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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
- :
- 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, -Paper short abstract:
Preparing oneself for a future crisis is at the core of prepper culture. This calls for material preparations as well as development of skills, but is also predicated on imaginaries of the future – often based on past and current events, serving as ‘portents’ of things to come.
Paper long abstract:
The interest in prepping – i.e., the practice of preparing oneself and one’s household for a future crisis – has grown in Sweden and other western countries in recent years. As a cultural phenomenon, prepping exists at the intersection of sub-cultural community, hobby activity and civil defense – often focusing on the development of skills and material ‘prepps’. In short, prepping can be understood as consumption for the future within an unsustainable society, where preparations in the here-and-now are ways of managing and investing material resources as well as emotions for an uncertain future. Numerous blogs, podcast and social media forums have popped up, dedicated to how individuals can take steps towards becoming more prepared while also setting a stage for shared cultural imaginaries of the future. It is a question of being prepared when – not if – disaster strikes. Because of this, a substantial portion of prepping practices consists of gathering, sharing and interpreting signs of things to come – be they the looming environmental disaster, traced in wildfires and flash floods, or the threat of social repression in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent societal restrictions. Drawing on digital ethnography and interviews with Swedish preppers, this paper will examine how past and contemporary events are used as portents for predicting future needs for preparation within prepper culture, highlighting the aspiration to handle uncertainty as well as the emotionally ambivalent orientations emerging from anticipating catastrophic futures.
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how the water shortage at the island of Öland, from 2016 and onwards, are experienced among actors in the World Heritage of Southern Öland, and how the events caused by water shortage shape these actors’ ways of relating to the landscape and imagining the future and the past.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2000 the Agricultural Landscape of Southern Öland has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in the category of cultural landscapes. It is the agricultural landscape that is the subject of the conservation efforts and it is the landowners – the farmers – on southern Öland that maintain the world heritage. The category of cultural landscapes represents various expressions of successful interactions between humankind and its environment. The interaction that is emphasized in the case of Öland is the adaptation of the way of life to the physical constraints of the island. During the last five years this interaction has proven rather difficult due to water shortage. In 2016 the groundwater levels were historically low and the extremely warm and dry summer of 2018 left some farmers in a poor economic situation and a landscape that is still marked by the lack of water; leaving for instance pasture that cannot be grazed.
Drawing on interviews with farmers and officials at the municipality within the World Heritage site this paper examines how the water shortage and drought at the island of Öland are experienced by these actors, and how events caused by the water shortage affect their ways of relating to the landscape and imagining both the future and the past. It also discusses possibilities and limitations of heritage work during a crisis caused by climate change in the Anthropocene era and of heritage work as means for facing uncertain futures.
Paper short abstract:
An analysis of a local debate on how to deal with the increasing need for sustainable food production with open sea fish farming as an example. How do the opponents argue their way of preparing and preserving for future and present needs using affect?
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines two opposing practices of preparing for the future through analysing a local debate about open sea fish farming in the Gulf of Bothnia, just off the Finnish west coast. Ostrobothnia is a region known for its glacio-isostatic uplift, and the Kvarken archipelago nearby is listed as a World Heritage Site by Unesco. In 2017 a local fisherman founded an open sea fish farming company to produce locally farmed fish in the sea outside Jakobstad. The aim is to meet the increasing demand for domestically produced fish. The establishment of the fish farm has been challenged and defended in several debate articles. The supporters stress the importance of economic growth, as well as the need for increased fish production due to the growing demand for a more sustainable protein, while the ones resisting the establishment worry about the environmental impact and its consequences. I view the debate as a local example of a global debate on how to deal with an increasing need for sustainable food production. The ongoing environmental challenge for the Gulf of Bothnia is the impact from various nutrient emissions. In the local debate the two sides may be regarded as both preparing and preserving for the future, and the present, but in opposing ways. The aim of this paper is to analyse how the two sides in the debate argue their way focusing on affect.