Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Page 103

BYGDADVØL - HVÍ UNGFÓLK BÚSETAST í FØROYSKUM BYGDUM
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counterpart in order to survive the various
tests that are posed by the critics and self-
critics (extemal vs intemal critics); the in-
dividuals that do not agree on the particular
•dentity-formation but would like to mod-
'fy the identity for what ever reason. Iden-
t'ty must be somewhat waterproof in order
°ot to seem silly or anacronistic, but then
again, identity is something that can be used
as a strategic mean for obtaining a goal, e.g.
a positive image or a good reputation. Iden-
t*ty is surely productive, but may under cer-
tain circumstances be “unrealistic” (as op-
Posed to “realistic”) and may become a kind
°t “cultural makeup” instead of a produc-
t've counterpart of the dialectic of local de-
velopment.
But even if settlers are attracted to places
there are still very different ways of being
attracted. There is an enormous difference
between being forced to dwell in a place and
t° choose to dwell in a place. Theoretically
" therefore -1 have proposed to distinguish
between a person being “place-tieđ” and
being “place-connected”. (In Danish 1 use
the words “stedsbundet” and “stedstilknyt-
tet” and in Faroese 1 would propose words
*'he “staðbundin” and “staðknýttur”.) When
°ne is place-tied one is determined to belong
lo the given place “in etemity”. On the otlier
hand, when one is place-connected one does
n°t have to stay or move back but may keep
llP a belongingness from the distance or one
Illay even patch together an everyday that
ls based on many different places that
Jhereby become functionally integrated i.e.
V eommuting. As I mentioned earlier in this
. tcle, this latter strategy is very common
111 the Faroes today (see also: Holm, 2004).
This means that a community does not nec-
essarily need to “tie” people’s loyalties in
order to become a succesful place. The suc-
cess of a village can also be ensured by “con-
necting” people to the village and drawing
upon their resources for shorter or longer pe-
riods of time; more or less intensively.
Another important aspect is that “home”
is not necessarily the place where one
dwells. Home and dwelling are not neces-
sarily the same in a mral Faroese context.
“Home” is not always semiotically referring
to the “place of dwelling”, but may in some
cases be the “place of growing up”. In this
way the concept of home may “stay” at the
parents’ house even when the youth has
moved into a new building. Off course the
new house will transform into a home when
the young people’s children start to talk
about their home in a reflexive manner, but
even then the grandparents’ house will func-
tion as “another home” or a secondary home,
which also refers to the institutional impor-
tance of the grandmother or aunt for raising
the children. Home should not be under-
stood as a house, but rather as the practices
that surround the dwelling; i.e. the dwelling
practices which refers not only to “being
penuanently in a place” but also to the con-
tinuous “building of the home”, both phys-
ically and symbolically. There are a huge
range of other practices than just “being in
the house” that constitute the significance of
dwelling in a Faroese village. A real village-
home needs more than just the space within
the four walls to become a “full home”. If
we follow the german existential philoso-
pher, Martin Heideggers notion on dwelling,
we can state that dwelling in fact means