The Role of Leisure Practices and Local Identity in Migrants’ Inclusion in Two Rural Norwegian Municipalities

Brit Lynnebakke
Additional contact information
Brit Lynnebakke: Nordic Institute for Studies of Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), Norway / Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR), Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway

Social Inclusion, 2024, vol. 12

Abstract: This article discusses the role of local identity and local leisure practices in migrants’ inclusion processes in two rural Norwegian localities. The discussed study was conducted in municipalities that had experienced increased international migration following the EU expansion in 2004 and had a long history of internal in‐migration. In the study, individuals’ social inclusion and belonging processes are treated as inseparable from a locality’s dominant local narratives, practices, and norms—drawing on theories on inclusion/exclusion processes in places. Based on findings from semi‐structured interviews with local natives, internal migrants, and international migrants, the study found that different leisure practices were central to local identity in the two localities, which had implications for what was expected of migrants in order for them to be accepted locally. These findings align with what is commonly conceived as outdated community study research findings. The findings indicate the continued relevance of the local for people’s identification and migrants’ inclusion processes and support a need for closer theoretical and methodological integration of internal and international migration research. Another central finding was that in one of the localities, national narratives about civic engagement were evoked by some majority Norwegians as additional arguments for the importance of migrants’ involvement in local leisure activities. These interviewees’ main concern appeared to be ensuring local—rather than national—cultural continuity and cohesion. Finally, the different inclusion grammars in the two localities illustrate that inclusion processes in one locality should not by default be seen as representative of what is transpiring in a nation‐state.

Keywords: community studies; domestic migration; inclusion; international migration; local identity; national identity; place theories; social spatialisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/7805 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:socinc:v12:y:2024:a:7805

DOI: 10.17645/si.7805

Access Statistics for this article

Social Inclusion is currently edited by Mariana Pires

More articles in Social Inclusion from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().