Rural modernisation as national development: The Norwegian case 1900–1950

Abstract

Nilsen, R. 2014. Rural modernisation as national development: The Norwegian case 1900–1950. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography Vol. 68, 50–58. ISSN 0029-1951.

The aim of the article is to explain the maintenance of a pattern of scattered rural settlement in Norway during industrialisation and modernisation. The ‘master narrative’ of Norwegian transformation, based on the development of waterpower and the metallurgical and fertiliser industries, is only one of three narratives that can be told about the national transformation in the 20th century. A second narrative concerns the modernisation along the coast, and a third concerns the development of a varied, mostly rural, manufacturing and import-substituting industry. It is suggested that this attempt at rewriting the history of Norwegian modernisation can do what the master narrative does not do, namely explain the transformation from a poor to a rich society while more than half of the national population continued to live in rural areas.

Keywords:

• endogenous development
• region
• transformation

Acknowledgements

I thank Einar Arne Drivenes, Henry Minde, Einar Eythorsson, Hans Pedersen, and Eldar Høidal for useful commentaries on and corrections to the work undertaken in connection with this article. I also thank Michael Jones for necessary help in editing this manuscript.