Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.2006, Page 105

BYGDADVØL - HVÍ UNGFÓLK BÚSETAST í FØROYSKUM BYGDUM
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tively Norðragøta or Syðrugøta, as they are
'dentifying themselves as “Gøtufólk” (peo-
Ple from Gøta). From this perspective Gøta
has in many ways transformed into a minor
town.
Theroretical extract: Traditionally
home” was a very located place, but in an
age of mobility “home” is extending its lo-
Cale, as dwelling-relevant elements of the
everyday have become reachable especially
through automobility. This also means that
°ne is not tied to the dwelling-place but con-
fected to the dwelling-place or rather: con-
fected to a whole range of everyday-places,
the dwelling-place being only one of sev-
eral.
^tvelling myths
Identifying oneself to a place or - for stick-
'ng to the subject of this article - a village,
'tteans that one engages in a semiotic play
that seeks to position the place in a positive
Jtianner. The most obvious semitotic tactic
ln this game is off course distinguishing
°ne’s own place or village as opposite to
s°me other place(s) or village(s). Most often
't is one’s own place that “acts” (i.e. “is being
Ptit in action”) as the protagonist in this tac-
t'c and the “other” place that somehow is not
quite as good as “us” or perhaps even “bad”
(in some way or another). This kind of “vil-
iage-nationalism” is very common, but com-
PjU'isons with other places may even func-
ll°n as a kind of self-critique of one’s own
village. lf one feels that one’s own village
ls Perhaps too conservative or to religious -
01 even too little religious - one may point
|° another village that does certain things
etter, meaning: “if they can, we also can”,
and - in tum - “we ought to do it too”. This
quite simple distinguishing between differ-
ent places is also followed by an institu-
tionalizing of the “local virtues”. In this case
people from Gøta (gøtufólk) are quite aware
that they are friendlier and more open-
minded than most other people in the region,
but in order to be able to state that, it is also
necessary that people in Gøta are in fact
friendly and openminded. There has to be a
correspondence between practice and dis-
course, at least in the long turn. This means
that one has to denionstrate through every-
day-practice that one is friendly and open-
minded, which off course - in tum - pro-
duces Gøta as friendly and openminded,
both practically and discursively. We might
even want to conceptualize this as an inter-
esting place-specific village-ideology of
“cognitive goodness” which also has had the
effect of people (so is said) drinking less than
in other places and being more industrial
than in other places. The myth further goes
that this is the reason why Gøta is one of
the richest municipalities in the Faroes,
which then again is a proveable fact.
This is not just a specifíc phenomenon.
Friendliness is in fact a part of the “brand”
of many Faroese villages. Reciprocal friend-
lyness is one of the main qualities one can
utilize -and/or co-produce - when one lives
in a village. This is off course more true in
some villages than in others, but in a socially
balanced village this is at least a virtue one
may foster. At least there seems to be a need
to explain the qualities of the village as op-
posed to the qualities of the town. The myth
goes that people are much more friendly in
the villages whereas in the towns people just