Paper short abstract:

Storytelling and local knowledge often are seen as aspects of each other. This presentation will focus on how stories of local conditions and history are used as a strategy for enforcing the identification of people as locals and thus function as a tool for political mobilization across party lines.

Paper long abstract:

Storytelling and local knowledge often are seen as aspects of each other. This presentation will focus on how storytelling events of local conditions and history are used as a strategy for enforcing local identification. The case study presented is from a small countryside municipality in northern Sweden, where a local storytelling society has focused on the building of community. This is a contribution to the survival of the municipality, which faces strong urbanization trends that affects the possibilities to keep up local public service.

As a consequence of this stance, the society has concentrated on internal meetings for villagers rather than staged entertainment or tourism events, thus choosing a somewhat different way of working than the contemporary ideas of regional development and local branding would have it. By staging the events as local meetings rather than shows, and focusing themes and places rather than entertainers, the society try to act for inclusion of all inhabitants and thus try to function as a tool for political mobilization across party lines. However, this inward-looking perspective is also balanced with outward contacts tying up with other volunteer actors in regional development, cultural heritage, and the storytelling movement. With this case study, I want to direct attention to and raise questions about how storytelling as a place-making strategy is promoted, adapted and communicated.