The authors present a number of case studies, from the Middle Age to present time, about how the past has been made meaningful and relevant to people living in later periods. It is the process of selecting, interpreting and passing on meaning that we call negotiating the past. This process is loaded with tension in part stemming from the past itself, but which is often due to the various agents involved in the process as they represent different interests, understandings and points of view. At the same time, the process is marked by a wish to come to terms with unknown conditions, to develop some consensus, again not only with the past, but also with one's contemporaries. These dynamic and dialogical processes do not only concern the past as in "history", but rather a number of pasts, which are sometimes in conflict, but at other times harmoniously complement each other. The book should be viewed as a contribution to the international and interdisciplinary field of collective memory, which has grown large over the last decades. Today, studies of commemorations and festivals, monuments, exhibitions and museums, historical films and narratives are numerous, and terms such as social memory, collective or collected memory, lieux de mémoire all demonstrate the scholarly interest in how the past -- or images of it -- is constructed, composed and built up, but also demolished, dismantled and rejected. To learn more about the processes when dealing with the past is an important key to understanding why and how societies and communities change and evolve. The authors are Norwegian, Danish and Swedish scholars who have collaborated in a network on the subject between 2007 and 2009. They are employed at universities and university libraries throughout Scandinavia. Contributors: Anders Berge; Brita Brenna; Bernard Eric Jensen; Helge Jordheim; Kyrre Kverndokk; Anne Birgitte Rønning; Leiv Sem; Karen Skovgaard-Petersen; Erling Sverdrup Sandmo; Anna Wallette.

Histories of sculpture within the Nordic region are under-studied and the region?s influence upon and translation of influences from elsewhere in Europe remain insufficiently traced. This volume brings to light individual histories of sculptural mobility from the early modern period onwards. Examining the movement of sculptures, sculptors, practices, skills, styles and motifs across borders, through studios and public architectures, within popular and print culture and via texts, the essays collected here consider the extent to which the sculptural artwork is changed by its physical movement and its transfigurations in other media. How does the meaning and form of these objects performatively respond to the pressure of their relocations and rematerialisations? Conversely, how do sculptures impact their new contexts of display? The contributing authors engage with a wide variety of objects and media in their essays. Each focuses on the contextualisation of sculpture in an original and timely way, exploring how mobility acts as a filter offering new perspectives on iconography, memorialisation, collecting, iconoclasm and exhibiting. From the stave churches of early Norway to the decoration of International Style monoliths of the twentieth century, from Italian quarries to Baroque palaces, from fountains to figurines, from text to performance, these wide-ranging and fascinating case studies contribute to the rich history of the Nordic region?s sculptural production.

In recent years, the field of Memory Studies has emerged as a key approach in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and has increasingly shown its ability to open new windows on Nordic Studies as well. The entries in this book document the work-to-date of this approach on the pre-modern Nordic world (mainly the Viking Age and the Middle Ages, but including as well both earlier and later periods). Given that Memory Studies is an ever expanding critical strategy, the approximately eighty contributors in this volume also discuss the potential for future research in this area. Topics covered range from texts to performance to visual and other aspects of material culture, all approached from within an interdisciplinary framework. International specialists, coming from such relevant fields as archaeology, mythology, history of religion, folklore, history, law, art, literature, philology, language, and mediality, offer assessments on the relevance of Memory Studies to their disciplines and show it at work in case studies. Finally, this handbook demonstrates the various levels of culture where memory had a critical impact in the pre-modern North and how deeply embedded the role of memory is in the material itself.

This volume celebrates the work of Dr. Phil. h.c. Gerhard Milstreu in his 40th year as director of Tanum Museum of Rock Carving and Rock Art Research Centre, Sweden. A feast of scholarly contributions pay respect to and acknowledge Gerhard’s achievements in the fields of rock art documentation, research, international collaboration and outreach.

This open access book is a novel contribution in two ways: It is a multi-disciplinary examination of the indigenous South Saami people in Fennoscandia, a social and cultural group that often is overlooked as it is a minority within the Saami minority. Based on both historical material such as archaeological evidence, 20th century newspapers, and postcard motives as well as current sources such as ongoing land-right trials and recent works of historiography, the articles highlight the culture and living conditions of this indigenous group, mapping the negotiations of different identities through the interaction of Saami and non-Saami people through the ages. By illuminating this under-researched field, the volume also enriches the more general debate on global indigenous history, and sheds light on the construction of a Scandinavian identity and the limits of the welfare state and the myth of heterogeneity and equality.

The Nordic countries have a century-long tradition for cooperation within the area of citizenship law. Since the mid-1970s, however, the Nordic countries have moved in different directions. Today, the Nordic countries represent the entire continuum in European citizenship policies – from liberal Sweden to restrictive Denmark, with the other Nordic neighbors in between. This report reviews the historical development and the current citizenship regime in the five Nordic countries, it provides statistics on the acquisition and loss of citizenship in each country over the past 10-15 years, and it offers a comparative analysis of the divergent development of citizenship law in the 2000s. The concluding chapter discusses possible consequences of the different citizenship regimes and the prospects for strengthened cooperation between the Nordic countries in the area of citizenship law.

Scandinavian Labor market policies have always represented one of the strongest alternatives to those adopted by recent governments in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the ability of these countries to maintain such low unemployment is currently of great interest to economists. This book offers a comprehensive analysis of both wage formation in the individual Nordic economies and general aspects of Nordic wage setting institutions, in particular the relation between centralized bargaining and wage drift. This book will be of special interest to economists, policy makers, and trade unions.

1.1 Trends in labour law