‘I often ponder over what the elders in the family told us…’: Children, place and local knowledge in the Faroe Islands

This paper, based on qualitative material from the (coastal) community of Gøta in the Faroe Islands, examines and analyses the dynamic connection between local knowledge, everyday life activities, and changing identities, from an intergenerational analytical approach. More specifically, the paper explores young people’s reflections on and relations to the grandparents’ generation. The aim is to scrutinize in which sense the interplay between past and present – continuity and discontinuity – in young people’s narratives reflects their attachment to place and bonds to the past. The Faroese project, which is part of the international ‘Valuing the Past – Sustaining the Future’ project (2016-2020), consists of three-generation narrative interviews among thirteen families from Gøta. The interviews were conducted in 2017. The paper hypothesizes that social capital, local knowledge, and entrepreneurship make Gøta a thriving coastal community with bright outlook. Young people critically rethink Gøta as place, but, apparently, with strong respect for the enterprises of the past generations.