Translocal engagement in rural areas: The mobile elite's new playground?

This article explores the growing trend of translocality, characterized by increased mobility and multiple place identities. This development is blurring the dichotomy between residents and visitors in rural Denmark. The article focuses on part-time residents who actively engage in local development projects, for example as investors in local businesses, project managers for cultural heritage and cultural institution projects, event organizers, or shareholders in local sustainability projects. We observe an ambiguous impact on the sociology of these places, just as the place qualities that initially motivate and attract temporary actors are themselves being transformed. Theoretically, the study is based on an understanding of place-development processes as multiscalar, multidimensional, and deeply conditioned by the differentiated capacity for mobility and place engagement among various social actors. Empirically, the article is based on qualitative research conducted in 2018 on four attractive Nordic islands. The study's results indicate that part-time residents participate in a series of translocal engagement communities alongside local forces, and that they are motivated by perceived place qualities linked to the notion of the rural, as well as by the communities they join – with other resourceful part-time actors potentially serving as the main attraction. These translocal communities represent significant potential for place development, but they also carry a risk of social exclusion, as resourceful place-makers—comprising both full-time and part-time residents—may inadvertently support economic gentrification processes and promote social displacement.

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Article in Danish