Island Magic and the Making of A Transnational Region^*

* The research for this article was financed by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and the Danish Social Science Research Council. I am grateful for all the help and criticism I have had from the other members of the project, as well as the constructive comments from Jonas Frykman and the two anonymous reviewers.

Abstract

How can an artificial island and a bridge‐building project shape the dreams and plans for a transnational region? In this article I examine the making of the öresund region of Denmark and Sweden by analyzing the intertwining of bridge construction and region building, from the early dreams and plans, to the actual construction phase, to the ceremonial opening in 2000, and to the difficult transition into an everyday transportation system. The ways in which the construction was organized and staged came to mirror some important trends of the so‐called new economy and many of its buzzwords. Engineering and imagineering were combined in new ways.

• islands
• national identity
• new economy
• öresund
• transnational regions

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Orvar Löfgren

Dr. Löfgren is a professor of European ethnology at the University of Lund, SE‐221 01 Lund, Sweden.