<p>Abstract</p><p>The purpose of this paper is to examine how the population living in Christiania considers their residential area in relation to the surrounding society, and why you as an individual choose to live there. We have used the qualitative method and we have performed interviews with a total of six persons. We have used Tönnies two notions regarding gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, and Goffmans theory about stigma. We choose these theories because we thought that they were most relevant for our study. Our question at issue is: Why does a person seek to live in an alternative society, with different norms in comparison to the majority society? Through our interview persons we learned their stories and their opinions considering their residential area and we concluded that Christiania differs from the remaining society in several ways. There are six themes which according to our interview persons differs Christiania from the surrounding society and these themes are: their democracy, the houses, the environment, the cannabis, the stigma and the states intentions considering Christiania. Our conclusions are that in Christiania they apply a different form of democracy called the consensus democracy, which means that in order to take a decision everybody in the group has to be agreeing to the decision. Something that is very special for Christiania. The environment is something that the people living in Christiania take responsibility for in several ways, for example the area is free of cars, which differs them from the society. The houses in Christiania are special because many of them are built of recycled material. In addition to this it is quite cheap to live in Christiania from an economic point of view since the rent is about 1800-1900 Danish crowns. Cannabis is socially accepted and it is allowed to sell and buy cannabis within the area, but no other harder drugs are accepted. Further we concluded that some of the residents living in Christiania feel a bit unaccepted because of the fact that they live in Christiania. This because of some outsiders has preconceived ideas about Christiania and the people living there, somewhat because of how the media describe the area. With the states intentions means that police officers patrol within the area, because in the year of 2004 the Danish government has created a plan to “normalize” Christiania.</p>

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine how the population living in Christiania considers their residential area in relation to the surrounding society, and why you as an individual choose to live there. We have used the qualitative method and we have performed interviews with a total of six persons. We have used Tönnies two notions regarding gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, and Goffmans theory about stigma. We choose these theories because we thought that they were most relevant for our study. Our question at issue is: Why does a person seek to live in an alternative society, with different norms in comparison to the majority society? Through our interview persons we learned their stories and their opinions considering their residential area and we concluded that Christiania differs from the remaining society in several ways. There are six themes which according to our interview persons differs Christiania from the surrounding society and these themes are: their democracy, the houses, the environment, the cannabis, the stigma and the states intentions considering Christiania. Our conclusions are that in Christiania they apply a different form of democracy called the consensus democracy, which means that in order to take a decision everybody in the group has to be agreeing to the decision. Something that is very special for Christiania. The environment is something that the people living in Christiania take responsibility for in several ways, for example the area is free of cars, which differs them from the society. The houses in Christiania are special because many of them are built of recycled material. In addition to this it is quite cheap to live in Christiania from an economic point of view since the rent is about 1800-1900 Danish crowns. Cannabis is socially accepted and it is allowed to sell and buy cannabis within the area, but no other harder drugs are accepted. Further we concluded that some of the residents living in Christiania feel a bit unaccepted because of the fact that they live in Christiania. This because of some outsiders has preconceived ideas about Christiania and the people living there, somewhat because of how the media describe the area. With the states intentions means that police officers patrol within the area, because in the year of 2004 the Danish government has created a plan to “normalize” Christiania.