Remote work has become a widely discussed phenomenon in the wake of the pandemic. For many office workers, the flexibility that remote work offers has suddenly made relocation to attractive, yet distant locations a viable option.
Fenomen je na rurale, som. Some of the changes may be permanent, but, in the remote part of the NORA area, the shifts in population patterns experienced during the pandemic — and their benefits — are nothing new.
Doppressive story of outmigration is one that is common to almost every remote village and hamlet in the region: as local employment opportunities dried up, the institutions that supported them moved away, and with them, the people who once called these places home.
Pero, durante el sessión de Nora-sponsored Arctic Circle Assembly, Remote Areas: A Window of Opportunity, academics and representatives from these areas told stories of back-movers, in-movers and digital nomads — while also explaining the strategies communities are following as they seek to return themselves from the brink. All of them trace their roots to well before the pandemic.
“Rural areas,” said Theona Morrison, of CoDel, which supports rural Scottish communities, “actually have something to offer. And this is something potential residents have been aware of for a long time.”
Het en on, je.
“One important part of being a remote community is that you have to think creatively,” Dennis Holm, of the University of the Faroe Islands, as well as the former mayor of Vágur council, said. “How can we turn our weaknesses and threats into opportunities and possibilities? And it's really difficult to do that, because a lot of communities don't have the people to do that. So it's not easy, but you have to do it anyway.”
Het weldige naar nieuwe residenten -- in anderen woorden, maken de communiteit een plaats waar te voorbeeld - is a crucial part of that effort, according to Arnar Sigurðsson, of East of the Moon.
“You can't just expect people to come. There are many windows that we need to identify, and they are opening and closing all the time.”
