Social anthropology

Setting the social agenda of the diploma project, we started off by writing an essay in social anthropology. Below you find fragments of the two texts.

Questions of interest

How do place-identities influence the experiences people have of a place or how do a political position shape a place based on the stories and representations told and shown? What is relevant for a story of a place, and who are the storytellers, in which forum?

How is value related to this notion of shifts and outer influence? How again is Henningsværs place-value for people, locally and internationally kept or challenged?

Place-identity_of history and myth

A place is being formed with an identity, but the identity or notion of truth is being built up between people, upon what? The history and stories people share of a place and its people are many, and of great variety when it comes to them being true or not. Even if they are not told false, there are so many ways of telling a story. False here not being negative or positive, only keeping with the notion of the importance that history and the identity it creates are often based on stories and angles from a viewer that may mislead. Behind Henningsvær the imposing character of the mountain Vågakallen lies as part of the scenery that frames the settlement. Well into the 19^th century people believed this mountain to be the tallest in Norway. Maybe the myth was formed on the basis of its position in the landscape and how it raises straight off from sea level often into the clouds with the symbol and importance it had as a navigation point for fishermen. Now we now that Vågakallen only rises 942 m.a.s.l.

We are influenced by our past, but there are many alternatives in which past to chose from. This again is influenced by how we interpret the presence. Politicians and ideological groups have often misused history in shaping a common identity and myth to a place or a group of people. This connects and builds a common ground, as it also splits and creates conflicts of an inner and outer circuit. The social scientist Benedict Anderson applies this to how a nation and a community is founded on myths, symbols or stories often far from peoples own experiences and notions of their nation and a community, in his concept of “Imagined communities”. (Anderson, 1983),  One finds examples from when Norway as a (modern) nation was formed and constituted on myths and common stories in the late 19^th centuries national romanticism. A national identity based much upon Norwegians being the hardy mountain people from the north, fronting a strong connection to the remote, beautiful landscapes of mountain farms where much of our culture was based, even though only a few people shared this life, it became the myth to base a common identity upon.

Characters like Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Edward Grieg and Henrik Wergeland was part of the powerful elite that made these stories and means of a national identity legitimate.

Can we live our life and share a community without myths and stories to base our lives and identities? Novalis, the poet, describes a wish of being at home everywhere, on the other scale Hugo of St Victors claims that the man who can see the whole world as a foreign country, is perfect (Hylland-Eriksen,1996, p.100-101). 

Thomas Hylland Eriksen uses these utopias as part of his arguments on why myths have such an important position in shaping an identity to a place and a people. People are not only global; they are attached to one place more than others. There is a we, that can both be a curse and a necessity, but in the end this is how people find meaning within a social context.

Through myths people are being seduced, or directed into visions and dreams. In this sense myths can be dangerous both in how they make us frame a singled-identity of the past, and lead us to believe in a future-based vision. Using often few and fixed conceptions of what has been, and what future that lies ahead, this can lead or mislead more than it can help in finding a direction for which to follow.

Defining a place

Lately the knowledge of place-theory has become more open for varied interpretations and meanings. Seeing the world as within constant shifts, with the relations creating identities and meaning. A map is a 2D representation of a landscape, and can seem to have a homogenous character, alienated from what is really forming and happening in places. Mapping through borders and value of a place and a landscape should be only part of how a place is defined. As mapping itself is set off from a position of power, placing value and norms of a place within a hierarchy and of ways of representing, as for example how map defines borders of inside and outside, and can underline the them and us.

Through linking places in a global perspective one can promote solidarity to other places, and the field of architecture can gain a political role of creating architecture within a political reality.

People and place-identity

Whether or not a place has a characteristic place-identity, the social groups that inhabit the place have their set of relating to such a common group identity. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieus theory on how people are being formed from social identities in a bodily matter, with the term habitus, can be applied to here. Through family and society we, and our body with us, learn a set of cultural behaviourisms. Often class, family background and the close society around are the dominant features of how habitus is created within groups and through people. A place-identity is here part of how such bodily knowledge can influence a set of norms and values onto people’s lives.

How then is a place like Henningsvær challenged by its many users and connections?

How is one defined as an outsider and by whom, on what basis’?

Henningsvær is a small place, but with many people sharing the place throughout the year. Theres challenges of a common past, of what forms and sets premises for a place-identity through historically and mythical means. Continuing with questioning the concept of place-identity in it self in broadening the view on how places are formed and set in a global perspective.

I believe people want to share stories and a common idea of what a place is. Especially their home place is important for many people in defining who they are within that identity.

But what then is a place-identity or locality capable of handling from outsiders, from global influence and change? And how can this be applied to on a sustainable development of Henningsvær?