Senses of Place

The Industrial Heritage of Rjukan, Norway: From Industrial Fairy-Tale to Narrative of Decline My last book ("Kulturelle hjørnesteiner", Cappelen Damm Akademisk 2014) deals with culture and sustainable place planning with empirical work from Rjukan and Notodden towns in Norway. These are former industrial towns that experienced rapid growth from the early twentieth century based on large-scale industrialization followed by prolonged deindustrialization.  Since the book came out, I have become more interested in the production of heritage related to industrialization and de-industrialization at Rjukan, more concretely how the past at Rjukan has been understood and used. Production of heritage is not innocent or value-neutral, but is deeply related to the workings of power in society. I am interested in narratives of place as place heritage, the ideological uses of place narratives in place- and nation-making, and the prospect for writing new narratives. Place narratives do...