| Summary: | This thesis concerns Malung and the annual music and dance festival Dansbandsveckan. The aim is to study collective identity and memory processes connected to this event among the local residents, and to find how aspects of Dansbandsveckan relates to the local history in Malung. The study is based on interviews and observations and the central theoretical concepts used are memory, identity and community. These concepts highlight process, the evolving structures in negotiating different aspects of Dansbandsveckan among the locals. The result shows that Dansbandsveckan is indeed a central economical and social component for the local residents, although they do not take part in the main feature of the event – the dance. Instead other arenas are claimed by the locals and used to strengthen aspects of the social memory and collective identity of Malung. The way the event is organized and structured connects it to the local history through values and ideals such as entrepreneurship and volunteerism. The fading of the old collective identity, the leather industry, is an ongoing trauma for the community since the symbolically important tannery burned down in 2014. Dansbandsveckan claims a stronger presence in the social memory every year and is slowly becoming a new cornerstone in Malungs collective identity as the leather will either slide further into the forgotten or become institutionalized in the cultural memory.
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