Four Groups
People from more than 140 countries or self-governing regions now live in Oppland County; in other words, the immigrant groups are multiple. In this project we worked with four kinds of immigration recognizing that for some of the people the most suitable category is questionable, or that someone simply cannot be fit into a defined box. Thus, there is overlap among the different groups. Immigrants from the same European country also can have differing motives for moving to Norway such as employment, marriage, wishing for a different life style, and so on.
However, we have used the following categories for organizing informants based on their primary reason for immigration:
- Refugees. We have concentrated on those who have been accepted for residency here and have excluded asylum-seekers having undetermined status. We have had a project goal of well representing the many refugee groups in Oppland among the people interviewed. That includes among others, people from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Viet Nam.
- Labor Immigrants. Here we have concentrated first of all on job seekers from Poland. In the years this project was underway, the number of Poles increased tremendously. They now make up the largest group of immigrants both on a national scale and in our county. It became apparent early on that language differences made it difficult for us to come in contact with the group. Therefore a Polish ethnologist living in the Gausdal municipality was hired when this project began. That has shown itself to be very fortunate.
- Life-Style Immigrants. This is a designation we have used for immigrants, particularly from Central Europe, who have moved to Norway to live closer to nature, to find a better and “greener” way of living. Many communities both in Valdres and Gudbransdal (two valley regions in Oppland) have had their own projects to recruit Dutch citizens to move into these rural areas. Therefore it has seemed appropriate to document them as a special group.
- Individual Immigration. This group includes individuals who have come to Oppland with the goal of marriage or education etc. The numbers show many women from Russia, Thailand, and the Philippines among those who have married Norwegians and settled in Oppland.