ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the production and circulation of the concepts ‘Scandinavia’ and ‘Scandinavian Design’ as regional brands. It follows two circulation processes: First, the circulation between the internal and external construction of the brands, and second, how they are recirculated in the different Nordic states. It argues that in their origin they were mainly created in the United States and thus can be seen as externally produced concepts. As such they are concepts filled with meaning that are meant to address target groups in the nations where they are produced rather than the entire Nordic region itself. They were afterward recirculated in the Nordic countries and filled with new symbolic meanings linked to the individual Nordic national narratives and then returned as brands. Contrary to the narratives of Scandinavian Design that claim a common unity and identity, the national narratives were not created in harmony but often in contrast to each other as part of nation-building where one of the aims was to distinguish nations from each other. In Denmark, it is linked to values like small-scale production, anti-industrialization, process, and craft. In Sweden, on the other hand, it is linked to price and industrial and large-scale production.
