A bankrupt Spanish baker and the eco-farm in Norway. A micro level study of cooperation and conflict across life opportunities, in perspective of global crisis

Abstract

People`s different life- opportunities can come close upon us as the interconnection of world processes continues with a high speed. Crisis in environment, economy and mass-movements of people are of our time, and from different positions and corners people “on the ground” are responding to these processes. How people respond contributes to further shaping of the world´s outlook. With this perspective, I do a micro level case study where I follow the process of why and how a Norwegian and a Spanish couple in contrasting life situations happens to meet up and live together on an eco- farm in Norway. The Norwegian couple responds to environmental crisis by moving from the city to the countryside for a self- sufficient farm life. They want to live out their values of an eco-friendly lifestyle. Meanwhile, the Spanish couple feel forced to leave the financial crisis in Spain by migrating to Norway. Despite intensions of a synergetic collaboration, the development of their relation comes to be an example of how asymmetric reciprocity can produce unintended power relations which they were, paradoxically, aiming to work against.