forest projects 22-23

Defining a Forest: a critical overview of forest debates in contemporary Sweden

In 2022 I conducted a literature review of Swedish forestry funded by a grant from The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry (Kungl. Skogs-och lantbruksakademien). The report focussed primarily on research within the social science and humanities, specifically on arguments concerning the forest’s role in climate futures and the different kinds of forests in Sweden, including spruce plantations.

This report formed the basis for my contribution to the Nordiska museet exhibition Nordbor.

I aim to publish this report as an article in 2025, but get in touch if you are interested in the report in its current form.

The forest in the archive / the forest as the archive

This was a pilot project undertaken in collaboration with Lotten Gustafsson Reinius at Nordiska museet while I was there as Guest Researcher. We explored the forest’s presence in the Nordiska museets archive as well as how the forest acts as a more-than-human archive itself. I examined the forests owned by the museum at Julita in Sörmland and the increasing threats of the Spruce Bark Beetle, and what this can tell us about how we relate to forests in the present.

We presented this research at the Environmental History seminar at Stockholm University, the Higher Seminar at the Ethnology department of Stockholm University, and at the conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society in Rovaniemi.

This project was also key to our current project Life with Forest Loss; Renewed Relations and Ritual Re-enchantments.