ABSTRACT
As I walk around my apartment in Oslo, I see that very few things in this apartment are produced in Norway or even in the EU. The apartment building was built in 1924, and the first owners most likely had Norwegian or at least Scandinavian furniture, kitchenware, lamps, clothes and the like. And most of the food they ate was produced in Norway. Now, almost a century later, very little in this apartment has been produced in Norway or the neighbouring countries. A lot of the food in the refrigerator is Norwegian, but a substantial part of it has been imported, like Parmesan cheese from Italy and soy sauce from Thailand. Some of the art on the walls is Norwegian. Some of the more expensive furniture was manufactured in Italy, and some of my pricier clothes and shoes have been produced in Italy or the UK. Apart from that, most of what I own has been manufactured in Asia. Even my high-end amplifier of the Norwegian brand Hegel is actually produced in China. My apartment shows few signs of my nationality, apart from the obvious fact that I live in a high-income country, and I could have walked into a quite similar apartment in a dierent country. It is definitely a product of globalization.
