Values of property (properties of value): capitalization of kinship in Norway

Abstract

This paper examines the multiple forms of value invested in holiday properties among some Norwegian families. Holiday homes – summer houses, mountain cabins and country houses – are common in Norway, as are many of the practices through which they are inhabited, shared and inherited. Within the legal practices of testaments and handovers can be found a wealth of kinds of value, some of which can be translated into each other. For example, the capitalization of ownership and use for the purposes of inheritance concretize the relations between family members in both financial and emotional terms. In exploring these relations, this paper considers the connections between people, property, landscape and movement through time.

Keywords:

• value
• property
• second homes
• holiday property
• kinship
• house society
• legal practice
• inheritance
• time

Notes

1. A contested term, since it presumes one residence is ‘primary’ which is very often not the case. Use of the term here should be read as though within quotation marks.

2. In what has been referred to as ‘prosumption’ (Toffler, 1980).

3. Thanks to Ingun Grimstad Klepp for this observation.

4. Lov om løysingsrettar. Justis- og beredskapsdepartementet LOV-1994-12-09-64.

5. ‘noe som folk har spesielt lagt elsk på’.

6. Lov om sameige [sameigelova]. Justis- og beredskapsdepartementet. LOV-1965-06-18-6.