The Internal Other: Reproducing and Reworking Center and Periphery

This chapter contains a critical discussion of constructions of center and periphery in a Nordic context, and the discursive and material implications thereof. Specifically, it takes its starting point in representations of northernmost Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and discusses how discursive constructions of these geographic localities as backwards and peripheral contribute to a co-production of a presumably egalitarian and forward-looking Nordic center; i.e. the national capital regions. We use the term “representations” in a very general sense as any means of communication by which people tell stories about places. The chapter draws on examples ranging from newspaper articles, to film, place marketing campaigns, interview material and other modes of representing “peripheral” regions in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.