Unifying the threads

The history of Norwegian industry, energy, and natural resources is intertwined with institutional learning processes that, in the end, provide the foundation for a democratic, redistributive, and knowledge-based state. The values made through these learning processes, knowledge and trust, are also the foundation of Finnfjord, and so its history is a classic example of industrial modernisation, Norwegian style. One important takeaway from this anthology is that we need to detach our thinking about sustainable innovation in the industry from the narrative of modernisation as the structural adjustment to paid work in industry – a narrative that gives increasing concessions to the petroleum interests. Even though the national strategists (public officials and visionary politicians) in the 20th century Norway may have needed the imaginary of a poor and obsolete country in their efforts to modernise Norway, an increasing number of researchers and historians paint an alternative, more prosperous picture of Norwegian modernisation processes in the 19th and 20th centuries. They break the one-dimensional narrative of modernisation as an irreversible process where the rural subsistence economy is replaced by industrial paid work in central urban areas. ¹