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Refugees’ Encounters With Nordic Rural Areas–Darkness, Wind and “Hygge”!

The paper investigates how refugees settled in rural Norway and Denmark experience and interact with their new rural places of residence. Theoretically, the paper finds inspiration in “phenomenology of practices” (Simonsen, Prog. Hum. Geogr., 2012, 37, 10–26), which emphasizes the bodily and sensory...

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Autores principales: Herslund, Lise, Paulgaard, Gry
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8022831/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33869575
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.623686
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author Herslund, Lise
Paulgaard, Gry
author_facet Herslund, Lise
Paulgaard, Gry
author_sort Herslund, Lise
collection PubMed
description The paper investigates how refugees settled in rural Norway and Denmark experience and interact with their new rural places of residence. Theoretically, the paper finds inspiration in “phenomenology of practices” (Simonsen, Prog. Hum. Geogr., 2012, 37, 10–26), which emphasizes the bodily and sensory experiences of daily life that spur feelings of, for example, “orientation” or “disorientation”. The empirical material is based on fieldwork and qualitative interviews with refugees and local volunteers in 2016/2017/2019 in small towns in the rural north of Norway and rural Denmark. There are several differences between the Norwegian and Danish rural areas, in relation to distances, climate and population density. Nonetheless, the ways in which the rural areas are experienced from within, by refugees settled there, show surprisingly many similarities. Many of the informants, in both the Norwegian and Danish cases, initially expressed frustration at being placed in rural areas without having any say in the matter. Those who were former city-dwellers especially experienced moments of disorientation, as their encounters with Nordic rural life were experienced as the opposite of their urban backgrounds. Limiting structural conditions very much shape the everyday lives of refugees in the first years, when they do not have a car or the financial capacity to find their own house. They feel stressed, with busy everyday lives made up of long commuting hours on public transport. In these first years of uncertainty, the dark and harsh weather very much adds to the feeling of stress and insecurity. What seem to add “orientation” are social relations with other refugees and local volunteers organizing activities.
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spelling pubmed-80228312021-04-15 Refugees’ Encounters With Nordic Rural Areas–Darkness, Wind and “Hygge”! Herslund, Lise Paulgaard, Gry Front Sociol Sociology The paper investigates how refugees settled in rural Norway and Denmark experience and interact with their new rural places of residence. Theoretically, the paper finds inspiration in “phenomenology of practices” (Simonsen, Prog. Hum. Geogr., 2012, 37, 10–26), which emphasizes the bodily and sensory experiences of daily life that spur feelings of, for example, “orientation” or “disorientation”. The empirical material is based on fieldwork and qualitative interviews with refugees and local volunteers in 2016/2017/2019 in small towns in the rural north of Norway and rural Denmark. There are several differences between the Norwegian and Danish rural areas, in relation to distances, climate and population density. Nonetheless, the ways in which the rural areas are experienced from within, by refugees settled there, show surprisingly many similarities. Many of the informants, in both the Norwegian and Danish cases, initially expressed frustration at being placed in rural areas without having any say in the matter. Those who were former city-dwellers especially experienced moments of disorientation, as their encounters with Nordic rural life were experienced as the opposite of their urban backgrounds. Limiting structural conditions very much shape the everyday lives of refugees in the first years, when they do not have a car or the financial capacity to find their own house. They feel stressed, with busy everyday lives made up of long commuting hours on public transport. In these first years of uncertainty, the dark and harsh weather very much adds to the feeling of stress and insecurity. What seem to add “orientation” are social relations with other refugees and local volunteers organizing activities. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8022831/ /pubmed/33869575 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.623686 Text en Copyright © 2021 Herslund and Paulgaard. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sociology
Herslund, Lise
Paulgaard, Gry
Refugees’ Encounters With Nordic Rural Areas–Darkness, Wind and “Hygge”!
title Refugees’ Encounters With Nordic Rural Areas–Darkness, Wind and “Hygge”!
title_full Refugees’ Encounters With Nordic Rural Areas–Darkness, Wind and “Hygge”!
title_fullStr Refugees’ Encounters With Nordic Rural Areas–Darkness, Wind and “Hygge”!
title_full_unstemmed Refugees’ Encounters With Nordic Rural Areas–Darkness, Wind and “Hygge”!
title_short Refugees’ Encounters With Nordic Rural Areas–Darkness, Wind and “Hygge”!
title_sort refugees’ encounters with nordic rural areas–darkness, wind and “hygge”!
topic Sociology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8022831/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33869575
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.623686
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