Author(s):
Marcus Ednarsson* - Umeå University
Svante Karlsson - Umeå university
Linda Lundmark - Umeå University
Abstract:
This paper investigates the tourism employment as a livelihood strategy among foreign born people in rural Sweden. The focus of the study concerns the intersection between migration to rural areas on the one hand and foreign-born on the other. The paper is theoretically inspired by the vibrant debate on production and post-production. In the paper, a longitudinal individual database with official Swedish register data is used to identify foreign-born people who are employed within tourism in the Swedish countryside. The paper seeks to answer the question, who are those who chose tourism employment as a livelihood strategy? Is it the case that foreign-born people are more likely, to see rural possibilities and therefore become employed in tourism than Swedish born people are? In the light of an on-going change in most Swedish rural areas expressed as depopulation, ageing and rural restructuring, the potential for these tourism employed rural migrants to counteract such trends is discussed. The paper concludes with the fact that foreign born people are overrepresented in some places and regions when it comes to employed in tourism, and can therefore be seen as a driver for post-production.
