Britt Kramvig

The silent language of ethnicity

The article argues that in everyday life, in ethnically mixed communities in the Arctic region, the concept of Saaminess is dynamic and situated. Social practices that sustain impure identity categories are in existence. People insist on ambiguity as a matter of resistance against Norwegian society as well as against the logic of nationalism, after a century of institutionalized assimilation. In the practice of everyday life, gift exchange becomes a way of visualizing basic recognition and appreciation of the humanity of the other. Objects, values and symbols become the material employed in the creation of a local, collective self-perception that transcends ethnic boundaries. In such a context ethno-political identity categories and any notion of ethnicity that sees ethnic categories as mutually exclusive are poor tools for the analysis of what takes place in this region. There is a need for an opening up of concepts such as ethnicity and identity to encompass differences and antagonisms, both analytically and politically.

The Future can only be Imagined - Innovation in Farm Tourism from a Phenomenological Perspective

This article relates to the fast growing research literature on innovation by adopting a phenomenological perspective of change and how change comes about. We visited nineteen farms in Norway in a project on farm-based tourism. Results show highly differentiated products but similar routes in transforming a farm no longer seen as economically viable, into a way of doing life and doing work that brings a complex of considerations together. The concept of imaginative horizons is used and seen as characteristic of the transformative process of turning the farm into a farm based tourist enterprise. The same transformation becomes a way of keeping the relationship and interdependence between the past and the present vivid and meaningful.