Fra “den norske hytta” til “norske hytter”

In one of our interviews I was told by the friendly man at the Hedda booth that I look like a typical Hedda customer. This little episode created an unexpected link between the phenomenon I am studying and me. I could be a hytte-owner, couldn’t I? Well, no, I could not, a regular associate professor at NTNU without noteworthy capital cannot afford this kind of hytte.

But the whole thing reminded me of Bourdieu’s writings on distinction. In other contexts I find Bourdieu too sociological and somewhat outdated. I do not want to do any longer what traditional sociologists do: Performing order claiming to describe order. In this respect, I am following Ranciere’s and Latour’s critiques. But in the context of hytter Bourdieu’s sociology may have its virtues because it can be used to perform disorder.

Let me explain: Societies are ordered by different kinds of capital: education, income, social networks etc are defining which position you have within a given society.  Now Bourdieu is saying that economic capital is not necessarily identical with having cultural capital (e.g. having a lot of education) or social capital (e.g. knowing the right people). Rather it is certain combinations of these different kinds of capital which determine which clothes we find disgusting or cool, which furniture we buy, or — which hytte we spend our leisure time in. Hytter, clothes, furniture etc at the same time are markers which we use to position ourselves in society. So, I guess in terms of cultural capital I could be a Hedda customer. In terms of economic capital I could not.

Why is this relevant in the context of hytter? When it comes to hytter there is so much talk about the Norwegian “we” in relation to nature that internal distinctions in terms of education, income and social networks are under-communicated. Maybe this is the change, which this blog hints at in its title: That this “we” is finally meeting its reality, which is much more fragmented than everybody thought. There are people looking like Hedda customers who are not. There are real Norwegians who experience their hytte as a source of stress and inconvenience. There are people who prefer holidays in the mountains with après-ski and exciting nightclubs.And there are also Norwegians with tree fetish nourishing on elk-sausages.

Count me in if you need someone to describe this “new” disorder.

The mysterious Norwegian hytte

We are two foreigners in this group of researchers, a Dane and a German. Being one of them I can tell you: it is not easy at all to get to grips with the Norwegian hytta. Luckily, almost every Norwegian loves to talk about his or her hytta. Many stories are told, and what every Norwegian knows about hytter is patiently explained to the ignorant foreigner.

Thomas Berker og Mark Vacher

Still, we who never have lived through a happy childhood summer at the family hytta find it difficult to understand. At the surface it seems simple: In their holidays Norwegians enjoy a simple life in the middle of magnificent Norwegian nature. But then it quickly gets difficult: There are seaside hytter and forest hytter and mountain hytter, I am told, and every type of hytte has a “typical” form and typical activities associated to it. Of course the “typical” form can be modified and often it is. And if you continue to ask about what happens at the hytte an endless variety of possible “lives at the hytta” reveals itself. The simple refuge in the middle of nature exists, no doubt, but an average “hyttefelt” providing all the luxury of contemporary homes is the fastest growing type of hytte right now. So what is a hytte? The quest continues. See you tomorrow at the fair…

On studying trade fairs

A few weeks ago I visited the “leading” fair on “The bathroom experience”, ISH. This was for our research project DACS, where we are not only studying cottages as locales of leisure energy consumption but also: bathrooms. Instead of blaming the lazy end-user or the evil salespeople we are looking for choices affecting energy consumption which happen on every link of the commodity chain. We expected trade fairs to be a locales where some of these links surface and can be studied.

And it was an overwhelming experience, indeed. I felt like for the first time in my life I see capitalism in action: Men with suits (women with suits too, but more often women with objectifying outfits, remember, it was about “The bathroom experience”) from all over the world (well, mostly China and Europe) meet in an artificial environment (think: airport or similar non-places) in order to profit from each other (or rather fleece each other?).

I guess the cottage fair we will visit and study here in Trondheim next week won’t be as obvious an example for global capitalism (perhaps more for the cozy Scandinavian version of it), but here are some lessons I have learned in Frankfurt, for the public benefit:

1. Don’t eat steak tartare the day before the fair. My friend Mario really meant well but my stomach did not appreciate the gift and so I had to endure thousands of men with suits (and women in swimsuits)  walking around with an upset stomach. Luckily it was a bathroom fair
2. Don’t walk around watching, thinking smart thoughts. It is true, there is so much to see, but the salespeople are really happy to show all that to you. And that is what you are after: how they present things, aren’t you?
3. Go for people who have stakes in what they are presenting. (Large) Fairs hire people to do the talking (and selling). These puppets are not what you are looking for, find the old owner, the sales veteran or the chief engineer.
4. Don’t forget your business cards. All in all it is weird that you are at the fair, studying it. When you explain to the salespeople what you do, a business card really helps.
5. Collect brochures and stuff, but do so wisely and selectively. During the three days in Frankfurt I collected some 20 kg. I managed to take about half of it with me to Norway — which has been lying peacefully in a corner of my office since.