Det materielle og det menneskelige – Natur, produkt og menneskers rolle i eksport fra treforedlingsindustrien i Norge til Kina fra ca. 1890 – 1937.
Master thesis
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2718935Utgivelsesdato
2020-12-12Metadata
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- Master theses [255]
Sammendrag
This thesis’ aim is to analyse how different actors can be interpreted to have been involved in the export of products from the wood processing industry in Norway to China from approximately 1890 – 1937. The main research question for this thesis: What can a historical analysis of nature, products and people tell us about the export from the wood processing industry in Norway to China from about 1890 – 1937? This question is analysed utilising an analytical framework, which combine perspectives from transnational history, Actor-Network Theory and New Materialism. The analytical framework seeks to take these abstract perspectives and combine them into a concrete framework of interpretation. Due to this unconventional approach, a second thesis question is also under scrutiny: What insights could such an expansion of the framework of interpretation give historical research? The analysis structure incorporates three chapters, each focusing on a different grouping of actors, and each seeking to interpret the actors in relation to the thesis questions. The first analysis chapter explores the non-human actors grouped under nature: water and trees. This chapter seeks to answer how the material capacity of these elements can be interpreted to have had agency in a dynamic interplay with the human actors who interacted with them. The second analysis chapter examines the human actors who can be understood to have acted as regime makers. This chapter aspires to analyse the actors: states, cartels, consulates and Chinese actors. The goal of this chapter is to contribute to a comprehension how actors, through a transnational perspective, operated in between and through the political entities such as states and nation states. The final analysis chapter focuses on non-human actors grouped under products: paper and newspapers. The goal of this chapter is, as with the chapter analysing nature, to investigate the material capacity and agency of these non-human actors. The findings suggest that through an analysis of nature, products and people, through an analytic framework combining the transnational and New Materialistic perspectives, the understanding of the actors involved with the export from the wood processing industry Norway to China from about 1890 – 1937 can be historized. It also suggests that an expanded framework of interpretation can challenge and give new insight to what can be viewed as an actor.