Remasculinization and Mobilities in a Reindustrializing Community in Northern Norway

Abstract

In this article I explore how certain aspects of mobility, especially commuting, became predominant in the construction of a dominant ‘place-story’ in a municipality in Northern Norway (Nord-Norge), and claim that this stepped up a remasculinization process in the community. This former male-dominated mining community had undergone an extensive economic and social restructuration process since the 1990s, which had resulted in a much more varied job market, but equally importantly a strengthened situation for women, occasionally phrased as a feminization of the municipality. From 2009, a reindustrialization process mainly based on natural resources was underway, but according to private business interests, its further growth and development was dependent on attracting skilled labour, which was a new situation in a region that had struggled to keep its inhabitant numbers. A place-story was emerging in which increased work-related commuting evidently disturbed the local conception of this community as a stable place. By looking closer at the background to how this story came about, and the circumstances in which it was constructed, I focus on both a controversial commuting issue and other work-related mobilities that did not seem to cause the same attention. My conclusion is that the commuter issue reinforced a remasculinization process in the community.

Keywords:

• Reindustrialization
• remasculinization
• mining town
• place-stories
• work-related mobilities

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank three anonymous referees for valuable comments, the journal editor, and Siri Gerrard and Catriona Turner for inspiring improvements of the text.

Notes on Contributor

Halldis Valestrand is a professor in Geography at the Department of Social Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Her main areas of interest are gendered regional restructuration, place, mobility, heritage, cartography and development studies. She has carried out extensive research in Central America and Northern Norway.