Tell Your Story, Save Our Community: Raising Local Consciousness and Reinforcing Political Mobilization in Bjurholm through Storytelling

Abstract

The present article focuses on how storytelling events serve as a tool in reinforcing local identity. The case study presented here centres on Bjurholm, a small rural town in northern Sweden, where a local storytelling society called Bjurholms Berättarakademi has been emphasizing municipal community building as a singularly important task. Initially offering public storytelling evenings and festivals celebrating prominent local storytellers, it soon shifted strategy and instead concentrated on storytelling in schools and villages, by pupils and villagers, and addressing urgent local topics at special events. The tenuousness of relying on only a handful of activists and the problem of continuity has been countered through collaboration with other local societies, as well as by embracing new media.