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NORWEGIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY NORINT 0500 ASPECTS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY 16.03.2015 MARIT MELHUUS

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No such thing as one culture or one identity Cultures are continually evolving Anthropologists use case studies. Small facts speak to large issues Look at everyday, practices, events, phenomena Locate underlying values My examples: Food Nature Dress Kinship/ Gender Focus: Resonance in Norwegian society Specific connotations

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The Cases Food: the Norwegian matpakke or packaged lunch Nature: the Norwegian Trekking Association: Den norske turistforening (DNT) Dress: the BUNAD Kinship/Gender: Biotechnology Act and Assisted Conception

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tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are Food tied to identity. Runar Dving. 1999. Matpakken. Den store norske fortellingen om familien og nasjonen in Relgionsvitenskapelig tidsskrift. (Matpakken: The Big Norwegian Narrative about the Family and the Nation.) MATPAKKA

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Matpakka consists of a couple of slices of whole grain bread It is made at home It is packed in thin, wax paper

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Matpakken is the result of a public policy. Started with introduction of a school breakfast in 1920s Issue: health and nutrition Value of raw food, over cooked food Raw food is real food: natural, clean, healthy Produced the natural person

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Matpakken typical of ethnic Norwegians Matpakken tied to nautre: belongs to outdoors Matpakken tied to major state institutions: kindergartens and schools Part of everyday life Food practices are structured by ideas of work and leisure time Story of matpakke is about effort and reward Encapsulates the relationship between the family and the state.

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Hungry children eat their matpakke Design matpakke Traditional matpakke Aftenposten 11.03.2014

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Nature and outdoor activities Domesticating the wild The Norwegian Trekking Association Den Norske Turistforeningen DNT Ween, Gro and Simone Abram. 2012. The Norwegian Trekking Association: Trekking as Constituting the Nation in Landscape Research. 37:2.

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DEN NORSKE TURISTFORENING (DNT) (The Norwegian Trekking Association) DNT largest environmental organization in Norway. Established in 1868 200.000 members 50 branch offices 430 lodges 20 000 km of marked trails 6500 km of way-marked skiing tracks Expression: g p tur aldri sur epitomizes Norwegian attitudes to being outdoors (Go for a walk, never glum)

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Main claim: embodied mobility of trekkers implies an ongoing ordering that weds individual bodies to prescribed ideals of nation, nature and environmentalism DNT makes the mountains and wilderness available DNT arranges and encourages a way of moving in nature DNT standardizes certain nature practices DNT affirms experiences of what Norwegian nature is

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Technologies of ordering: Way marking Path-making Guiding Standardize Norwegian nature Control movement/walking in nature Create a sense of Norwegian Nature

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Institutional developments also wed trekking and the wild to the nation Mountain Law 1920 Outdoor Recreation Act 1957 National Parks wilderness protection 1960s and 70s Creation of commons - everyone has access to nature Highlands transformed to roaming lands Legal decisions aestheticized and standardized national property Nature redefined as national and not local

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Making Nature Available Mapping the T trails Creating networks of paths Build cabins Much work based on dugnad: Volunteer work The whole country becomes inscribed The wild is tamed The red T is a mark of non-urbanity

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Fjellvettssregler Rules of Mountain Wisdom 1.Be prepared 2.Leave word of your route 3.Be weatherwise 4.Be equipped 5.Learn from the locals 6.Use map and compass 7.dont go solo 8.Turn back in time: theres no shame in turning back 9.Conserve energy and build a snow shelter if necessary

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Fjellvetts regler and the idea of outdoor recreation converge around an idea of equality Nature is there for all You meet as equals regardless of background Nature practices are important to a sense of norwegianess Nature is perceived in a way that may be specific to Norwegians

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Traditionalism and Neoliberalism: The Norwegian Folk Dress in the 21 st Century Thomas Hylland Eriksen THE BUNAD First published in 2004. Erich Kasten (ed) Properties of Culture Culture and Properties. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag

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THE BUNAD

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What is the bunad? Bunad is a festive folk costume Tied to specific region Product of Norwegian nationalism Confirms Norwegian identity as essentially rural Worn on formal occasions

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Morality attached to bunad Who can wear it? Who can make it? Question of authenticity Challenged by enterprising Norwegian-Chinese to most people it is the quality that counts, not who has done the embroidery

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KINSHIP AND GENDER How do people reckon kin? Blood thicker than water Blood a shared substance Kinship based on a biological model of shared substance Kinship has to do with belonging and identity

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Bioctechnology and Assisted Conception Norwegian Biotechnology Act Example of state policy regulating how people may procreate and form a family Assisted conception method in vitro fertilization Permits conception outside the womb Robert Edwards won Nobel Prize in medicine in 2010 Challenges our ideas of natural conception Destabilizes notions of motherhood and fatherhood

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Norwegian Biotechnology Act Prohibits egg donation Permits sperm donation but with known sperm donor Does not permit surrogacy Sperm and egg are treated differently People who need treatments not permitted in Norway travel abroad Law prompts reproductive tourism or cross-border reproduction

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Intention of the law is to maintain certainty about who the mother is and who the real father is Mother is one and not to be fragmented: birth mother, genetic mother In law: mother is the one who gives birth

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Fatherhood is uncertain in nature Fatherhood established through pater est, by recognition or claim or by proof (DNA) Anonymous sperm donation conceals the true father Child has the right to know its origins Origin is defined as biological

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Differential treatment of sperm and egg have been grounded in natural differences between mother and father Today these arguments are losing their force. Gender discrimination and equal access to treatment for men and women winning ground.