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- Convenors:
-
Elias Mellander
(University of Gothenburg)
Elin Lundquist (Stockholm University)
Jenny Ingridsdotter (Umeå University)
Maria Vallstrom (Södertörn university)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- SUSTAINABILITIES
- Location:
- Room H-204
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 14 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The panel will examine cultural practices that emerge in relation to past, present and future crises - looking at how societal and global threats of unsustainable futures are manifested in peoples' everyday lives and how they are managed through practices of preparation and preservation.
Long Abstract:
The unsustainability of contemporary life calls for the need to prepare - to get ready - for the future. The limits of late modernity are felt as the costs of Western prioritization of economic growth over environmental limits become visible globally. While the consequences of this predominantly have affected populations of the global south, they are increasingly becoming palpable in the Nordic region - manifesting themselves through wildfires, droughts and flash floods. In parallel, the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic has further demonstrated the intermingling of nature and culture, as the meeting of microbe and man-made infrastructure exposed societal vulnerabilities on a global scale. The sustainability of civilization is further put into question through dystopian and apocalyptic narratives in popular culture, where the symbols of modernity are torn down by zombies and artificial intelligence.
The challenges we face in the Anthropocene shed critical light on our discipline; are the humanities more important or more irrelevant than ever? This panel will examine the cultural practices that emerge through managing crises in the past, present and future, looking at how societal threats of unsustainable conditions and futures are manifested in peoples' everyday lives. What are their responses, their views on responsibility and their ways of resisting? We are interested in discussing how the interconnectedness of global processes can be traced locally, looking to the practices of preparation and preservation that emerge in the face of drastic environmental, social and economic change. We invite papers that reflect the many ways readiness might manifest.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 14 June, 2022, -Caroline Reinhammar (Uppsala University)
Paper short abstract:
How does societal transformation into a green economy effect individuals in their everyday lives? This paper applies an ethnological view on local resistance to mining for REEs used in green technology in Sweden, revealing how local activism becomes a struggle over what kind of nature that matters
Paper long abstract:
How does societal transformation into a green economy effect individuals in their everyday lives? In a search for a solution to human impact on global warming and the climate crisis, the interest in rare-earth elements (REEs) and other metals used in green technology has resulted in granting mining companies processing concessions in Sweden. At the same time, industrial scale metal extraction imposes great risks to the local environment. This paper applies an ethnological view on local resistance to mining in two areas in Sweden where mining companies has been granted processing concessions for exploratory drilling.
Through the use of a phenomenological framework this paper analyzes how the diversified concepts of nature and sustainability is constructed through the cultural practices of local inhabitants in their everyday life. Exploring their being-in-the world, it uncovers how the immediate and physical relationship with the soil, lakes and endangered species in the areas influence how mining for REEs is perceived. This paper seeks to contribute to a theoretical discussion regarding the dialectical relationship between the material and the spatial and its effects on proposed solutions to the climate crisis. Through a material consisting of 11 in depth interviews, participant observation and website publications, this paper reveals how local activism in the shadow of societal transformation into a green economy ultimately becomes a struggle over what kind of nature that matters, and how we measure its value.
Imola Püsök (University of Göttingen)
Paper short abstract:
In my paper I will examine how attitudes of mistrust have become a socio-cultural response in preparing for a(n un)sustainable future in a present defined by uncertainty in the permanentisation of a mining dispute.
Paper long abstract:
Roșia Montană is a settlement in a mono-industrial mining region of Romania. After the decline of the mining industry in Romania during the 1990s, a Canadian company proposed a large-scale open-pit mining project, which was met with opposition both by locals and by civil society. The events of the late 1990s, thus, marked the start of a mining dispute, which would lock the community in a state of ongoing liminality. With the inclusion of the settlement among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in July 2021, a new perspective for the future came to dominate the social and economic imagination of the still remaining local population: that of tourism and the somewhat obscure allusions to “sustainable development”. After quarter of a century of dispute during which the community has disintegrated due to relocations, the intensification of interpersonal conflicts and the everyday hardships of an increasingly difficult economic environment, the new decision –and the new direction– was met with the same attitudes of mistrust that have become the local strategy for navigating uncertain futures over the past decades. For many local people, uncertain is synonymous with unsustainable. Alternatives of tourism seem delusional to many, especially in the face of the hard materiality of the existing gold deposit, and in the light of a long history of mining activities and memories of stable mining jobs during the socialist period. Local attitudes of mistrust have, therefore, become a way of preparing for unsustainable futures, i.e. futures in which they see no way of participating.
Josefine Sarkez-Knudsen (Lund University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper engages with local response to global climate change crisis, in the framework of permaculture farming and gardening methods. Through a range of ethnographic snapshots among subsistence farmers and gardeners in Sweden and Denmark, I get to grips with civic response to climate challenges.
Paper long abstract:
This paper engages with local response to global climate change challenges, in the framework of permaculture farming and gardening in Denmark and Sweden. Permaculture is a holistic design system for resilient living and land use, with special focus on regenerative agriculture and social wellbeing. Permaculture was introduced in 1978 by environmentalists Bill Mollison and David Holmgren as a response to the degradation of biodiversity and natural resources caused by the capitalist system, hereunder industrial agriculture. Thus, permaculture seeks to rebuild the relationship between humans and more-than-humans in their natural environment, by designing a system that provides humans with food, energy, shelter etc., in a way that ensures social and environmental wellbeing, rather than economic profit. Hereby, suggesting alternative paths to our common sustainable futures.
Through a range of ethnographic snapshots among civic actors/permaculturists in Denmark and Sweden who engage with permaculture methods, I direct attention to the imaginings and transformative aspects of permaculture in a local, everyday setting. Following the permaculturists in their everyday practices, reflection and sensemaking in and around their land, I get to grips with why and how they in their own everyday life strive towards a more sustainable (and even meaningful) way of living. These ethnographic snapshots work as locally situated examples of how individuals and groups in Denmark and Sweden practice alternative futures in their own everyday life. While most informants start at individual/household level some experience how their engagement grows and expands to include their friends, family and local community.
Maria Vallstrom (Södertörn university) Jenny Ingridsdotter (Umeå University)
Paper short abstract:
Presenting results from a study on collective responses to wildfires we stress the importance of community resilience through local geographical knowledge and proximity, socio-economic networks and cooperation which we argue is a rural hidden resource of preparedness for unsustainable futures.
Paper long abstract:
In the project “Mobilized villages: local community agency during the Swedish wildfires in 2018 and the process of re-orientation towards the future” (FORMAS), we have investigated three communities affected by the large and numerous wildfires in Sweden in 2018, in the regions most impacted (Dalarna, Gävleborg and Jämtlands län). By taking an ethnographic local perspective, we have been able to grasp the local collective response and mobilization from different angles, interviewing local actors involved in this very intense period: for example, farmers, hunters, landowners, care takers of children, pizzamakers, owners of enterprises, entrepreneurs and volunteers. They have described the events of the wildfire as an unfolding period of cohesiveness and collective mobilization based in local communities. In their descriptions of the events the wildfires appear as a liminal situation where the activities they engaged in dissolved social hierarchies and created a strong sense of unity toward a common challenge. One of the results of our study is the importance of local geographical knowledge and proximity, networks of social och economic relations that were activated in the local community and how this mobilization connected to, or failed to communicate with, external actors of different levels in society, from the municipality level to international help. Addressing the theme in this panel, we would like to present results about everyday-practices among people in these communities, showing community resilience or a capability defined as social sustainability, as a hidden resources in rural Sweden, prepared for an unsustainable future, but in need for external support.