Järnmalm, ödehus och framtidstro : En studie om kommunal planering i norrländsk landsbygd

Sammanfattning: Municipal planning concerns supporting broader socio-economic interests that are linked to place-based resources, whilst promoting local development for the inhabitants. By protecting and utilizing the resources, it is assumed that they will benefit the wider society rather than an individual actor or interest – the resources become public socio-economic interests. Place-based resources such as minerals and desolate houses are also tied to land and specific places. They are often found in rural areas that have long struggled with demographic challenges such as negative population growth. Against the background of the tension between supporting public socio-economic interests whilst considering the interest of the local people, this thesis aims to examine how and under what conditions municipal planning takes place in rural areas with place-based resources and at the same time have negative population development. In the thesis, I use a northern Swedish rural municipality as a case to explore how this tension is played out. As a theoretical perspective, I use Deleuze’s and Guattari's (1987) view of desire as productive by producing assemblages of interest within which municipal planning is formed and transformed (cf. Beauregard 2020). The results of the study show that municipal planning in rural areas with place-based resources and negative population growth is shaped by socio-economic interests which are renegotiated into local interests. Through this renegotiation process the planning is formed through the desire to create population growth through the extraction of the place-based resources.  The thesis concludes that municipal planning in rural areas with place-based resources and negative population development is shaped through both the desire in place-based resources and the lack of desire. This demonstrates the need of further research in how these municipalities can handle the great uncertainties that the growing and fleeting desire in place-based resources create.