with each other for the one which is authentic.
Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process Oxford: Kiruna a , General information of Kiruna http: LKAB a , Future plans http: A Radical View London: Ministry of Enterprise , Press release http: Swedish National Space Board , http: This page has been left blank intentionally Chapter 4 Kirkenes — A Town for Miners and Ministers Arvid Viken and Torill Nyseth Introduction Close to the Norwegian—Russian border, the small town Kirkenes recently has become a scene for the revitalization of cross-border collaboration and international politics.
After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russian relations have had significance for the industrial development, the political agenda and daily life in this town. The town is locally regarded as a centre of the Barents Region, stretching over the northern areas of Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway. Even if Kirkenes is a small town with about 5, inhabitants, in some ways it fits the description that Robinson , gives of much larger cities: The reinvention of this mining town has been enabled and supported by global trends and local stubbornness — some locals have never abandoned the idea of a continuation of the mining activities.
However, this is not the only narrative that is central to an understanding of the continued and prosperous existence of the town. To better comprehend this dynamic, theory about place narratives is taken as a point of departure. A whole variety of narratives about the past, the present and the future partly competing, partly supporting each other exists at the same time. Those focused on here are related to the town as a mining town, as a border town, as a place for international politics and as a multicultural community.
This is followed by a theoretical discussion of narratives as direction for development. Then some major contemporary narratives are presented and analysed — their origin, how they are kept alive and how they are materialized. Before concluding the chapter, in the penultimate section, narratives as those analysed here, are discussed as a matter of path-dependency.
Methodological Approaches This chapter is based on a case-study focusing on different narratives that circulate in Kirkenes and how they are sustained and presented. To obtain evidence for these processes a variety of data sources are used, representing what Yin calls a robust case study. A large number of plans, letters and decisions are used as vital signs of the narratives that are studied, as well as material manifestations and statistics.
However, focus group and in-depth interviews are the basic data sources conducted in , supplemented with some more in-depth interviews in It was through these interviews that the contours of the narratives emerged. Collective focus and communication is one of the advantages of the focus group method Webb and Kavern , , and it is claimed that focus groups create a situation for data collection which is less artificial than many other kinds of data collection settings Wilkinson , These interviews revealed that the local identities were strongly related to some narratives that seemed to have been there for years, and that was more or less collectively committed to memory.
Narrative analysis comes in basically two types. One is the type of research where the researcher refers and analyses the narratives that he identifies in the fields he is studying. The other is the narratives that are constructed by the researcher on the basis of the information that is collected, from interviews or other data sources.
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This study combines both types; the narratives identified exist, but they are not necessarily thought of as narratives among the informants, but are constructed by the authors. Narratives as Future Leads Narratives represent an approach that has been applied in a series of disciplines, ranging from literary theory and folklore, to psychology, organizational theory and planning cf. What Somers defines as public narratives Somers , are such narratives that people share. In fact, narratives add to the construction of past, present and future Gilpin , Even though narratives demand narrators, there is also a tendency for stories to live Kirkenes — A Town for Miners and Ministers 55 their own life reducing its authors to co-authors; they are something that circulate among people that gives meaning to events, space and human actions.
There certainly are different types of narratives, from formal written history and literature to oral stories, myths and legends. Some narratives circulate among people or they may be made by intention, they can be public or private, formal or informal. Narrative analysis has a suspended position in the social sciences. In place analyses narratives are vital Johnstone One example is heritage narratives. However, such narratives are selective representations of the past that feed into and are partially driven by the demands, sentiments and interests of those in the present Bridger , Thus, in most societies there are always a variety of stories about the past and multiple versions of historical events; a plurality of narratives stemming from a number of heterogeneous voices Jensen ; Finnegan Stories are a central component in narratives, and often the two terms are even reckoned as synonyms.
However, narrative is a broader term, covering a variety of types of narratives, whereas stories are of a specific type related to a plot, having a start, something in between — a core — and an ending. Seen in this way, a story is an event for the listener. The type of narratives that are explored in this chapter is of the first type. Such narratives are often more vague and less structured than a story. They also tend to reflect ongoing discourses Bowman , 8.
In planning theory, narratives about the future represent a particular form of analysis. Planning is by definition future-oriented, and may be seen as a form of persuasive storytelling Throgmorton Planning can be seen as a narrative ordering of society Law ; cf. Such narratives exist in social settings and give direction to human performance.
Ordering narratives tend to be strategic, but often more in the minds of the planners than in reality. There are lots of plans searching for a strategic position in Kirkenes. Most of them have, however, been of minor significance for future development. Second, ordering narratives tend to be discursive, which means that they refer to ongoing discourses and put the narrator and the reader in a meaningful political, ideological or scientific context. Discourses about the regions of Europe, border regions and globalization are relevant to Kirkenes.
Narratives are therefore related to discourses. The type of narratives that will be discussed here can all be identified as within a particular discourse. First discourses provide people with a particular analytical approach, concepts, categories and theories. For example, people in Kirkenes have started talking about their town as hybrid, 56 Place Reinvention leaning towards a discourse about multiculturalism. And third, such discourses provide people with positions: Thus, narratives are structured and inscribed in discourses cf.
And therefore, narratives are related to power and hegemonic positions. In Kirkenes there is particularly a hegemonic struggle going on between political narratives and identities and more neutral bordered positions Viken et al. In this chapter the prime focus however is on how narratives are kept alive, and the power of the narratives in the formation of a community.
Narratives are also enacted, circulating in relations between people. In Kirkenes there are lots of stories told; the old mining era is well represented in them, and several are about the border and the border town, among others Viken et al. Narratives are also materially heterogeneous — they enact as texts, technologies and organizational arrangements — this is often what makes narratives important in stabilizing arrangements. In Kirkenes this is a strong tangible element — there is a heritage from the mining period that is visible, and so are the new institutions coping with border issues.
Lastly such ordering narratives are incomplete, according to Law This is obvious in Kirkenes; people are anticipating the future and wonder what will happen next. As was said in one interview: A Reinvented Kirkenes Town — Changed Social Practices Knowledge of the past is important to understand the narratives circulating in Kirkenes today cf. Eriksen and Niemi ; Niemi , at least from the more recent decades. The Norwegian—Russian boundary represents the northernmost border between national states in Europe.
The Russian—Norwegian border was settled through a treaty that was signed in Niemi Although the area adjacent to the Norwegian border was, due to international agreements, in the hands of the Finns in the period between World Wars I and II, this border has not been negotiated or contested. There has always been a significant contact between Norway and Russia, except for the Cold War era —89 when the border was more or less closed, because of the international political situation.
In the post-Soviet period the patterns and frequencies of contacts have been regained, and today Kirkenes stands out as a vibrant border town. However, the formality related to the border crossing and the iconography of the border have not changed significantly; the systems and symbols of the Cold War still exist Viken In its first 90 years Kirkenes was dominated by the mining industry that, at the most, employed around 1, people.
Several incidents during the s Kirkenes — A Town for Miners and Ministers 57 were crucial for the final close-down of the mining company, Sydvaranger Ltd in Locally the decision to close-down was never fully accepted, and the idea of reopening the mine has been kept alive and manufacturing industries have had a prioritized position locally. In the mine is to be reopened due to high market prices and new owners. Today, more than 50 per cent of the workforce is employed in the public sector.
In the private sector tourism has been growing, with approximately employees in , but even more important is the growth in trade and commerce, partly as a result of a Russian presence. As a sign of this, two shopping centres were constructed after the year , one of them obviously having Russians as its target market. Kirkenes has rapidly become part of a border economy.