Marketing Sense of Place : recruiting people to Resele

Abstract: This Bachelor’s thesis in rural development aims to examine the relationship between place identity and place marketing in a place prized for its efforts to attract new comers. The material has been collected through print and web-based marketing materials, observations in the village and group interviews with active members of the community. Central theoretical concepts throughout the process have been place marketing, sense of place and community as a process of joint ‘sense of place’-making. The results show that marketing is mainly directed outwards to prospective new inhabitants but is also used towards the public sector and inwards to the villagers. The content of the marketing is aimed at attracting people who are like those already actively engaged in the village. Most of the qualities valued by the villagers are the same as those visible in the marketing materials. This leaves aspects, individuals and groups who don’t fulfill these qualities invisible in the marketing and in the building of the joint sense of place. Community activities to reproduce the sense of place are also conducted in other ways than the marketing, both by what social arenas are available in the village as well as the narratives the participants tell about themselves as a village.