'Dugnadsȧnd' for troubled times.
"A collective willingness of people to come together in the context of community projects - emphasising cooperation and selflessness." - Meik Wiking.
The Nordic concept "dugnadsånd", approximately translated as "community spirit" or "volunteer spirit", is key to happiness… according to CEO of happiness Meik Wiking and founder of the Happiness Research Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Wiking contributed to the global popularity of "hygge", the Danish art of embracing coziness and comfort for self-care, became popular across the globe. Now he makes the case for "dugnadsånd" in Stylist magazine. His latest book The Art of Danish Living might be the most valuable, providing simple tools to we all need to reduce stress, increase our sense of purpose and live the Danish way.
"Raising a barn" in the USA in the 18th and 19th centuries (a big project to build such a huge structure) required more hands and muscle than typically one family. Calling on your local community to help was common - helping each other through reciprocation made the whole community stronger, more resilient, and, I would argue, also happier.
Gathering friends or neighbours and turning the labour into a more enjoyable event meant building not only barns but also friendships.
Denmark would call this ‘arbejdsfællesskab’ - a ‘work community’ - and in Finland, ‘talkoot’ is the word for a gathering of friends and neighbours organised to achieve a task, something that may be a common good for the group and that cannot be accomplished by an individual alone.
In Norwegian, there are the words ‘dugnad’, meaning voluntary work done together with other people and ‘dugnadsånd’, meaning the spirit of dugnad, which was voted word of the year in Norway in 2004 and was used to help overcome the pandemic in 2020.
"My friend Ida and her family have worked together in this way with two other families. Each year, each of the three families plans a big project, for instance to build an outdoor pizza oven, a chicken coop or a fence for the land where their sheep graze. Together, they complete the three projects – one in the spring, one in the summer and one in the autumn – on rotation. Each family makes sure the necessary materials and supplies are brought, and everyone brings tools. They work, eat, and laugh together. Sounds like a great weekend to me."
Working together is much more enjoyable; the project is completed much faster, and it’s a great way to learn new skills from others. So don’t be shy – invite people over to help you out with your project. There will be plenty of happiness in it for them, too.
"There aren't many barns that need raising in 2025, but our communities definitely need and rely on collective action," says Emma Beddington in The Guardian.
With bare-bones budgets, threadbare public services and cuts, cuts, cuts, community spirit is already at least partly responsible for ensuring hungry children are fed, and refugees are welcomed, among other things.
"There is a very fair question to be asked about whether, really, individuals and communities should be plugging those gaping holes. To British ears, dugnadsånd could evoke a dread “big society” – the expedient outsourcing of the state’s obligations to a patchwork of charitable and voluntary organisations when what really needs to happen is for very rich people and corporations to pay vastly more tax. But if I’ve grasped dugnadsånd correctly, from what Wiking writes, it is mostly more modest: neighbours helping neighbours, communities clearing rubbish or creating playgrounds. Anyone can be the beneficiary, as well as the giver."
There is hard evidence that volunteering is good for you. A 2023 review of 28 studies on volunteering concluded there was “consistent evidence to support effects on general health and wellbeing and quality of life”; there is even evidence of “reduced mortality”. Social prescribers refer clients for volunteering opportunities, because believing that you have something to contribute, and acting on it, feels good. Reciprocity is baked in, because everyone benefits.
In the New York Times, an exploration of how the horrifying current political climate has supercharged intellectual interest in the idea of solidarity included a description of it that stuck with me: “a distinctive and delicate form of intimacy”. It is intimate, also vulnerable, to accept and express when we need help; to want to offer it but not know how, or to feel inept when we do; to accept we need each other.
