Cities anchored to boats and houses overlooking the sea: Norwegian living in the Galapagos Archipelago

Abstract

The first permanent settlement on Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos Archipelago –about a thousand kilometres from thecontinental Ecuador– landed at the beginning of the 20th century. The Norwegian colony Sociedad Anónima Santa Cruz built its habitat anchoring their material and immaterial everyday practices to the island, seeking to maintain the territorial ties with their places of origin. A decade later, the Kastdalen family sailed, carrying their home on their back, to expand their domesticity throughout the island territory. Their house overlooking the sea is an architectural space that enables the construction of spatial narratives that articulate the Norwegian way of living in the archipelago through its inhabitants’ life stories, ideas, objects, and everyday practices. This expanded narrative written from a gender experience restores the memory of women pioneers, re-signifying the material and immaterial legacy of the Norwegian families. These stories move across different scales and territorial layers, interweaving the temporal space with the subjects that build it. By making evident the processes of habitat construction, it is possible to re-locate and re-territorialize the meanings and everyday practices that have been disrupted by migration.