Skåne, den farliga halvön. Historia, identitet och ideologi 1865-2000

Sammanfattning: Scania, the dangerous peninsula. History, identity and ideology 1865 to 2000 This dissertation deals with the organized written history of Scania 1865 to 2000 and the intersection of history, identity and ideology. Under what circumstances were the history produced and circulated? What was its significance for identity and ideology alike? The theoretical and analytical inspiration is drawn from Paasis discussion of the institutionalisation of regions but above all from classical works on nationalism by Anderson, Hobsbawm and Smith. This underlines the importance of grasping history production as an active choice rooted in a given context and to study it as ideology. Using an analytical ideal type in the Weberian sense the Scanian history production can be characterized as an identity creation drama dealing with origin and success, decline and enmity, and future and renewal. Scanian history have been produced and used by academic associations, solitary intellectuals, xenophobic parties of discontent, regional lobby groups and formal regional political institutions alike. The organisation, content and descriptive form of Scanian history, and its identity and ideology creating role, are interwoven. An ever growing signalled distance from Sweden is intelligible only in the light of populist political dealings with stagnating economy and social tensions. Similarly, the changes in history production, and the shift from the political margins to the centre must be seen in connection to the political and economical opportunities offered by “Europe of the Regions”. Given that a spirit of nationalism haunts the organised Scanian history production it is meaningful to coin the term regionationalism, the demand for regional self-determination within the framework of (and at the expense of) an existing nation state, by invoking a community and attendant political unit based on a combination of identity creation drama and ideological history production.