Paper short abstract:

This paper explores histories of outdoor recreation through the Nordic concept of friluftsliv. It unveils patterns of exclusion in shaping recreational commons and implementing materialities of unequal wellbeing while tracing transformation of Sami homelands into Swedish welfare landscapes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores histories of outdoor recreation in Sweden from a decolonial intersectional perspective and challenges the normative approach to the Nordic concept of friluftsliv that celebrates the regime of “allemansrätten”, or public access to land. It provides a more nuanced view on the development of outdoor recreation practices highlighting their inextricable connections to Sweden’s nation-building project and colonial modernity. Investigating processes of genderization, racialization and modernization of northern nature, it traces the transformation of Sami homelands into Swedish welfare landscapes and unveils experiences of historically marginalized groups and patterns of social exclusion and invisibilization of the Other. Through archival sources documenting the establishment of outdoor recreation infrastructures in Northern Sweden 1920-1970, the paper shows how the very materialities of recreational practices shaped a distinctive, male-dominated recreational commons suppressing other agents of space-making.

As these recreational spaces are becoming increasingly overutilized and contested due to climate crisis and conflicts of land-use, the question of their sustainability becomes more pressing, and the tragedy of the open-access regime more apparent. Protecting and sustaining nature as commons, including its role as a space for wellbeing, requires a deeper understanding of historical path dependencies and patterns of alienation from land-planning. The key lies in the acknowledgement of historical injustices and generational traumas of belonging, as well as in the change of governance patterns towards inclusion, reciprocity and equal participation in negotiating the commons.