Reexamining reclamation: A comparative analysis of agricultural transformation in nineteenth century Sweden

Abstract

Wetland reclamation was an intrinsic part of nineteenth-century global agricultural transformations. In Swedish research, reclamation has mainly been situated in larger general processes of population rise, commercialization and societal/technological development. The intersection of reclamation, physical environments and local economies has seldom been studied in detail. This paper conducts a local analysis of nineteenth-century wetland reclamation in two parishes in Sweden, Knätte and Mörlunda, through combining a study of specific reclamation processes with an analysis of local agrarian-economic development. The results show that these processes varied depending on specific historical-geographical circumstances. In Knätte, reclamation was not primarily related to population rise, but to increasing commercialization during the period. The case in Mörlunda instead shows how reclamation was first a response to increasing population but later developed into a project of agricultural market adaptation. In both cases, the physical environment led to varying degrees of geographic constraint in the process. In combination, these results point to the importance of detailed case studies in nuancing our understanding of nineteenth-century wetland reclamation both in Sweden and internationally.