Highlighting identities and creativity by cultural planning

The importance of a vital culture is frequently discussed in relation to the development of dynamic places and regions. Richard Florida (2002), for instance, maintains that the link between culture, creativity and growth are central to places. The development potential in regional economy is considered to be the cultural capital of the creative class.

Increasingly, the physical environment in community planning and architecture is interwoven with cultural expression and a higher degree of aesthetics to attract future inhabitants and to keep people from leaving the place, on the one hand, and to increase the number of visitors and investors with a view to create economic growth, on the other. Place developers, in other words, are at work to create effective markers and stories as well as an attractive environment.

This type of strategic planning can be criticised from several perspectives. Strategy is a balancing act between preserving and cultivating the history of a place, its specific features and identity-that is, place culture­-and to “sell” the place to visitors, in-migrants and companies. Moreover, Florida’s notion of development rests implicitly on the assumption that the people expected are those with cultural or economic capital. This means that there are including and excluding aspects in the argument that need to be considered.

The described view on development and planning of places has led to an increased interest in alternative planning methods. Especially one case in the city of Karlstad, Sweden, is analysed. The project is inspired by a cultural planning method. Cultural planning involves taking the cultural perspective into account in community planning. The method is primarily a grass-root model based on the local community, its values and resources. By means of active cultural planning at the residential/district area level, the Karlstad project aims to develop forms and methods for implementing artistic designs and cultural activities to produce attractive neighbourhoods and enhance the quality of life for the residents. An expectation is an increased social sustainable development. The City of Karlstad also wants to raise its attraction level and ensure a positive development for future residents by testing cultural planning and the related community art methods. The present paper is based on an on-going evaluation and research of the Karlstad project.

Key words: Cultural planning, place development, culture, identity, creativity.

Syftet i studien är att undersöka och analysera tre aspekter av hållbar turismutveckling:

¥ livsstilen vid turism- och fritidsaktiviteter

¥ turism- och fritidsresandet

¥ turismens påverkan i besöksområdet.



Grundfrågan i studien är hur dessa aspekter sammanhänger med hållbar utveckling. När

livsstilen vid turism- och fritidsaktiviteter och rörlighet behandlas konstateras att vi lever i ett högrörlighetssamhälle där frågan ställs om det ur ett miljöperspektiv är möjligt att fortsätta

med den högrörliga livsstilen under fritiden. Vad gäller turismen och dess konsekvenser i

besöksområdet handlar hållbar turismutveckling om att ha ett långsiktigt perspektiv på

resursanvändning, att eftersträva en utveckling som är ekologiskt sund och kulturellt vital samt att eftersträva jämlikhet och välfärd i det lokala samhället.

Increasingly, place branding is regarded as stakeholder-centric, participatory and inclusive. However, a central assumption permeates the place-branding literature that there is a dominant organisation of some sort working strategically to organise the place-branding process. In this article we question this assumption and explore how multiple 'authors' create narratives and contribute to the branding of places. Using interviews, observations and printed and online material, we study a small town in southwest Sweden. Our illustrative case study reveals a decentralised collective production of narratives by multiple authors that together constitute the branding of a place.

Alternative perspectives on rural development and growth

Lotta Braunerhielm (lotta.braunerhielm@kau.se), Eva Olsson (eva.olsson@kau.se) and Lars Aronsson (lars.aronsson@kau.se)

What picture of Urban and rural areas that are marked are central. During the last decades  the city has been seen as the area of possibilities and rural areas as "the problem". Our thesis is that urban areas have possibilities for social and economic innovations in cooperation with the city if you take a different perspective on growth than the generally used perspective. This includes everything from resources, products, services, social entrepreneurship to aspects of living environment. How can for example experience-based competence, social relations, living areas and lifestyle-satisfaction be upgraded? How can you develop areas and use different combinations of social, economic, cultural and symbolic capital? A widened definition of growth includes robust social, economic but even ecological dimensions. Our main purpose is to study a perspective of possibilities for the growth of periphery in cooperation with the city. The purpose has a strong connection to the goals of Europe 2020 concerning development and especially the alternative way of looking at growth.

Our study focuses on Sweden and Norway. The countries have different circumstances because of different regional policies, laws and cultures etc. There is cooperation and dynamics between the continuum city - periphery, for example concerning widened labor market areas. The area of our concern is placed in the tension between the capital Oslo in Norway and the region center Karlstad in Sweden. What does this mean for the peripheral area in between? Our purpose is to identify possibilities and needs which will end up in new strategies for economic and social development which in the long run can result in better support end basis for political decisions as well as basis and support for regional political actions. We also anticipate that the use of an alternative definition of growth will give unexpected results and effects compared to the dominant definition of growth. Our goal is furthermore that our research will contribute to social innovations and social entrepreneurship which will be debated and which will feed politicians with arguments for sustainable development. The project is based on earlier research and cooperation with Cerut from Karlstad University and Ostlandsforskning from Norway and is partly based on results from earlier studies.This project will form the basis for further studies in order to utilize and strengthen border region's collective resources, and linking together urban and rural areas across the border.

Afterlife-ontology and the making of continuing bonds

This presentation explores the co-construction of after life-ontology by mediums and people turning to mediums, particularly ontology which facilitate for the making of continuing bonds. By extension, the questions addressed taps into larger discussions about re-enchantment, spirituality and relationships with the dead, but they are at the same time related to intimacy, meaning and intelligibility. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews as well as conversations found on sites where after life-issues are discussed. Themes examined include experiences of the deceased as still present, imagery of the afterlife in terms of space, temporality, agents and agency, and perceptions of the possibilities to interact. The overall purpose of the presentation is to show how different ontological notions and on-going negotiations about how, where and why the deceased continue to exist result in variations when it comes to the enactment of continuing bonds. Continuing bonds are usually investigated as features of everyday life, most notably in the form of experiences of the dead as somehow present, but also as constituted by various memorialization practices. These bonds may be a way of preserving life as they know it for the living, but they can also fill other existential needs. Although continuing bonds have been explored in the context of mediumship and spiritualism before, the interest here taken in ontological elements such as agency, space and interaction enable for a more thorough investigation of what sort of continuing bonds can be developed. The interest in co-construction, i.e. how notions and imageries are shaped (and challenged) collectively, also adds to the analytical scope.      

(PhD) Annika Jonsson, Dep. of Social and Psychological Studies, Karlstad University. annika.jonsson@kau.se

(Prof.) Lars Aronsson, Dep. of human geography, media and communication, Karlstad University. lars.aronsson@kau.se