Local culture and change agency in old industrial places: spinning forward and digging deeper

Abstract

The paper unpacks the relationship between local culture and agency to enhance our understanding of local variations of agency. The paper studies two former old industrial places in Sweden; one place characterized by an entrepreneurial culture (Borås), the other with a company town culture (Kiruna). Both cases experienced structural crisis around 1970s. A study period of more than 30 years is used to analyse actions and actors present in different phases of development, using 38 semi-structured interviews. The concepts of change agency and reproductive agency are used to analyse agentic patterns. Cultural transformation is mapped using values, heroes, symbols and rituals. The paper finds that the entrepreneurial culture is an enabling condition for change agency, whereas the company town culture is hampering change agency. The paper also finds that lock-ins can continue to affect actors after a crisis and that opportunities for change agency therefore is actor-specific, i.e. that local agency varies between actors and over time. Reproductive agency is present in both regions to maintain the cultural identity, but the company town culture is more resistant to institutional changes. Yet, both local cultures have changed, and in both cases the changes have opened for more change agency.