Norwegian community spirit and UK inequality

The Guardian

28-03-2025

Emma Beddington's column on dugnadsånd invites readers to embrace the Norwegian tradition of community spirit because of the 'feelgood' effect one gets from volunteering, and as an antidote to the isolation many people experience as things around us become increasingly fragile (It's time to embrace Dugnadsånd – the Norwegian concept we all need right now, 23 March).
She rightly points out that dugnadsånd is not to be equated with the 'outsourcing of the state's obligations' to charitable and voluntary entities, which is so common in the UK. However, she fails to recognise that in the UK, unlike in Norway, there are huge disparities across communities that will impact people's ability and willingness to do the kinds of activities dugnadsånd involves (as well as the scale of community intervention needed).
Asking people who are already well off, and live in more privileged areas, to 'come together in the context of community projects' is one thing. Asking this of people who are facing the kinds of pressures that many are facing in the UK, is quite another. Dugnadsånd, moreover, is ad hoc and sporadic. There is little litter to pick in Norway's parks, no neighbours forgotten by state agencies in urgent need of help – this allows people to engage in these activities because 'it is a nice thing to do', but not because if they did not, no one else would.
Dugnadsånd is about remembering that some of the work that is involved in sustaining communities (such as litter-picking or mowing large communal lawns) is hard; this helps build appreciation for those who do these activities on a daily basis, fostering the Norwegian ideal whereby 'everyone is equally important'. Notably, dugnadsånd is not about the pursuit of an individually felt 'good feeling'; it is about doing something for the common good, about having a sense of common duty and shared responsibility.Francesca Vaghi and Julia HvitlockBergen, Norway
Emma Beddington invokes the spirit of dugnadsånd, and cites recent examples of community activity. Though there is no exact equivalent of dugnadsånd in English, the idea is embodied in the idea of 'commoning' – a part of the 1217 Charter of the Forest, which Guy Standing, in The Politics of Time (2023), calls more radical in its implications than either the Communist Manifesto of 1848 or the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
The 'forest' in question was common land taken by the crown for use as royal hunting grounds. The charter reasserted the freedom of people to draw on the resources of the common good for the benefit of the community – a word he traces to the Greek koinoneo ('to share'). Any such work of sharing, from food banks to dementia support groups to U3A classes is 'commoning'. David Cameron may have coined the phrase 'big society' but it was a Tory government that repealed the centuries-old charter in 1971. Beddington is quite right that it is high time for us to flex our common collective muscles. Austen LynchGarstang, Lancashire
Emma Beddington says 'over to you, Norway' when discussing dugnadsånd and its definition as a 'collective willingness of people to come together in the context of community projects – emphasising cooperation and selflessness'. We already have that here in practical terms in the shape of the co-operative movement and politically the Co-operative party. Maybe their time has truly come?Andrew KyleEaling, London
It's a funny old thing when you offer to listen to children read at the local primary school, to be told after a month that nothing has been actioned and it will probably be after Easter, even though I have been told there is a definite need now. Then 30 minutes later I read Emma Beddington suggesting dugnadsånd. As hard to do as it is to say. Name and address supplied