Citation

Lundgren AS, Nilsson B. Emotion Space Society 2018; 26: 16-22.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.emospa.2017.12.001

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In early 2012, it became known that the local public emergency ward in Dorotea, a small town of ca 1.500 residents located in the rural county of Västerbotten in the Swedish North, was to be closed down. If the decision were carried through, the residents of Dorotea and the surrounding villages would have a distance of about 50 kilometres to the nearest emergency ward, depending on where in the municipality they lived. For many, this meant that enough was enough. For decades, rural areas in the Swedish North have been struggling with out-migration, service cutbacks, and welfare retractions, e.g. closures of local businesses, schools, grocery shops, postal services, and health care centres. In protest of the decision, and on the day of its implementation, some of the residents of Dorotea responded by occupying the health care centre where the emergency ward was located. The occupation, which was declared to be unlawful in December 2014, lasted for over three years until the county council finally promised that the emergency ward should remain. The occupation came to be known under the name "The Dorotea uprising" (Doroteaupproret)...

Language: en