Sadie Hale (3:33)

Prior to his work in his home valley of Valdres in southern Norway, the subject of our conversation today, he conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Vanuatu in the South Pacific, resulting in his first monograph, Fire on the Fear, Hope and A Christian Revival in Vanuatu in 2022.

Sadie Hale (3:52)

Tom is the co convener of the European association of Social Anthropologies, Future Anthropologies Network. Just after we spoke, Tom was also awarded the inaugural Thomas Hiland Eriksson Memorial Prize, presented during the Norwegian Anthropological Association's conference in Oslo at the end of October. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Sadie Hale (4:18)

So I'm here with Tom Bradrud from the University of Bergen. Great to see you, Tom, and thank you for being on Anthropology on Air.

Tom Brathrud (4:26)

Thank you for inviting me, Sadie.

Sadie Hale (4:28)

So I want to begin with this idea from the late, great Norwegian anthropologist Thomas Hiland Eriksen. And you mentioned this yesterday, that there are different socioeconomic dividing lines that can define different countries. For example, in the UK that would be class, in the US it would be race or ethnicity. And in Norway it's the center in the periphery. What did he mean by this and how does it apply to your work?

Tom Brathrud (4:56)

Yeah, good question. And this is also one of the mysteries around Thomas is that he is saying a lot of things that are really.

Tom Brathrud (5:07)

Spot on, but then you might not necessarily be able to find the source for it. So I've been been searching around for, you know, where did he write, where did he write that? But that was probably something he just mentioned in the passing after when he was, you know, listening to a presentation that I had about my work from rural Norway. But what he means by that is that there's been going back to the 70s, 80s onwards.

Tom Brathrud (5:42)

There was a political scientist called Stein Rockon in Norway who also said that this is the main sort of dividing or conflict line in Norwegian society.

Tom Brathrud (5:54)

And I think Thomas also built on him when saying that, at least for the Norwegian context. And a lot of scholars and others have been referring to this divide as.

Tom Brathrud (6:07)

Important in many different contexts.

Tom Brathrud (6:11)

And originally it referred to how people vote, you know, how people in urban areas and rural areas vote, different parties. But it's actually, you know, some lines there that go quite long back to the.

Tom Brathrud (6:33)

Late 1700s with different movements that you've had, resistance movements that you've had in Norway, which has been defined in many ways by this axis of the rural and urban, where you know, the cities were sort of connected to the.

Tom Brathrud (6:56)

Colonialists or to Copenhagen, whereas there was a strong.

Tom Brathrud (7:04)

Sort of population outside of the cities that.

Tom Brathrud (7:10)

Experienced themselves to be quite far away from those centers in a sense, and also the colonial power and the sort of the.

Tom Brathrud (7:20)

Demands that also came from there. So throughout the years there's been some theorizing.

Tom Brathrud (7:28)

Which is also Thomas's point, that this urban rural divide is in many ways political because it's still about having access to political institutions or the possibility of actually influencing political institutions in the country.

Tom Brathrud (7:47)

It's also a cultural one because there are some values that follows.

Tom Brathrud (7:56)

From other aspects of, of this sort of urban life where you are maybe more highly educated and you have a higher salary in your, your work and your, your taste and your preferences is perhaps more international. You have more, there's more mobility in many ways, geographically and socially and culturally, economically, whereas in the, in the rural areas you have people who are often more rooted and connected to the place and, and less mobile as well in, in different ways.

Tom Brathrud (8:34)

And so it's both like a sort of political.

Tom Brathrud (8:40)

Parameter or dimension to it, a cultural one.

Tom Brathrud (8:45)

Social one, because of, you know, the, the access to different kinds of, of people that you, that you can build networks and relationships with economic. Because there's often income divide as well, 30% lower in rural areas usually than in the cities. And the geographical one that you actually have, you know, people live in cities and people live in.

Tom Brathrud (9:12)

Rural areas or areas outside of the big cities that experience themselves to live in, in quite different settings than those who live in the sort of the so called centers in a way.

Sadie Hale (9:23)

And maybe it's worth, for an international listener just pointing out the geographical aspect a bit more explicitly because Norway has one of the longest coastlines in the world, but one of the smallest populations you could say.

Tom Brathrud (9:37)

That's right.

Sadie Hale (9:38)

It's very sparsely populated country. So maybe you can say a bit more about like what's the scale that we're talking?

Tom Brathrud (9:46)

Yeah, yeah. So Norway is a fairly, it's a long stretch, stretch country with few cities that are, you know, of a size that you would recognize as a, as a city maybe in an international context. And you have distances, you know, there's mountains, there's fjords, various obstacles in a sense that even though you know from a, from one of the like major cities to a rural area, it might not be that Far in, in what's called air. Air.

Sadie Hale (10:23)

Like as the crow flies.

Tom Brathrud (10:24)

Yeah, as the crow flies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. But it, it's, it's still, it takes a long time to get there. So, so, so a lot of places are sort of have for a long time been sort of.

Tom Brathrud (10:43)

Disconnected or not so, or not easily in very, very close connection to the cities. So. And also being very few. Very, very few cities.

Sadie Hale (10:55)

Yeah, yeah. And could you tell us a bit about the kind of policies that the Norwegian government or various Norwegian governments have pursued to try to slow the urbanization of the country over the years?

Tom Brathrud (11:12)

Yeah, so. And that's a sort of a double edged.

Tom Brathrud (11:18)

Beast in a sense because there's been a lot of centralization processes.

Tom Brathrud (11:25)

Throughout the. Especially the. Yeah. Since the 1960s.

Tom Brathrud (11:32)

But Norway is also a country where.

Tom Brathrud (11:36)

Most people have some roots in the countryside, either because they grew up there and moved to the city or because they have, you know, their entire family line is from a rural area. Norway is a country made up of mostly fishers and farmers or descendants of fishers and farmers. So.

Tom Brathrud (12:02)

A lot of the people who are also in sort of politics.

Tom Brathrud (12:06)

And other sort of sectors where you shape policies in the country have some kind of roots to the countryside, which I think is a sort of a. One reason why there's been, and there still is, in spite of a lot of centralization processes as well.

Tom Brathrud (12:28)

There'S still this interest or this sort of, when you compare it to other countries, this sort of interest and willingness to.

Tom Brathrud (12:39)

Invest in rural areas, you know, even though, you know, there's a few hundred people living in a village or in a municipality.

Tom Brathrud (12:51)

That place might still be, you know.

Tom Brathrud (12:56)

Or get support to actually still exist as an administrative unit, you know, with its own municipality. With the money being invested in, you know, having high speed Internet, even though there's, you know, 50 users. So the sort of, the cost per capita is just. Yeah. Difficult or it's, it's incomparable to many, most other countries, countries in the world. So there's, there's still a very sort of rural friendly.

Tom Brathrud (13:28)

Form of politics in Norway. Political economy in a sense.

Sadie Hale (13:33)

Yeah. We'll get back to the high speed Internet a bit later in the conversation. And being from the UK where there are whole quite populated stretches of the country which are remarkably bad coverage. It's one of the things that really strikes me about living in Norway is that you can be in really a very rural place and still have full 5G phone signal.

Tom Brathrud (13:58)

But we need to, unfortunately, to also give some credit to the, to the oil economy for that, as.

Tom Brathrud (14:08)

Lisa Birkland recently wrote in a book called the Norway Paradox. Yeah. And being surprised coming from Sweden and being surprised to come into northern Norway actually close to where you worked, Seydi, to see, you know, football fields and.

Tom Brathrud (14:25)

Full on, you know, infrastructure in a tiny, tiny village. A lot of infrastructure that costs a lot of lot of money. New school, new kindergarten, etc. Etc. Yeah, yeah.

Sadie Hale (14:37)

And I would add to that a network of, I believe, subsidized airports and ferry services, which are often free.

Tom Brathrud (14:46)

Yeah, yeah.

Sadie Hale (14:48)

So these are just examples of policies that I assume are designed to enable rural living and its continuation.

Tom Brathrud (14:56)

Yeah. And also just to mention, a very, very big news.

Tom Brathrud (15:03)

Theme in Norway at the moment is the national budget. And there were costs in the free ferries, they were not going to be free anymore. And also state subsidies to pay or to cut student loans for people who move to rural areas. That's also been sort of an incentive and that was also taken out of the budget this year, some areas. And that was massive media coverage about that. Even though it makes up a tiny, tiny portion of the national budget. It's really things that people have gotten used to and that they react to when they're taken away. That, and people say that okay, but then we're going to move and then even national politicians don't want that to happen. So they're probably going to take it back in to the budget.

Sadie Hale (15:57)

And in spite of that or maybe because of it, you have some quite dramatic discourse around this. Maybe you could give us a bit more context like about the so called decline of rural areas, the depopulation, the. Some of the things that have been said by politicians or thought leaders on this subject.

Tom Brathrud (16:20)

Yeah, so there was.

Tom Brathrud (16:24)

And this, this was a big news and pretty hard hitting.

Tom Brathrud (16:31)

Conclusion that came a few years ago in 2020 or 21 from a national.

Tom Brathrud (16:40)

Committee that was set down, led by economy professor Victor Norman at the Norwegian Business School in Bergen, to actually do some research into, okay, how's the state of rural areas at the moment in this country, in Norway? And one of their conclusions was that it's in a terrible state and the future is looking very grim.

Tom Brathrud (17:07)

And one of the sort of quote friendly quotes from the report is that for the first time since the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century, Norwegian rural areas are not able to reproduce. So more people die, pass away than people who are, or babies who are born or people who move in. So that was a huge, was a huge issue in the media and also taken very seriously among politicians and different other policymakers around. And there were.

Tom Brathrud (17:51)

Many articles and debates about, you know, the dying rural communities and that.

Tom Brathrud (18:00)

The rural communities must die for other things to thrive, which. And these arguments, you know.

Tom Brathrud (18:13)

Generated some pretty intense debates and responses because the rural is so close to people's personal lives, in a sense, because they have roots there, but also because it's so strong in the sort of Norwegian identity and the sort of fantasy also about what. What Norwegians are and what Norwegian values are, which is also sort of historically, at least since the mid-1800s, been connected to things that are rural.

Tom Brathrud (18:49)

So. Yeah. And that has been that sort of very grim picture of the state or the future of the rural.

Tom Brathrud (19:01)

And what different actors try to do to actually respond to it or to turn. It has been one of my research interests that also formed sort of.

Tom Brathrud (19:15)

One of the contexts for this book that I'm writing at the moment.

Sadie Hale (19:19)

Yeah. So that book that forms the basis of our discussion today is Rurality 2.0 Redefining Urban Rural Divides in the Mountains of Norway. And so you've given us this. This very important background context, but you're actually looking at a kind of inversion of that trend. And in the. In your ethnographic work, which I think began in 2020 and then you went on to do three years of field work, I believe.

Tom Brathrud (19:46)

Three years, yeah. Still. Still going on.

Sadie Hale (19:49)

Still going on every now and then.

Tom Brathrud (19:50)

Yeah, yeah.

Sadie Hale (19:52)

It never ends.

Tom Brathrud (19:53)

Never ends. Yeah. Saudi speaking anthropologist.

Sadie Hale (19:57)

And this is in a beautiful highland village, valley region of Norway called Valdres, where you also grew up. And I think it's about three hours north of Oslo. Is that right?

Tom Brathrud (20:08)

Yeah.

Sadie Hale (20:10)

So tell us about Valdres. Tell us about what motivates urban folk to move here in the first place and what are some of the tensions that you were mapping in your field work?

Tom Brathrud (20:21)

Yeah, so that's right. Well, this is the place where I grew up. I moved out when I was 19. And an interesting place. It's been sort of interesting to follow what happened since I moved out. And also as I started studying anthropology and eventually became an anthropologist, a lot of stuff that I found very interesting from an anthropological perspective. And this is.

Tom Brathrud (20:52)

Related to this beautiful valley.

Tom Brathrud (20:57)

That I love very much.

Tom Brathrud (21:01)

But.

Tom Brathrud (21:03)

Also moved out of, as most people do. And that's. That's sort of one of the backdrops here. People are moving out, are not coming back.

Tom Brathrud (21:14)

Which affects the economy, which affects everything.

Tom Brathrud (21:19)

And. But because it's so beautiful.

Tom Brathrud (21:24)

There is still a lot of interest in the valley, but not necessarily from those who grew up there, but those who come from the city and live in cities.

Tom Brathrud (21:35)

And in Norway.

Tom Brathrud (21:38)

There'S a huge culture around second home cabins. A lot of more than around 50% of Norwegian of the Norwegian population has access to a second home cabin.

Tom Brathrud (21:49)

And Valdres is one of those sort of hotspots for urban.

Tom Brathrud (21:55)

In migration.

Tom Brathrud (21:57)

To second home cabins. And the local.

Tom Brathrud (22:05)

Sort of politicians.

Tom Brathrud (22:07)

Have sort of jumped on this possibility as they have seen it to attract capital and people and interest in the valley through people living in the cities who want to at least build a second home there. Not moving there, but at least, you know, maybe shopping at the local grocery store.

Tom Brathrud (22:30)

And support the.

Tom Brathrud (22:33)

Local festivals or whatever. So there's been a pretty.

Tom Brathrud (22:39)

Strong.

Tom Brathrud (22:42)

Incentive to actually get second homes built around in this mountain landscape. So in 2018.

Tom Brathrud (22:54)

And this is a process that I've followed since I moved out in 2018, the number of second home cabins actually surpassed the number of inhabitants or permanent residents in the valley. That was an interesting turning point because with those numbers, which implies that there's maybe three to four times as many part time residents than permanent residents in the valley because there's maybe a family who owns a cabin, one of those cabins. So that also shifted some of the political dynamics there because there are also reports coming or analysis being made that the in migrants who are not even living there, they're. They're just there on holiday basically, but have a cabin there, a second home cabin contribute to around 30% of the jobs.

Tom Brathrud (23:56)

In the valley. So it's something that we're dependent on. We're dependent on these people coming in from the city who have more money than us. We like to spend it in a place like ours.

Tom Brathrud (24:12)

And.

Tom Brathrud (24:15)

The people who came, you know, who have come from the, from the cities, enjoy it a lot. I mean they become valdrest patriots, they support the local farmers. They take sort of their, you might call it like, like an urban fantasy about rural to the rural area.

Tom Brathrud (24:37)

Influenced by things like the.

Tom Brathrud (24:41)

What is what's been called the new Nordic movement that has been quite strong in, in the Nordic countries and, and also other places from like the 2020, early 2000s, which is sort of this refusal of the Nordic countries to be behind, you know, France in cooking or Japan in aesthetics.

Tom Brathrud (25:11)

And to really make use of what's local in the Nordic countries with the quite harsh environment that we live in, the things that grow here, the sort of the values like honesty and authenticity and these kind of things that are a sense.

Tom Brathrud (25:30)

Urban fantasies that is connected often to the rural areas. And it's a big sort of cultural history of that, those values being connected to rural, especially in Norway. But at least, you know, people coming in from the cities, people who have quite a bit of money and really want to sort of realize this fantasy also about rural, in a rural setting, which has been good for many local people, you know, because, you know, farmers that were about to close down got the revival because there was a demand for, you know, local produce.

Tom Brathrud (26:11)

Traditional cheese and these kind of things. So these things have had the revival. And with the sort of new urban enthusiasm for the valley and for the rural in general, through this new Nordic movement.

Tom Brathrud (26:27)

And other sort of tendencies.

Tom Brathrud (26:32)

There was also a growing pride in actually being from that area. You know, when I moved out, it was not something you.

Tom Brathrud (26:43)

Spoke about that much. And we tried to change our dialect when we moved to the city because we didn't want to sound backward or, you know, it wasn't that cool to be from a rural area. Right. But then there was a shift like in the. In the early 2000s, with this new enthusiasm for our valley and similar areas in Norway. There was a new pride of, you know, coming from there and even, you know, the possibility of living there. To be part of these things that were so celebrated, you know, these values and these aesthetics and all this. And the traditions were cool again, but in a refined way, you know, through the sort of the educated urban lens, in a sense, to put it to be a bit. Yeah. And then.

Tom Brathrud (27:38)

There was a generation of people who I grew up with who.

Tom Brathrud (27:45)

Were out, they moved out, they lived in cities. Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, like the biggest cities in Norway. Some were living abroad, they had the career and they wanted to move back to their village, but they also refused to let go of any of the things.

Tom Brathrud (28:06)

That now comprise their lives in the city. I mean, they had carriers, they had a wide network of people.

Tom Brathrud (28:18)

Who were in creative sectors.

Tom Brathrud (28:23)

They were earning much more than they would.

Tom Brathrud (28:27)

In a job in the valley. They just decided that, okay, so we're going to take this life with us back home and we're going to have both, you know, live. We're going to enjoy the values of the rural and we're going to do it our way. And that became part of sort of another line of in migration from the city or cities to Valdres. You had.

Tom Brathrud (28:59)

The part time residents who were the. The many people who have a second home cabin where they're from time to time and who can now even work from their cabin because of the 5G that we talked about, you can be in the teams meeting in the middle of the mountains with your job in the city and the new permanent in migrants who do the same thing. Many of them have kept a job in the city. They're interesting job there with the same salary, can maintain their social network, can sort of still.

Tom Brathrud (29:42)

Fulfill their sort of cultural preferences as well.

Tom Brathrud (29:47)

In the rural area, in the village. And they can have a life where they go hiking or climbing or ski touring in the mountains after work.

Tom Brathrud (29:59)

They can have access to, you know, a lot of this stuff that is in the sort of the urban fantasy of the rural in many ways. You know, with.

Tom Brathrud (30:11)

You know, that you can see in magazines like Wallpaper and lifestyle magazines that have also sort of embraced this sort of new Nordic.

Tom Brathrud (30:23)

Vision of the world. In a sense. We have, you know, a sustainable plus house in the mountains overlooking a valley where you grow your organic tomatoes, maybe have some chicken, fresh eggs for breakfast, and you live, you have a job in the city and you go hiking or downhill.

Tom Brathrud (30:51)

Biking or ski touring or climbing in the mountains after work. And then you go home and then you, yeah, you maybe have a sauna as well next to your house overlooking the same mountains and can live that kind of life. So that's sort of these two.

Tom Brathrud (31:13)

Highways to this sort of urban rural migration that I'm looking at, which is sort of creating the second version of the rural, which is what I call the Rural 2.0.

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Sadie Hale (33:40)

Sam.

Sadie Hale (34:10)

Digitalization is so central to this. Not just the, the kinds of work that it enables people to do, like that you can just work from your laptop. But I'm also very interested in your research on the the kind of social or maybe performative element that digitalization enables. Like how much of this is.

Sadie Hale (34:32)

Motivated by the opportunity to share photographs, videos, Instagram posts, Strava updates about the kind of beautiful places that you, you can run or ski or hike. All of these activities you mentioned.

Tom Brathrud (34:49)

That's a very, very good question. And, and I will say that for most, for most of the people that I have worked with, most of my interlocutors, it's not so important because.

Tom Brathrud (35:05)

For many of them a motivation has been to also sort of escape.

Tom Brathrud (35:11)

What they've sometimes phrased as the trap of the sort of the late modern city where.

Tom Brathrud (35:19)

It'S a place that is stressful and they don't find the time or the space to do what is important to them, which might be, you know, climbing in the mountains, going rock climbing or running in the mountains. And you can only do that, you know, maybe once a month or something. And you're stuck in this, in the traffic, in the city. And so it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a bit deeper. It's quite, it's a quite deep sort of attraction for many of them. You know, it's really about how they want to live their lives and what they want to prioritize. But that said.

Tom Brathrud (35:58)

For some people, I mean the posting of.

Tom Brathrud (36:03)

Stuff in social media, I mean Instagram posts of the life that you have and getting the recognition from maybe friends in the city who you've been talking about this sort of potential shift or this potential. A change of lifestyle with it, sometimes.

Tom Brathrud (36:26)

It looks really good.

Tom Brathrud (36:29)

From, from many of their, their cities, city friends perspective. And that can sometimes, you know, confirm that they made the right choice. Because sometimes it can also be a bit. A bit more.

Tom Brathrud (36:44)

Lonely than they thought in advance. Being used to, you know, a thriving sort of life in the city with people everywhere. And then you might have found some good groups of friends that you sort of share enough of your preferences with your values, etc. But sometimes not. And then you feel a bit lonely and you can also miss the city. But then it can also help to sort of get the confirmation from friends in the city that you sometimes get through through, you know, mainly through the. Your Instagram posts. And also, I mean, I've written an article about Strava since you mentioned that.

Sadie Hale (37:28)

Sadie, I enjoyed it a lot.

Tom Brathrud (37:33)

And that's also.

Tom Brathrud (37:35)

An element, you know, not because it's about necessarily about the Strava posting itself at the bottom, at the. As a foundation of things, but it's something that people really, a lot of the people who moved to the turril areas that I followed, they're really active.

Tom Brathrud (37:52)

In the outdoors. And also.

Tom Brathrud (37:57)

I mean, Strava is already a place to show off what your abilities. Right.

Sadie Hale (38:03)

Well, maybe you should explain actually what Strava is.

Tom Brathrud (38:06)

Yes, Java. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, no, I should have also. Yeah. It's easy to take for granted that everyone knows, but Strava is a very popular app, American app, where you can track your activities in landscapes and you can also get your performance data or you can choose how much you want to share. But after workout or a hike or a run or a cycling trip or something, you can post about it. You get your route, your elevation gain and your time for different segments of the route. Post it on this app, which has millions of users.

Tom Brathrud (38:58)

And then you can also gain.

Tom Brathrud (39:02)

Awards like King of the Mountain, which is the award you get if you have the fastest time for a segment of a much used.

Tom Brathrud (39:14)

Yeah. Route for cycling or cycling or running or something like that. So it's a good platform to sort of demonstrate your abilities and how fit you are and also.

Tom Brathrud (39:28)

Where you go. Right. And the more adventurous you are or the more sort of off the beaten track places you actually go and do impressive performances in a sense people will see that, especially those who are interested in, you know, finding gems for running in the mountain or go ski touring in, you know.

Tom Brathrud (39:51)

Mountains that are, that have conditions that everyone else doesn't necessarily know about. So it's a, it's a nice way to sort of to demonstrate skills in the outdoors and your physical capabilities and so on. So for some of my interlocutors, I mean that's also part of a bonus, a huge bonus actually, you know, to, to actually be able to, to go places that people aren't normally going, a lot of people normally aren't going and to demonstrate that, to show that to the world, you know, and the sort of, the, the, the status that also follows from that in the sort of among like minded people who are interested in that.

Sadie Hale (40:36)

And I think you make this great argument about how that enables them to maintain kind of digital communities in addition to the community that they have on the ground in Baldres, for example.

Tom Brathrud (40:49)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a point I can make there is that when a lot of these in migrants, they are, you know, they come from the city or they lived here in the city for a long time where it's quite, you know.

Tom Brathrud (41:05)

Norway is a pretty egalitarian country or has a pretty egalitarian culture, at least that's sort of something that people refer to a lot.

Tom Brathrud (41:19)

And that's especially so in the, in the countryside where it's difficult sometimes to.

Tom Brathrud (41:28)

Or it's this moral ethos that you shouldn't brag about, you know, being better than, or assume or.

Tom Brathrud (41:36)

Or suggest or come with suggestions that you're better than anyone else in a sense because that sort of.

Tom Brathrud (41:46)

Is, is challenging. The sort of, at least that's how it's been written about by, by quite a few people. This sort of traditional ethos of, you know, being people being, being.

Tom Brathrud (41:59)

Depending on each other. So if someone think they're better than others and sort of opt out of communities, then you are in trouble in a sense. So there's much written about this, but at least some of my introductors, they come from the city. They're sort of used to being more vocal about things about your opinions and that it's, you know, it's fine, it's even valued to, to, you know, to perform well and that people can be inspired by that even. And you know, it gives some, some, some distinction that is positive in a sense, but then coming to a small rural village, it might be very different where people are. It's more of a culture where you, you really don't speak openly about your, your achievements. You should rather, you know, let people find out about it and then they will not talk about it to anyone, but they will know that, okay, you're, you're, you're someone, you've done something nice, you know, you've done something good, but it should, should often not be talked about openly. So that's also a way that Strava sort of has been nice in two ways for, for some of these in migrants that I followed. One is that you can actually, you know, share. You want to perform, you want to run faster than you did the last time, you want to beat everyone else, go on more.

Tom Brathrud (43:36)

You know, go places that people haven't been, etc. And to show it to someone, right? Both because it feels good to be, to get the confirmation that you actually done something that was worthwhile, but also because it feels good to be, if not envied, to at least be.

Tom Brathrud (43:56)

Recognized for having done what you've done, in a sense. So through Strava, it's possible to brag or to just show these achievements to others and get credit for it because these are also people who are on this app or in this network. They, they appreciate those kind of things.

Tom Brathrud (44:19)

But it also, it's also, it also makes it easier to, to get some recognition in the Valley because.

Tom Brathrud (44:28)

Among those who, who live there and who don't, who are not that easy to, to brag to in a sense, or to, to speak out about your achievements too, because it's not part of the, part of the culture, in a sense. But they are also Strava, because a lot of people, you know, like being outdoors and to see what others have been up to and maybe to post some stuff themselves. And these people, they see what you've done. So in that way it's possible to actually get some standing in the local community, some recognition, even though you can't really speak about it or, or show it to others in other ways. It's just a kind of a social tool in different ways to build and maintain relationships outside of the Valley, but also to sort of to show others what you're about, in a sense and make people respect you not only as a sort of a useless city person who have come to the Valley, who work in the creative tech and who don't know how to repair your, your garage or fix your car. When it's broke, but when it's broken. But at least you, you know. Ah, so that's what. Is what the person is about. I guess that explains it. And it's fine. Yeah.

Sadie Hale (45:47)

And that article is called Reluctant Kings of the Mountain.

Tom Brathrud (45:50)

Reluctant Kings of the Mountain, Yeah.

Sadie Hale (45:53)

Yeah, I really recommend that one.

Tom Brathrud (45:55)

Thanks.

Tom Brathrud (46:00)

Sa.

Sadie Hale (46:35)

So, getting Back to rurality 2.0, I wondered if you could tell us a bit about what concepts you find useful for thinking about this trend. So you've, You've given us a lot of color here. I think we can kind of build a picture from what you've said. There's different ways of understanding it. Some people might say it's. It's a form of neocolonialism, the idea of turning nature into a service provider for city people. The kind of influx of the creative class, you might say, coming into rural areas. So what makes sense to your interlocutors in their understanding? And then what concepts are you developing to understand it?

Tom Brathrud (47:20)

Yeah, that's a good question. And there's much to sort of take in there. I think. I'm still developing sort of the theoretical framework for it, but at the bottom, I think, or as a sort of a basis or baseline is how many of my intellectors who are in migrants.

Tom Brathrud (47:47)

Started talking about, you know, oh, finally we've moved somewhere central.

Tom Brathrud (47:54)

It all felt so far away when we lived in the city. So these kind of ideas that. Okay, so in the sort of. There's been like decades of literature and sort of public discourse about the rural being.

Tom Brathrud (48:14)

The periphery and the. The cities being the center. Right.

Tom Brathrud (48:22)

And then these people are just. I don't think they've necessarily read the. The scholarly literature on it, but they're using those concepts to, to talk about how they experience.

Tom Brathrud (48:33)

To live, how they have their experience of living or having moved to the. To rural areas, even though it's, you know, it's a small mountain village of a few hundred people. So I think that was really interesting. It was a really interesting starting point for me to start to think about, you know, what is actually going on here. Because growing up in that valley as well, I was really used to seeing the place and seeing us as, you know, someone who is in the periphery in a sense that we're. Were subordinated.

Tom Brathrud (49:09)

We're under the city folks in a sense. And whatever was happening in the city.

Tom Brathrud (49:18)

Was cooler and better and more worthwhile than what was happening there.

Tom Brathrud (49:24)

But then it seems to. With the influx of the.

Tom Brathrud (49:31)

Cabin folks who I also worked with and interviewed, and they have Some, some of the similar.

Tom Brathrud (49:38)

Ideas that. Okay, so when we come here, that's. This is when where we can finally, you know, live. We're so the city is just for work. When we come here, we just finally feel that we can breathe and feel well and we bring our friends here that we don't have time to meet in the city. Our neighbors are good friends there. They have also bought a cabin now in the same. There are cabin neighbors here. And this is where we actually get to eat together and do stuff.

Tom Brathrud (50:12)

And the same with the permanent ink migrants, you know, that we're ah, we're here now. We're doing the things that we really wanted to do that we didn't have time to do in the city.

Tom Brathrud (50:24)

So it's that notion of okay, so if you look from people's this in migrants own perspective, this is the center of their universe in a sense because this is the place that they get to realize the values that are important to them. And the city is really just a place where they do things that is necessary maybe for them to earn a salary or whatever, but where they don't necessarily thrive. And then also taking that one step further, seeing how in the literature and from just own experience and in how things are talked about in the sort of the mainstream sort of public discourse, the centers or the cities are also the places that are hubs for activity, for new thoughts, for the creatives, for you know, innovation. But then seeing, you know, this, the stuff that happens through these people who have moved to these tiny mountain villages who have been in there, they have a lot of network in the cities they visit.

Tom Brathrud (51:45)

Every now and then and, and. But they are, you know, making a lot of. They're really. There's a lot of innovation happening there in there, to use that term. I mean.

Tom Brathrud (51:57)

A lot of things that are, that they are taking back to the city and that people are really excited about in the cities.

Tom Brathrud (52:05)

And just.

Tom Brathrud (52:07)

A few days ago I was at a conference, Climate Environment conference here in Oslo that was organized by two of my interlocutors in this tiny village in the mountains.

Tom Brathrud (52:24)

Who moved back or who moved to that place 10 years ago from the city, which draw crowds from all over Europe and scholars from the US and their neighbor who is a farmer in the village and sort of. And it was sold out.

Tom Brathrud (52:43)

And this kind of. And there's a lot of these initiatives that get sort of recognition far beyond the village that wouldn't have happened, you know, 10, 15 years ago. Music festivals.

Tom Brathrud (53:00)

I mean sauna and architecture. I mean there's architects among these groups or people. It's people who have close friends in the, in the sort of the new generation of political elites in the country who can, you know, just zoom in.

Tom Brathrud (53:18)

When they have a meeting in the local Green Party or something up there in the village. Just zoom in with someone who is.

Tom Brathrud (53:27)

Who is in government in Norway or is an MP or something, you know, because they're friends and they can, they have access to the political institutions, to the political power in new ways that weren't possible before. And they're inspired and the people here in the city are inspired by what they're doing up there. So it's kind of this sort of inversion in a sense, or at least this challenging of the urban rural divide, central periphery divide that has been pretty, you know.

Tom Brathrud (54:03)

If not written in stone, but at least taken for granted in the literature and in the sort of public discourse. So those are some of the concepts that I, that I'm really interested in pushing and challenging and trying to come up with something new that can.

Tom Brathrud (54:22)

That, that I haven't found yet to sort of describe that. But, but that's at least some of the concepts that I'm working on. And also I have to say that you mentioned the creative class, Seydi, and another aspect.

Tom Brathrud (54:43)

Of this in migration, both from the side of.

Tom Brathrud (54:49)

The temporary people or the part time residents in the cabins and the permanent residents, is that these are people who come in with something completely different than what sort of the normal villager.

Tom Brathrud (55:09)

The normal life or the normal habitus of many of the villagers who live there already.

Tom Brathrud (55:18)

Which creates also a new class dynamics. Because those people who move in, they often have, they're from the. A lot of them have jobs in the creative sector, part of the creative class, as Richard Florida says, people who work in tech or engineers, architects who work with education, who might even be researchers at universities like us.

Tom Brathrud (55:45)

And they have a complete. They're pretty different. They might have in many cases that I have encountered different interests, you know, about what the community or what the village should be, what should be prioritized.

Tom Brathrud (56:03)

That it's important to.

Tom Brathrud (56:07)

Protect the environment.

Tom Brathrud (56:10)

Many of those who, who are in, migrants who come from the cities, they have moved there for a reason, right? It's often because of the beautiful surroundings, the nature, the possibility to be out in the mountains and do activities that they like.

Tom Brathrud (56:28)

For the aesthetic value.

Tom Brathrud (56:32)

And other things. Whereas.

Tom Brathrud (56:37)

Some of those who already live there, they might be the landowners and they.

Tom Brathrud (56:44)

Might or might not have a farm that is really difficult to.

Tom Brathrud (56:50)

Keep operating because it's difficult to live off a small farm in the mountains.

Tom Brathrud (56:57)

And they might need this land in the mountains as a capital bank in a sense, or as a potential or as a source that they can.

Tom Brathrud (57:10)

Can extract things from or use for the purpose that might give them something to live off, whether it's, you know, selling, selling land for land for more cabin development or for something entirely different.

Tom Brathrud (57:28)

So, so there's definitely some, some interest conflicts there, which is also conflicts around values. So values is an important.

Tom Brathrud (57:37)

Important concept in this work. And.

Tom Brathrud (57:43)

There are some tensions in this sort of, this space where you have these new people from the creative class who are also, you know, of sort of like, you can say that it's an urban creative middle class.

Tom Brathrud (58:02)

Who don't depend on.

Tom Brathrud (58:06)

The resources.

Tom Brathrud (58:09)

That are in the mountains where they live. They use it maybe mostly as. Or consume it as a place for recreation in a sense, and that's important to them. But for those who lived there before, it's more than that. It's really their only.

Tom Brathrud (58:27)

Source or their, it's their. It's a way of living and it's what they, what they live off.

Tom Brathrud (58:35)

So.

Tom Brathrud (58:37)

So as some of this conflict, interest conflicts have, or value conflicts have escalated, there's also been some.

Tom Brathrud (58:48)

Some way of portraying each other or the groups are portrayed one another in favorable ways, in a sense, which I think.

Tom Brathrud (58:59)

At least for the traditional or those who already live there and feel threatened or feel displaced by this enthusiasm about the urban in migrants, that they really feel that their dignity or that their integrity or dignity is challenged.

Tom Brathrud (59:20)

And that's pretty difficult.

Tom Brathrud (59:25)

And that also creates some sort of resistance towards the. In migrants and what they stand for, which is typically.

Tom Brathrud (59:34)

Yeah, one, one thing is just, you know, climate change. Environmental meaning environmental.

Tom Brathrud (59:45)

Interested in the environment.

Tom Brathrud (59:48)

Which everyone are in a sense, but because it becomes sort of the image or the sort of the front line of what these new people stand for that are threatening to displace those who lived there before. It becomes also something that they start resisting. You know, all this talk about climate change now at least we're not going to get an electric car or make sure that we don't start organic farming or something, because that is something that represents symbolically.

Tom Brathrud (60:23)

And in other ways the oppressors in a sense. So there's some really interesting dynamics there that I'm also working on for the book. And I think also their value interests, value conflicts and just this experience of integrity and displacement, it's also quite important. And also this sort of also more moral capital because the in Migrants come in and represent, in the sense, many of those values that the, you know, liberal democracies or the progressive or those who like to.

Tom Brathrud (61:09)

Brand themselves as the progressive parts of the population, what they're standing for, so they have some sort of moral capital in the current society that the others don't. And that is also a way of.

Tom Brathrud (61:30)

That also creates new hierarchies, in a sense. And when people who have lived in the place for their whole life, that's where their ancestors come from, it used to be their place when they're sort of challenged and feeling displaced in their own place.

Tom Brathrud (61:47)

And at the bottom of the hierarchy. That generates some interesting responses. So I'm working around some of these, some of these concepts and ideas.

Sadie Hale (61:58)

You've hinted at it. But before we get to your recommendation for a book or thinker or article, I wanted to ask you a bit more of a personal question. What was it like for you going back to this place that you grew up and were there? What were the methodological challenges of that, if any? And how did you, how did you navigate this hybrid status that you presumably represent as someone from Valdres who went to the city to get his education and then came back?

Tom Brathrud (62:29)

Yeah, that's a great, great and important question which I really had to.

Tom Brathrud (62:39)

Put some thought into and more than I thought initially. I mean, I was aware that, okay, going back to, to where I grew up is going to be, you know, there's some methodological issues there for sure. But then I also, you know, encountered some surprises. And.

Tom Brathrud (62:58)

One thing is a really good thing about it, to start there is that.

Tom Brathrud (63:06)

Doing fieldwork in a place that you actually know people.

Tom Brathrud (63:13)

Can at least make it easier to start, you know, because you have somewhere to some contacts where you can just get the ball rolling in a sense.

Tom Brathrud (63:25)

But one issue with coming from a small place is that everyone or a lot of people will know who you are, even though they never, never met you, but they know your parents or they see your name or you're just a new guy in a sense. So to me, I grew up in, you know, in the little town in this valley, 2,000 people, middle class, becoming from coming from farmer families. So.

Tom Brathrud (64:00)

I'm sort of, I could sort of draw on different sides of my identity, I think, with at least being able to connect with people who, for instance, are farmers through my background or my family history in that, but also realizing that I know far less about farming than I thought, just because, you know, growing up in this little town of 2000 people and not really Growing up on a farm is just disqualifies me in many ways for knowing anything about, about that. So I learned a lot from that and also, I mean.

Tom Brathrud (64:44)

Really enjoying. I have to admit that, you know, the, the sort of the, the motivation for many of those permanent in migrants moved from the city to, to these villages in the mountain. It really resonates a lot with my own interest as well. I mean, I love being out in the mountains with different activities. That's what, you know, what I like to do the most in a sense, in my spare time. And so it was really easy to connect with that group of people and go on ski touring trips with them and go and running, you know, have running practice with them every week and so on. But one of the.

Tom Brathrud (65:26)

Sort of the context where really, where it was more difficult or most difficult for me to navigate was first, you know, actually realizing that family or close friends that I grew up with had great stories that would fit my research, but that just was too close or too personal in a sense for me to include in my research, even though it would be really gold. But it's also really difficult to feel. I mean, anthropology, I think we all struggled a little bit with this sort of extractive nature of it, in a sense and just, you know, working against that, you know, all the time and trying to not do that kind of anthropology. But when it's, you know, when it's good friends and family, it gets a little bit weird. That was one thing I had to navigate around. And also being, you know, when I realized that there were some conflicts in these villages, you know, between the. In migrants from the city who were, you know, becoming my friends. And I was hanging out quite a bit with.

Tom Brathrud (66:35)

At the same time as I was doing research about what they were doing. But then also, you know, approaching those people who were not very happy about them and quite easily being, you know, it was quite easy to categorize me as, you know, one, one of those people in a sense that they were not feeling so good about. So they're also trying to. Or having to navigate a little bit, you know, with my own background, maybe from being from, from, you know, farming families and stuff. And also I think realizing also the, the value of actually being.

Tom Brathrud (67:19)

An anthropologist in places because then even though I came from a university, the city and so on, I was still taken as some kind of neutral party, I think, because I explained that I was really interested in hearing their stories and seeing, understanding whatever was going on from their perspective. And I think just that sort of basic Openness that we have as anthropologists is a good tool to navigate all kinds of different fieldwork settings, actually, because people.

Tom Brathrud (67:56)

Really appreciate being listened to and.

Tom Brathrud (68:00)

Having an unbiased listener who just wants to know how they feel.

Sadie Hale (68:07)

Yeah, yeah, that's a great advertisement for anthropology, of course, what we're trying to do here.

Tom Brathrud (68:14)

Yeah.

Sadie Hale (68:17)

So just to end. Because you've got so many interesting, different ideas here, but if you could tell us about a work, a book, an article, a thinker, something that has influenced you in this topic too, in your thinking around it.

Tom Brathrud (68:34)

Yeah, I think I have to pick. And this is one who has inspired me both in my previous work in Vanuatu in South Pacific, where before starting up in Norway, and in this work. And that's actually Joel Robbins, who has been a good mentor for me.

Tom Brathrud (68:55)

Since my PhD and his article on Anthropology of the Good.

Tom Brathrud (69:04)

Because. And also Chevy Ortner, who had a later article on.

Tom Brathrud (69:11)

The suffering subject and the anthropology of the Good. So where they both. And Joel first argued that. Okay, so in anthropology there's been a lot of important work on, you know, how people are suffering or are sort of on the, on the, on the wrong side of, you know, political, economic developments. Oppressive states.

Tom Brathrud (69:38)

Live difficult lives. And it's important to have a. To shed light on that and have a critical perspective on whatever is going on and to tell those stories to the world. But as he says, in the midst of difficult times, people are also trying to live lives that are worth living. And I think, and they try to realize, you know, values that are important for them. They have ideas about what the future might look. Look like that they try to navigate.

Tom Brathrud (70:11)

Towards by what they're doing.

Tom Brathrud (70:15)

And I think that's just a really, really important perspective that is. Has been.

Tom Brathrud (70:23)

Forgotten that is easy to forget as we have our, you know, our necessary critical perspective on. On society and whatever is shaping it. So that's also. Has been with me, you know, for the past almost 10 years now, that sort of perspective, having the critical, critical perspective on whatever is not good, but also how people try to realize a good life in the midst of it.

Sadie Hale (70:56)

Okay, thank you, Tom, so much for this conversation and we really look forward.

Tom Brathrud (71:01)

To the book for having me.

Podcast Host (71:14)

You've been listening to All Anthropology On Air, a project of the Social Anthropology Department at the University of Bergen. The music in the podcast was made by Victor Lange, and the episode was produced by Sadie Hale and Cecil Marie Henriksen. If you like what you've heard, why not subscribe or leave us a review? We'd love to hear from you. You can follow us on Facebook and by visiting UIB no Antro where you will also find find more information on the ongoing work and upcoming events at the department. Until next time from our city between the Fjell Take care and Harde Bra.