Old Paukku Re-Built and Re-Spoken - Discursive Formation of Cultural Heritage

The concept of culture is defined in several ways in different contexts. In the case study of Old Paukku (1993-2003) the actors were using the word “culture” in their argumentation in several ways. The discourses were varying and developing during the planning, decision-making and re-building process. The word “culture” may not be “swear word like in old times” - this was how a local politician told me in the interview - but still it's not a blessing either. Anyway “the cultural heritage (of the built environment)” seems to arouse same suspicions nowadays as “the culture” earlier. The local authorities (i.e. the town municipalities as actor in the culoture life) and the industry (i.e. the organisation of local entrepreneurs as actor) seemed at first to be heading towards different courses in the planning and developing project of the old factory area. In the beginning of the research period many different discourses of cultural policy (DCP) and town planning strategies (TPS) prevailed. There were a lot of talk about the image in the economics and cultural heritage sites on the national level. In this paper I shall clarify how the process and the discourses during the process were changing and how Old Paukku (the old factory) was developed into “a cultural heritage site” in these discourses. The word discourse' is explicated here in the Foucaldian meaning and it is condequently including the ‘power’.