Cultural Sustainability: Industrialism, Placelessness and the Re-animation of Place

Abstract

A transition to a sustainable future depends on mobilizing social and cultural resources associated with a re-animation of place. Taking as its basis ongoing research in Rjukan, an industrial monocultural town in Norway, the article shows how industrialized regions in a post-industrial world are in the frontline of western societies’ relationship to nature and the environment. There is much potential in the restoration of human relationships to place in industrial towns, in terms of health and social and economic development, but not least in terms of sustainability understood as authentic, positive and healthy self-development.

Acknowledgments

Previous versions of this article were presented at the Nordic Geographers’ 2nd Meeting in Bergen, Norway, and at the Third Nordic Conference on Cultural Policy Research in B⊘, Norway, both in 2007. The author would like to thank participants for their constructive comments.