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Linda Stihl

Linda Stihl

Postdoctoral fellow

Linda Stihl

Local culture and change agency in old industrial places : spinning forward and digging deeper

Author

  • Linda Stihl

Summary, in English

The paper unpacks the relationship between local culture and agency to enhance our understanding of local variations of agency. The paper studies two former old industrial places in Sweden; one place characterized by an entrepreneurial culture (Borås), the other with a company town culture (Kiruna). Both cases experienced structural crisis around 1970s. A study period of more than 30 years is used to analyse actions and actors present in different phases of development, using 38 semi-structured interviews. The concepts of change agency and reproductive agency are used to analyse agentic patterns. Cultural transformation is mapped using values, heroes, symbols and rituals. The paper finds that the entrepreneurial culture is an enabling condition for change agency, whereas the company town culture is hampering change agency. The paper also finds that lock-ins can continue to affect actors after a crisis and that opportunities for change agency therefore is actor-specific, i.e. that local agency varies between actors and over time. Reproductive agency is present in both regions to maintain the cultural identity, but the company town culture is more resistant to institutional changes. Yet, both local cultures have changed, and in both cases the changes have opened for more change agency.

Department/s

  • Department of Human Geography
  • CIRCLE

Publishing year

2024-01-29

Language

English

Pages

586-606

Publication/Series

European Planning Studies

Volume

32

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Economic Geography

Keywords

  • local culture
  • change agency
  • reproductive agency
  • old industrial regions
  • regional development

Status

Published

Project

  • Regional Growth against all odds
  • Agents of Change in Old-industrial Regions in Europe
  • Change agency in (old) industrial regions - Shaping new futures

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1469-5944