"Life After the Fall of the Giants": Narrative Identities of the Residents of an Industrial Town

Abstract

The article discusses life histories of industrial town residents – former employees of company town enterprises – a decade after the crisis of the 1990s. It examines the different confi gurations in which the experience of work at crisis-stricken enterprises has been integrated into people’s life histories, as well as the part that experience plays in their perception of the town, its structure, and the opportunities that it offers. Drawing on an empirical field study and employing the concept of “narrative identity”, the author demonstrates the various ways in which individuals, who were exposed to similar life conditions during the crisis period, come to get over that crisis and make sense of their experience, which becomes an important constituent part of their identity from the present day perspective.