Gunnar Vittersø

Norwegian Cabin Life in Transition

Second‐home tourism has long traditions in Norway. However, the building and use of holiday homes or cabins is undergoing important changes with consequences for a sustainable development of activities and consumption within this sector. This paper explores how traditional norms about holiday‐home or cabin life in Norway are challenged by new standards, activities and ways of organizing family life. By drawing on an analysis of in‐depth interviews with 12 families living in central parts of eastern Norway, the paper discusses the strong hold of norms and ideals that are associated with the use of holiday homes. However, the traditional Norwegian ideals attached to the primitiveness of cabin life and outdoor recreation is challenged by new norms related to convenience, comfort and extraordinary experiences. Based on the interviews the article explores how these conflicting interests are negotiated and how compromises are reached within the household context.

Selling and installing heat pumps: influencing household practices

ABSTRACT When installing energy-efficient technologies in housing, such as heat pumps, the energy savings predicted by technical analyses are often not realized, resulting in a performance gap. This study focuses on air-to-air heat pumps in residential settings. Interviews with actors in Scandinavia who are involved in selling and installing heat pumps are analysed to understand what role these actors have in relation to the performance gap. Previous studies have focused on households and their everyday practices with heat pumps. This study focuses on the process of integrating the heat-pump technologies into homes, and analyses the role of professional practices from supply-side actors (e.g. advice, provision and installation) in relation to questions of residential comfort, know-how and use, as well as the material (physical) integration of heat pumps into homes. In analysing these questions, the study’s contribution is a focus on how to understand material elements within practice–theoretical approaches. From a policy perspective, the analysis shows that a sole focus on the efficiency of technologies is too limited in terms of achieving reduced energy consumption. There is potential for different actors on the provision side to be assigned new roles in order to realize more energy savings.

Local Food Initiatives and Fashion Change: Comparing Food and Clothes to Better Understand Fashion Localism

Abstract As a movement, local food is well developed and its principles and practices widely appreciated. By contrast, the concepts and activity of fashion localism are far less understood. This essay looks to transfer local food experiences to the fashion context by reviewing a number of food-related initiatives and deliberating about ways in which the insights they contain may lead to smaller scale and more diverse fashion practices. The article starts with a comparison of some of the similarities and differences between food and fashion and concludes with speculations about knowledge transfer about localism for both eating and dressing.