Interpreting taskscapes: the rituals of guided Nature-Based (Dis)Integration in Sweden

Abstract

Guided interactions with nature form part of integration programmes aimed at immigrant groups in Nordic societies. Based on data collected on several Swedish Nature-Based Integration (NBI) projects this article examines the rituals nature guides employ on guided walks. It explores how guides enact taskscapes through structured and improvised ritual activity. These taskscapes integrate a moral universe encapsulating nature and society; provide meeting sites for groups of diverse backgrounds; and are a potential base for a wider environmental social movement. I describe moments of apparent integration and conflict over past, present and future usage of nature. Nature guides are prominent in managing tensions and contradictions around integration, a concept containing inherently coercive elements. Guides thus should be aware that their activities may contribute to societal conflicts as well as conciliation. This is of particular relevance with NBI increasingly framed as a potential solution to the 'problems' of immigration.

Go to the forest! Exploring the orderings of Swedish Nature-Based Integration

“…Conflict over landscape use or other aspects of the NBI ordering represent a potential flashpoint (cf. Singleton, 2020 for further examples). • The narrative of NBI draws upon extant orderings of Swedish nationalism and nature.…”

“…The information that was conveyed during NBI guided walks varied, often a certain amount of botanical information was provided along with some local history. For a fuller description of the observed activities, see Singleton, 2020). Guided walks were often organised around one or two of the 'universal access laws' (allemansr€ att, Naturv ˚ardsverket, n.d.).…”

“…In the organisation of NBI activities themselves, participants were also ordered into two roles -guides and participants (cf. Singleton, 2020). Newcomers and Swedes were both largely homogenised but essentialised with different characteristics.…”

“…(Interview 5) A Swedish norm was thus ordered around particular interactions with nature. However, at times this could seem patronising, for example, I witnessed one group of newcomer medical workers actively contesting the assumptions that they had never seen snow and their lives were restricted by a fear of Swedish nature (Singleton, 2020).…”