En övergiven torpmiljö. Materiella och immateriella lämningar från torpen kring Brunnslid i Kinneveds socken, Västergötland.

Abstract

This essay presents an investigation of the ruins of an assembly of crofts in a rural area in the south of Sweden, outside the town Falköping. Using literary sources and intangible sources, and then combine them with the information found by investigation of the physical remains of the crofts, the essay attempts to capture the life and the living conditions of the crofters. The investigation is focusing on the period between the nighteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, and looks into the the living conditions according to, for example, the buildings, the orientation in the landscape, demografical changes, the transformation of the area over years and how the crofters were affected by powerty. The investigation shows that the crofters in many ways were in vulnerable and exposed positions, powerty summarized as a lack of freedom – concerning economical, political and social dimensions. But it also shows that the exposed position varied over time, in the area´s transformation. At the end of the settlement´s era, some of the people in the crofts gained empowerment, and left poverty behind. The ruins of the crofts are worth saving for the future. They are important remindings of a period in Swedish history that is not often told – the history of the people in exposed, vulnerable position.