Paper long abstract:

In 2004 the Vega Archipelago on the coast of Northern Norway was inscribed as a cultural landscape under the World Heritage Convention. The justification celebrates a peculiar relationship between a wild brooding bird and its caretaker, the very common eider and the now, 'endangered' fisherman farmer. The season has a local name, 'varntie', addressing the time when all the activities in the islets circle around the care and protection of the bird. Old protection acts and management practices have secured the peace and protection of the bird under shifting legacies, from the ancient landscape laws managed by the thing assemblies to the modern regimes of protecting species and establishing national parks.

The key issue of 'varntie' in light of the newly gained recognition of the World Heritage Status creates a paradoxical situation; whereas the prestigious inscription attracts new groups to the area; the traditional practice needs to keep up its exclusiveness in order to be maintained. Thus, when the core matter of the inscription is performed, it can never be subject to direct tourist mobilities and disturbances of visitors. How can this paradox be handled? I claim that in order to protect the traditional practice from the coming and wished pressure of tourist mobilities, there is need to explore and utilise its virtual aspects based on its practicalities, to explore a place's mode of abstractness through its concreteness, Heidegger, Bachelard, Casey.

The presentation will address some implications of this stance.