The theme of this book is life and work along the coast of Norway and other coasts. Our focus shifts from the furthest frontier posts on the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean to the fjords of Finnmark and Nordland, then on to fishing villages and communities in Normandy and Newfoundland. We move from studies of women’s identity management, to women’s and men’s striving for the “good life” in a situation where work and community life are forever encountering new challenges. Through empirical descriptions and perspectives rooted for the most part in gender and women’s studies, the authors show just how diverse ways of life, identities and cultural processes past and present can be. These writers are also searching for interpretations, models and concepts that will give us a better grasp of life on the coast through the ages. We not only shift dramatically from coast to coast, but also between different views of women’s and men’s lives, and different research topics: from the local to the global, between tradition and modernity, between nature and culture, between academic models and interpretations based on experience, between interdisciplinary women’s studies and specialized disciplines.