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Challenging Discourses on Rurality: Women and Men In‐migrants' Constructions of the Good Life in a Rural Town in Northern Norway
Author(s) -
Munkejord Mai Camilla
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
sociologia ruralis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1467-9523
pISSN - 0038-0199
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9523.2006.00415.x
Subject(s) - rurality , urbanity , idyll , hegemony , sociology , everyday life , gender studies , rural area , political science , politics , economy , law , economics , art , literature
This article examines the content and distinct characteristics of lay discourses on rurality and reflects on how these are related to hegemonic popular and academic/professional discourses on the rural. Based on three months of empirical fieldwork doing serial in‐depth interviews with in‐migrants from 17 households in the small town of Vadsø in Finnmark, Northern Norway, the article shows that Vadsø is constructed as an idyll with elements such as a beautiful landscape, outdoor activities, safety, an easy life and pleasant pace, similar to lay representations of the rural idyll in the UK. However, the in‐migrants defy the label, ‘rural’, adding ‘urban’ elements such as a clustered settlement, café latte society, gender equality and high mobility to their constructions of Vadsø. Hence, the good life in Vadsø is constructed as a combination of rural and urban elements. This challenges the ability of central hegemonic discourses on rurality, based on an underlying rural–urban dichotomy, to make sense of everyday life in Vadsø. Thus, the article argues for the need to analyse everyday life in rural settings in terms of the social production of multiple meanings that consider rurality and urbanity as interrelated, rather than opposed.