ABSTRACT
This chapter contextualizes the cultural economy debate by analysing developments in two small Nordic towns in remote regions. In academic and political discourse, culture and creativity are increasingly viewed as the promoters of economic reinvention of place. This is apparent in analysis of cutural policies in Nordic countries, where an economic approach to cultural policy, which regard arts and culture as increasingly important to employment, has gained ground in regional and local development programmes. The cultural economy emphasis in regional development, has replaced an earlier trend in urban transformation. The integration of cultural economy as an instrument in regional reinvention is taking place in socio-spatial context of gendered power relations. Power relations between groups and struggles over meaning and resources are ignored. Apart from gendered meanings and power relations, we find contests and negotiations concerning cultural developments, as art forms or leisure activities, in both Pajala and Egilsstaoir, between groups with different attachment to the places, for example between generations.
