NORWEGIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY NORINT 0500 ASPECTS OF

NORWEGIAN LIFE AND SOCIETY NORINT 0500 ASPECTS OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY 17. 03. 2014 MARIT MELHUUS

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

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

Matpakka: tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are. Food tied to identity. Runar Døving. 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 consists of a couple of slices of whole grain bread It is made at home It is packed in thin, wax paper

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

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.

Design matpakke Hungry children eat their matpakke Aftenposten 11. 03. 2014 Traditional matpakke

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.

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: “gå på tur aldri sur” epitomizes Norwegian attitudes to being outdoors (Go for a walk, never glum)

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

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

THE BUNAD

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

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”

Fjellvettssregler – Rules of Mountain Wisdom 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Be prepared Leave word of your route Be weatherwise Be equipped Learn from the locals Use map and compass don’t’ go solo Turn back in time: there’s no shame in turning back Conserve energy and build a snow shelter if necessary

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

Transnational adoption Howell, Signe. 2003. “Kinning: The Creation of Life Trajectories In Transnational Adoptive Families”, JRAI, 9.

Major points in Howell’s argument: Difference between biological and social kinship Kinship is universal – but the way kinship is understood and practiced will vary and is culturally specific In Norway, kinship is based on shared substance That shared substance is often expressed through a notion of shared blood: Blood is thicker than water Family values are highly emphasized in Norway.

Transnational adoption highlight ambiguities with regard to kinned relatedness Tied to: blood, place, land people Kinning: process by which a newborn child is brought into significant relationship with a group of people expressed in a kin idiom

17. Of May Christmas

Motherland tour: Korea

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 Destablizes notions of motherhood and fatherhood

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

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

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

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