Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt

Governmobility: The Powers of Mobility

Abstract Mobility is often associated with flow and freedom; nonetheless, it is also about power and government. While mobility studies have shown how interpersonal social relations are increasingly supported by mobile technologies, it seems less clear how mobilities are involved in governing societies. Inspired by Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality and his 1978 lectures on security, territory and population, this article suggests that societies are increasingly governed through mobility, rather than there being government of mobility. If circulation has become a producer of, rather than an obstacle to, societies, then governmobility is a meaningful concept relating to how societies are ruled through connections. In conclusion, the article asks: what are the implications of governmobility for border studies, and more broadly, what are the powers of mobility studies?

Coping Strategies, Social Capital and Space

The theme of this article is the intersection of social and spatial factors in local and regional development. Based on empirical locality studies in the Circumpolar Northern context, the article introduces the concept of coping strategies. Coping strategies include three dimensions: innovation, networking and formation of identity. These dimensions and the ways in which they are interrelated are considered to be important to the forms of local development that can respond to global transformations and transcend institutionalized social fields. Coping strategies are discussed in relation to the different conceptualizations of social capital, and it is argued that while social capital is an asset, coping strategies are socio-spatial practices producing and drawing on social capital. As social capital is a social asset, it is important to transcend common sense understandings of ‘the social capital of the region’; networks between actors in different spatial settings, and relations on a macro level, can also produce social capital. The spatiality of coping strategies can be understood in a continuum from mobility to territoriality, and this continuum can be combined - and not intermixed - with processes of bridging and of bonding. The aim of the article is to provide theoretical inspiration to understand the complex forces at work in local development under conditions of increasing mobility of people, goods and information.

Performative work in tourism.

The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics of performative work that aims to create experiences for visiting tourists. It reports on qualitative research conducted among frontline employees working in three tourist attractions on the island of Lolland in Denmark, namely Lalandia holiday centre, Knuthenborg Safari Park, and the Medieval Centre. Results show that despite the variety of performative work, which includes service work, professional presentation and enactment, all types have two common features. First, recognition from visitors is a key reward when undertaking performative work. For many workers, the performative aspect has contributed to their personal development, especially where self‐control at work contributes to enhancing self‐esteem. Second, performative work is also often vulnerable, involving various emotional strategies to cope with its challenges. While research traditions relating to performative and emotional labour provide the background, the analytical sections also apply theoretical approaches drawn from other fields, most notably theories on the working environment and recognition.

Actor-Network Theory/Network Geographies

Actor-network theory (ANT) is a theoretical orientation based on the ontology of relational practices. It originated in science and technology studies in the early 1980s but has since been enrolled into diverse fields of social sciences. ANT has from the start been preoccupied with the process of ordering or the ways in which societal order is achieved and the role material elements and other nonhumans play in that process. This unifying thread of ANT constitutes the central line of connection to the field of human geography. The article starts with a general introduction to ANT, its origins, and characteristics. Second, the move of ANT into the realm of human geography is described. Here, the dichotomy between nature and society serves as an organizing principle for the account. The third section of the article discusses some of the implications ANT has had for geographical research.

Whose Heritage? Immigration and Place Narratives in Denmark

Abstract Questions of heritage, of ownership of discourses of past and present are important elements in present‐day struggles over identity and belonging, not least those related to immigration policy. None the less, the perspective of immigrant groups is often overlooked when decisions are taken concerning preservation of heritage sites. Since the late 1960s the area around Frederiksværk, Northern Zealand has become the home of large numbers of immigrants, notably from ex‐Yugoslavia, who were brought to Denmark to serve as rank and file in the then booming steel industry. In spite of their undeniable contribution to the development of the town, the cultural heritage of this relatively large immigrant population takes up very little space in the official branding of the town as a key site in the industrial history of Denmark. This article discusses the various place narratives in relation to immigrants in the case of Frederiksværk. We take as our point of departure the Danish notion of kulturmiljø (cultural milieu), which is more material than the notion of heritage. This discussion focuses on the ability of kulturmiljø to capture and incorporate the multiple and often contradictory cultural practices of different groups of actors and not the least to transgress the often rather static and confined view on local history, which often results from the heritage perspective. We analyze how different actors, notably the Yugoslavs, are represented in the narratives of the town, and how Yugoslav immigrants themselves perceive their position in Frederiksværk. Furthermore, we attempt to register some of the imprints made by immigrants on the material and cultural fabric, possibly useful to include in a kulturmiljø of Frederiksværk. The conclusion assesses the potentials and limitations of the kulturmiljø approach with regard to making visible the place narratives of immigrants.

Performing Academic Practice: Using the Master Class to Build Postgraduate Discursive Competences.

How can we find ways of training PhD students in academic practices, while reflexively analysing how academic practices are performed? The papers answer to this question is based on evaluations from a British–Nordic master class. The paper discusses how master classes can be used to train the discursive skills required for academic discussion, commenting and reporting. Methods used in the master class are: performing and creative arts pedagogical exercises, the use of written provocations to elicit short papers, discussion group exercises, and training in reporting and in panel discussion facilitated by a meta-panel discussion. The authors argue that master classes have the potential to further develop advanced-level PhD training, especially through their emphasis on reflexive engagement in the performance of key academic skills.

Experiencing the enchantment of place and mobility

Experiences of place and mobility play central roles not only in what was traditionally understood as tourism but also in the broader practices of travelling and visiting sites and sights. On the one hand, such experiences are performed to an extent where it is difficult to isolate the sites and movements experienced per se, since visitors and travellers take part in ‘doing’ places and mobility. On the other, experience sites and routes stand out with specific traces and characteristics affording some – and not other – experiences. This article discusses conceptual understandings that may help to better analyse what it takes to perform tourist sites. Following a discussion of Walter Benjamin’s way of understanding experiences as Erlebnisse, I suggest that ideas about multiplicity and absence–presence in Actor–Network Theory can develop new insights into how place and mobility are experienced in several layers of reality. To better understand experiences taking place in intersections between realities, J.R.R. Tolkien’s concept of how real enchantment produces a Secondary World suggests that we see fantasy as real, and this proposition is compared to Georg Simmel’s more modernist suggestion that experiences (Erlebnisse) are practised as living adventures, where intersecting worlds are not apart from each other. These practices are performed in restless mobilities among places, where the connections and hints between place and mobility are central in making absence–presence tensions produce experiences. Finally, the article discusses how the analysis of experience is related to the professional, experimental work of building a tourist attraction, exemplified by the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde.Experiences of place and mobility play central roles not only in what was traditionally understood as tourism but also in the broader practices of travelling and visiting sites and sights. On the o...

Regional Development and Noneconomic Factors

The article starts with a brief overview of definitions of regional development and especially how regional development is connected to the question of regions of states as part-of-whole relations. Noneconomic factors are introduced as the many aspects crucial to regional development which that can be seen as either external to or part of regional development, while it is also questioned to what extent the distinction between, for example, economy and culture is valid. Following these introductions, and the problems they raise, an account is given of the research on various noneconomic factors in relation to regional development in four sections. The first section deals with culture and modes of life in regional development, from early twentieth-century regional geography to a few versions of the contemporary use of culture and modes of life as an explanation for regional development. The next section gives an account of the wide use of social capital, embeddedness, and other ideas from economic sociology. Subsequently, this discussion continues into different notions of relations used in explaining regional development: commodity chains, social networks, governance networks, and actor networks, while raising questions about politics and the making of societies. These are the questions critically addressed in the final section about power, mobility, and territoriality in regional development.

Tourism, performance, and place: a geographic perspective

what ‘we learn’ in cities (68). As such the work lacks a nuance and subtlety that serves only to weaken its arguments, because the absences are so very present. In other places ideas are worthy of more depth in explanation. For example, there is mention of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker as a contribution to illustrations that people are interested in sites of the macabre, horror or disaster as a holiday destination (127). While it is not the book’s purpose to deconstruct Stalker from a ‘tourism perspective’, the rather cursory, one sentence summation of the film’s story is so reductionist it renders the example rather meaningless, especially for the reader familiar with the film. However, the most damning drawback to the book is the lack of engagement with academic tourism (per se) literature. Dean MacCannell is mentioned, as is John Urry (perhaps the two obvious stalwarts of undergraduate theorising in tourism studies), but not being able to acknowledge the critique of these old arguments in the tourism literature means that Stavans and Ellison miss points to which they appear to be saying that we should all be directing our attention: embodiment, performance, process. Even the very basic question of tourist-traveller distinction to which they draw attention would be enriched by reference to existing discussion and insight, not least that perhaps regardless of what it is called all forms of movement – real or metaphorical – require motivation, mobility and ability. As I have stated the book has its interesting moments, but its, at times, obviously over-generalist approach means that it can only ever at best be a polemic.

Festivallandskapet: En fenomenologisk inspirert studie av estetikk, festivaler og landskap

analytical framework, in line with Ingold’s conceptualisation of human–nature relationships. However, some gentle criticism of the use of methodology can be made, especially of the Fornebu case study. As much of the data consists of relatively few interviews, somewhat more detailed information about the interviewees and their personal background would have enriched the interpretation, instead of simply assigning them to fairly broad categories such as ‘environmentalists’ or ‘planners’. The presentation of results from the two case studies and the analysis and discussion of the implications relating to theory and practice are contained both in the three articles as well as in Part 1. In papers 2 and 3, a more nuanced description of the Fornebu project would have helped, since the ‘language’ of ecological restoration involves not only the use of certain concepts in verbal utterances or written texts, but also their applications in, for example, landscape architectural drawings and maps. Samples of such material would have added much to this analysis. The content of the three articles is well presented and organised and taken one step further in an integrated and comprehensive manner in the thesis summary. In the conclusions, recent critiques of the alien–native dichotomy as a tool in environmental management are validated. The discussion confirms that the reasons for certain species being deemed unwanted in certain locations are often based on the non-reflexive use of value-laden concepts. The first part of the thesis ends with a call for more explicit reasoning in such cases, although it stops short of presenting ideas for how exactly that could best be achieved. The major contributions of this work to knowledge pertain to the development of ‘more-than-human’ geographies on the one hand and environmental politics and management on the other hand. Regarding the former, plant–human relations have received rather scant attention in the literature (with some honourable exceptions that are duly acknowledged in the thesis), whereas regarding the development of environmental politics and management, there is certainly still a gap to be bridged between the natural sciences and the social sciences if more sound and just politics of nature are to be developed. The thesis should stimulate further reflections about the use of concepts in biopolitical debates in society at large. This is certainly needed, not least in an era of increasingly rapid global environmental change with corresponding changes in the distribution of plant (and animal) species. Marte Qvenild’s thesis has a well-grounded theoretical framework, uses appropriate and to some extent innovative methods, and presents some substantial new data. It tackles an important and highly pertinent issue in human–nature relations: how nature is categorised through practices, including linguistic ones, into ‘wanted’ and ‘unwanted’ species. It contributes significantly to knowledge about invasive species management and more generally about plant–human relations. The two cases presented are relevant and interesting. The conclusions are logically drawn and potentially important for biopolitical debates. Although some criticism can be made of certain parts of the work, it is by and large a successful piece of original research.