Historical boundary struggles in the construction of the non-human world: Nature conservation and tourism in Swedish national parks

Abstract

Tourism and conservation policies in Sweden share a significant common history, involving constructions of the non-human world. In this paper, the development of this historical relationship is traced through national park policies and the Swedish Tourist Association's yearbooks, from the late nineteenth century onward. We explore this in theoretical terms of what Nancy Fraser has called ‘boundary struggles’: constantly mutating institutionalized divisions between capitalist production and nature, public governance, and social reproductive activities. Through our analysis, we identify five discursive formations — significant changes in the discursive constructions of the non-human world entailing reconfigurations of boundary struggles. Shifts between notions of sublime and wild nature external to capitalism, as stakes in welfare state accessibility debate, and as tools in the current moment of intensified commodification of the non-human world, confirm the persistence of boundary struggles in capitalist society.