"I saw something else than an old hovel" : Mapping approaches to derelict rural house restoration in the Facebook group ”I rescued a derelict house!”

Abstract: The practice of restoring and reinhabiting derelict rural houses is a growing, but relatively unexplored, phenomenon in contemporary Sweden. Frequently highlighted as a movement in public media, the practice is framed as the expression of more sustainable, heritage-sensitive and societally beneficial lifestyles, and has spurred interest from several municipalities. The views held by restorers and enthusiasts, and the extent to which these correspond with the perspectives highlighted in media, have however been largely unknown. The present thesis makes use of the phenomenon’s strong social media presence to bridge this knowledge gap, and examines discursive approaches to derelict house restoration, heritage and sustainable resource consumption brought forward in the Facebook group ”I rescued a derelict house!”. 30 posts and 475 comments from the group have been manually scraped and analysed based on the methodology of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis. The results suggest that approaches among restorers and enthusiasts are multifaceted and internally contested, with dichotomous notions of past versus present, and common versus private, complicating approaches to heritage and marginalising sustainable resource use. While several perspectives were brought forward, the contestation between them seemingly hinders both collective mobilisation, and discursive renegotiation. This calls the narrative curated by media into question, and points to the frictions ensuing when spaces in the borderland between decay and domestication are discussed on the Internet. It is proposed that future municipal, and academic, efforts may benefit from taking these frictions into account.