People in a painted landscape

Gunnar Malmberg

Department of Social and Economic Geography,

Umeå University, Sweden

The Project: “Away from the periphery”•Place making, place discourses and migration in Swedish peripheries.•Peripheries have been in focus in public debates•Focus on the North

This Study •Migration and place making in an area in Southern Sweden•Illustrate interrelations between mobility and place representations•Back-ward area Periphery Unique idyll•Migration and representations of rurality•The role of the painters•The making of “Österlen”

John Jörgensson Eugen Frans Lindberg

Empirical analyses

• Analyses of different populations and their mobility

– Permanent residents

– Temporary and permanent migrants

– Second home owners

– Tourists

• Analyses of their different relations to places

• Analyses of the representations of places

– Paintings

– Films

– Literature

– Advertisement

– Geographical and ethnographical studies

Densely and highly urbanised western

Skåne 840.000 inhabitants

Peripheralsouth-eastern

Skåne35.000 inhabitants

Skåne; the densely populated South,

0 km 80 km

• Stigmatised as a back-ward area

– “People are slow to adjust”

– “People are keen to follow the traditions of their ancestors”

• Modernization and industry came late

• No regional identity

• “Österlen” used by outsiders

A “backward” rural area

Frans Lindberg

Making the Periphery

• Centre – periphery was created by the urbanisation and industrialisation

• But also by geographers, planners and others who conceptualised this process.

• Hägerstrand’s migration studyfrom 1949 “the flight from the small town”

• The stereotyped periphery

• Self-peripherization, local politicians and local population

Source: Hägerstrand (1949)

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

220

1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000

South East Skåne Malmö Lund Skåne

Population decline in the peripheral region

The periphery of south-east Skåne• Higher share of elderly than in other parts of southern Sweden• High out-migration rates• High unemployment rate

But the area is known to most Swedes as ..

”Österlen”• An attractive rural idyll• Home and second home of many intellectuals and artists

The making of the “Österlen” as unique idyll

Major actors:– The local elite – Intellectual inmigrants

– The naming process, initiated by the local elite• Reintroduced the name “Österlen” and delimited the area• Used by the outsiders - “painters” and second home

owners

– “Österlen” was represented as an rural idyll

The Painters

• Pioneer painters already in the late 1800s

• “The light in Österlen”

• The “continental” landscape in Sweden

• The pioneers attracted other to follow

• A colony of temporary or permanent painters was established in 1950s

• These painters were important place-makers

Gummeson

Wihlborg

•The landscape represented in the paintings was an attractive rural idyll

•The rural idyll was located to a specific place, “Österlen”

When painted in oil and exhibited in the galleries, the peripheral landscape, of large plains, hamlets and fishing villages, was converted into an attractive idyll

The artists and intellectuals had the symbolic capital and social capital to define the attractive place

Eugen

Other “painters” followed

• Filmmakers

• Authors

• Composers

• Rock stars

who reproduced the idyllic landscape

and became and attraction that triggered others to come to Österlen

Reproducing the idyllic landscape

• Art exhibitions

• Invasion of art galleries and cafés

• Summer theatres

• Music festivals

• “Painting” and renovating houses in the old style

The residents of Österlen found themselves living in a painted landscape- in a rural idyll,

as reproducers of the rural idyll

or as exotic inhabitants in that idyll.

“They say it’s a beautiful area, but we cannot see it”local rural worker

EugenJohn Jörgensson

The unique idyll attracted new populations

• Second home owners– High share of houses are second homes (36 %)

– High share owned by non-residents (85 %)

– High share of second home owners from Stockholm (25%)

• Inmigration of permanent residents– Still quite low

– High share coming from Stockholm

• Tourism– Increasing tourism over the years

Two place discourses:• South East Skåne

– the stereotyped periphery

• Österlen

- the unique idyll

•Part of the everyday life

•Influence values and behaviour

•Structure people’s life opportunities•More for the locally tied residents•Less for the mobile

Eugen

Some conclusions

• Planners, geographers and others formed the discourse about the periphery

• “The painters” and the local elite formed the discourse about the unique idyll

• They had the symbolic capital to influence the place discourses

• While most permanent residents were less powerful to influence it

• However, both these discourses could also be in the interests of the permanent resident population