Final summer of the project

Now that the Midsummer festivities have taken place a week ago, most colleagues are on holidays or working home. It's quiet here at Örebro University Campus, with a few youngsters left, working on their PhD dissertations. As you have guessed, I am one of them, working towards a deadline on 17 September 2013. This is the date that was set, after the final seminar in May. If everything goes according to plan, the manuscipt will be revised by then, which means it can be printed for posting on 15 October. Public defence of the dissertation is currently scheduled at 8 November 2013.

But in the mean time, I am reading and writing, reflecting and revising. Most attention goes to the theoretical frame, which will consist of a critical review of the fields of creative class (Florida, 2002, 2007), counterurbanisation and lifestyle migration. Other revision considers the research design. Based on this, a conclusion and an epilogue with recommendations for further studies will be written.

Recently, Population, Space and Place notified me that an article of mine ("Lifestyle migration to the North") is accepted for publication. So, before the end of the year, this will probably be posted on their website. Also, another article was published at the site of European Urban and Regional Studies, some weeks ago. This article examines rural place promotion to attract new residents to the Swedish countryside. A summary can be found on the blog of the lifestyle migration hub.

Through this hub, my attention was alos drawn to a conference on practices of the good life, to be held in Lissabon later this year. I am happy to participate there! More information can be found here.

For now, revising the Kappa, I hope to enjoy this final summer of the PhD project.

Final Seminar

In about a week's time, the final seminar will take place.
This means that all manuscripts will be commented upon by an external opponent.
These manuscripts are the four papers:
I: the article published in Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie.
II: an article accepted for European Urban and Regional Studies.
III: a manuscript submitted to Population, Space and Place, after a second revision.
IV: a chapter in a book about Place and Identity.

As a synthesis of these four papers, I spent the first months of 2013 writing a Kappa, in which research design, theory and results are specified.

As usual, it was hard to find a longer period of time in which to write non-stop, since other projects evolved simultaneously:
- a course on Social Theory and Geography, with meetings in Uppsala (January), Lund (March) and Gotland (April). A paper for this course is due in June.
- a course on Quantitative Methods, with lectures or laboraties almost every Thursday in Örebro.
- an internet-course on information seeking, through Blackboard and at the University library in Örebro.

Last but not least, I was lucky enough to be accepted to present a paper (in the Bonaventure Hotel) at the annual conference of the Association of American Geographers, this year held in Los Angeles, in April.

Approaching the final year

Now that Christmas is so near (and it's really quiet at work) - I should be heading home soon. There is, however, some time left for a cup of tea and rounding up the autumn term. So, what has happened the past few months?

Well, the second article has undergone minor revisions and is submitted to a journal about a week ago. The third article has been revised and resubmitted halfway into November. The fourth article is sent for review together with the other chapters (by other authors) to be combined into an anthology on "Place and Identity".

We have moved to Forumhuset at Örebro University and two of us who started their PhD studies in september 2007 have finalised their project: November set the scene for Sanna's and Marcus' Dissertation parties. Moreover, Peter has had his final seminar and will be defending his Dissertation in April. Also, the organisation of CUReS is being revised and next year will bring some changes: from an institutionalised research centre, we will become a more loosely organised network.

Next year will probably also bring a trip to Los Angeles, where the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers will be held. Some weeks later, in May, I'm supposed to have my Kappa finished for a final seminar. So, that's what I should start with right after the Christmas break: writing a Kappa (synthesis)!

But first, Merry Christmas and a Mobile New Year!

Lifestyle Migration Hub

Today, a blog post about my research has been published on a newly established Blog on Lifestyle Migration. Go on and have look!

Almost a year...

Almost a year has passed since the latest item was published on this blog. I have been meaning to write, but "time flies", as the spatio-temporal saying goes...

Those 12 months in retrospect:

In November 2011, a manuscript on international rural placemarketing was finalised and submitted. In that month and the next, I was teaching on a course on population, mobility and urbanisation. In January, a conference on Place Branding was organised, in Utrecht, on which I gained many interesting insights in (mainly) city branding, and how it may or may not be translated into rural areas. I also presented a paper on rural place branding, which may be published in an e-book on the organisors website.

Since 1 August 2012, I am back at work after 8 months of paternity leave. Besides much administrative efforts, some reading and writing has been done during the past weeks.

• For a course on Classical Geographical Texts, in which I have been enrolled since 2008, I finally found time and inspiration to write the final paper. I decided to focus on senses of place (Tuan) and affect (Thrift).
• Simultaneously, I have been working on an article about Lifestyle migration to the North, for which I received comments in July. This article was the subject of a short seminar at Aspa Mansion south of Örebro, as part of the annual internal meeting with CUReS in August.
• At that meeting, plans were discussed for the publication of a reader on place and identity, which may be on it's way before the end of the year. Ten texts/chapters are written. Contacts with the publisher will hopefully result in more information and perhaps more concrete planning.
• A schedule is planned for a course on population, mobility and urbanisation, to be taught in November and December 2012.
• Preparations are made for a final Seminar (Slutseminarium) for one of my colleague PhD Candidates, on Thursday 12 September.
• A lot of reading rather theoretical texts needs to be done, in order to prepare for writing a synthesis (Kappa) for my upcoming dissertation.

This gives rise to looking forward. Also in this case, one can speak of almost a year. Either in June, September or October 2013, I will probably defend my dissertation. But first, around March next year, my final Seminar is due. Untill that time, so much work is to be done; finalising two articles and a chapter, writing a Kappa, finding an opponent for the final Seminar, etc.

Also next year, two interesting events are organised, in which some of our Human Geography department may participate; the biannual Nordic Geographer's Meeting (NGM), in June 2013 in Reykjavík (IS) and a conference on Emotional Geographies in Groningen (NL) a month later.

Hopefully, the next item on this blog will not take another year to be published!

Articles, Conferences, Lectures

It's been a month now, since I started working again after the long summer holidyas and paternity leave. At the moment, it feels like I'm there again, in the middle of the PhD jungle! In 6 weeks time, my real period of paternity leave will start, so I am about half way this autumn period, that was supposed to be a very productive time.

First of all, it took about two weeks to start it all up again. I transcribed an interview, which was a lot of work, but valuable. During this work, reflections came up about how to organise the autumn months. It all centres around three manuscripts;

- one about rural Swedish municipalities engaging in rural place marketing efforts, as descirbed earlier by Niedomysl and Heldt Cassell. However, a nordic dimension, an international approach and rural destinations make this study timely. This is supposed to result in an article, number 2 so far.

- one about ambivalence and identity shift after migration. How things that we moved away from in the country of origin can develop into triggers of return migration. This is supposed to become a chapter in an anthology with the working title "Place and Identity".

- one about the decision making process prior to moving from urban Netherlands to rural Sweden. This is the least develoepd one so far, but still it is supposed to result in article number 3.

In order to test some ideas, I will be attending the second edition of the Nordic Urban Workshop in Stockholm next week. This is a valuable platform as it consists mainly of PhD students, some of whom we met during the first edition in Örebro one year ago. A month or two later - yes I'll take a day off from my leave - I hope to attend an international conference on Place Branding in Utrecht. Many presentations are scheduled for this event, and at least two may prove interrelated with the article I'm currently working on (Art.2). One about marketing rural areas in general and another about branding coal mining identities of South Wales. Looking forward to those presentations!

In the mean time, of course, I prepare lectures for the course on Population Geography. After all, that seems to be my field!

Spring & Summer 2011

In the midst of Summer 2011, it's finally time for only the second item of the year. Now that I've been on paternity leave and waiting for the second little one to come since the 4th of July, I've some spare time for an attempt to summarise the past months of 2011:

- lecturing; the course on Population, Urbanisation and Mobility in a slightly altered format, as well as a complete new format for the course on writing a minor academic thesis (B-uppsats). This second course was joined with the former course on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to result in an integrated map-and-report assignment.

- conferences; the final week of the GIS-report course coincided with the 4th biannual Nordic Geographers Meeting (NGM) in Roskilde, Denmark. Thus, this week at the end of May was quite a challenge, where Anders and me found ourselves replying to students' e-mails before breakfast at 7 am in our B&B at the Danish countryside. The other conference was the 6th International Conference on Population Geographies (ICPG) in Umeå with many interesting contributions and a conference diner at the archipelago of Norrbyskär. Next ICPG will be held in Groningen in 2013!

- manuscripts; Mostly during June, I've been writing and editing a number of manuscripts for my Dissertation. The first article, on international counterurbanisation, was in need of minor revisions which were to be done in due time. The second and third articles, on rural place marketing and the decision to migrate from the Netherlands to rural Sweden respectively, are in the course of creation. Last but not least, a chapter on mobility, place and ambivalence is in the making. This manuscript is supposed to be a contribution to an anthology on place and identity, to be published by CUReS. We will have a meeting in Bredsjö in August in order to discuss progression considering the Anthology.

- fieldwork; at the basis for the manuscripts lies fieldwork covering some months and a number of observations and interviews at emigration fairs and with Dutch households in Bergslagen. This fieldwork will be continued after my paternity leave ends in September.

By the way, needless to say that this blog is simply an online diary of a PhD Student in Sweden. For more contents and debates, one may take a look at Bo Malmberg's or Lena Sommestad's weblogs.