NordPlus course Case-study report Estonian-Swedish second home owners in Noarootsi, three villages; Spithamn, Dirhamn and Rooslep Eivor Bø Grete Kindel Lina Orre Timo Rohula 2014, Pærnu Table of contents 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Theory ................................................................................................................................................. 4 2.1 Sense of place ................................................................................................................................ 4 2.2 Regional identity ........................................................................................................................... 5 2.3 Second home phenomenon and choices of second home locations .............................................. 5 2.4 Positive and negative impacts which is caused by second home phenomena ............................... 7 3. Methodology ....................................................................................................................................... 8 3.1 Data and method ............................................................................................................................ 9 3.1.1 Semi-structured interviews ..................................................................................................... 9 3.1.2 Interview guide ....................................................................................................................... 9 3.1.3 Unit of analysis ..................................................................................................................... 10 3.1.4 Snowballing .......................................................................................................................... 10 3.2 Analysis and interpretation .......................................................................................................... 10 3.2.1 Categorization ...................................................................................................................... 11 3.3 Generalizability ........................................................................................................................... 11 4. Results and analysis ........................................................................................................................... 12 4.1 Changes in the foreign real estate sales and purchases ............................................................... 12 4.1 Local attachment and attractiveness ............................................................................................ 14 4.2 Local involvement ....................................................................................................................... 17 4.2.1 Estonian-Swedish impacts on the local community ............................................................. 18 5. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 19 2 1. Introduction During the Second World War there were a lot of people/nations mobilized and its influence can be recognized even today. One good example are the Estonian-Swedish communities in Estonia. Before II World War Estonian-Swedish were Swedish-speaking linguistic minority who were residing in the coastal areas and islands of what now is western and northern Estonia. Almost all of the Estonian´s Swedish-speaking minority (about 5000 inhabitants) fled to Sweden during World War II and only the descendants of a few individuals who opted to stay are permanently resident in Estonia today. After Estonian-Swedes left the area Russian-Estonians and Ingrians moved into Estonian- Swedes houses. After World War II Estonian coastal areas were closed and guarded by border guards for example Noarootsi. In the 1970´s first second home owners came to these areas. Mostly they were elite and moved in or renovated Estonian-Swedish houses. In 1991 Estonia regained its independence and municipalities started with land reform. It mean, that Estonian-Swedish got back their parents land. Middle of the 90´s Estonians started establish their second homes and mostly on coastal areas. Due to fact that Noarootsi is situated on the coast and there is very beautiful nature makes this area very popular among second home owners. One big part of second home owners are Estonian-Swedish who built their second homes on the inherited land what they reimbursed during the land reform in 90´s. These Estonian-Swedish who didn´t want to get back their land sold it to Estonians living in the city. At the moment Noarootsi is unique because some of the villages have the highest population of Estonian-Swedish second home owners. In some villages Estonian-Swedish, Estonian second home owners and permanent people are living together in the summer. Usually during the summer does village´s population will grow three times. One important fact is also that Noarootsi municipality would like to have their own specific identity which should be connected with Estonian-Swedish and their culture to be different from other Estonian municipalities. Due to this, our research questions are: 1) How has the Estonian-Swedish population changed in the last ten years? 2) How does the “sense of place” affect the Estonian-Swedish attachment to Noarootsi? 3) What impacts do Estonian-Swedish second home-owners have on the local community? 3 In this research we will use the theory of sense of place and theory of second home owners location choice. Research methods used in this paper are semi structured interviews and quantitative data from Estonian Real Estate Registry. 2. Theory 2.1 Sense of place Kevin Lynch (1960) is defining place identity as something, which is creating individuality or apathy of the other places and it can be recognized by special identity that belongs to this place. It means that place identity determines its uniqueness and it means cognitive connection with the place (Jorgensen & Steadman, 2001). Dixon and Durrheim (2009) stated that, who you are is connected with where you are and where belong. It is the sum of beliefs, feelings and ways of behaving, which come forward in this environment of being connected physically and spiritually (Winterton & Warburton, 2012). Similarly to the other authors, Relph (1976) is thinking identity will show that a person belongs in the community and this person is part of the community’s identity. Winterton and Warburton (2012) are saying that identity of place is influenced by three main factors: feeling of the community, dependence of place and attachment with place. They argue that the feeling of community is a common sense of place, a wish to decide, to take part of the community resources and to be involved with the community. Strong attachment with place is subjective to each person. Attachment with place is emotional connection, and it is caused by context and the uniqueness of place. Relph (1976) questions in his book „Place and placelessness“ whether identity of place can be lost in time. At the same time he also finds the answer for that question that every place has its own unique inside power, which won’t let the identity disappear. Winterton and Warburton (2012) assume that as age grows, the sense of place grows with it. Place creates wellbeing, holds memories fresh and offers stability, meaning, control and safety during the time, and this predisposes changes and positive images and identity. Relph (1976) think´s that place is creating a frame where identity is created and changed. Through that the sense of place will grow with the identity which links with physical environment. Second term, what Relph (1976) is using, is spirit of place. He is thinking that the spirit of place embraces topography, images, economic functions and social relationships with the specific place. Due to „genius loci“ people are distinguishing regions physically and visually 4 and it is something indescribable, it can be like emotions or feelings (Crang, 1998). Space in „genius loci“ starts in the human consciousness, which affect human feeling and behaviour related to place. She/he cannot really control it, like for example the feeling of love. Spirit of place helps us to recognize the past. Due to the fact that elements of spirit and of place are changing in time means that changes of identity are possible (Relph, 1976). Raagmaa (2000) similarly to Tuan (1996) associates „genius loci“ with the place of love, such as topophilia, which is linked with identity of place. People often say, that „I love my home“, „I love this city“ or „I don´t tolerate people in this village“. These phrases are reflecting quite big amount of emotions and are irrational. If people have been living in one place for a long time, then their pragmatic side should be: it would be harder to live somewhere else, adopt new values there, create new networks and achieve same position (Raagmaa, 2000). 2.2 Regional identity Regional identity (RI) is a phenomenon where people identify themselves by a specific social system (Raagmaa, 2000) – for example people, culture, traditions, landscape etc. in relation to a place or a region. Druckers (1993) opinion is that people can’t be citizens of one big world village. Irrespectively they are grouped together according to differences in identity, social relations or territoriality. Regional identity can be expressed