Welcome to your Finest Nature: : Touristic Discourse on Nature in information Materials about Swedish National Parks

• In this article, we problematize the concept of nature by focusing on how subjects related to nature are constituted through the touristic discourse in the context of national park tourism in Sweden. We are interested in how nature is produced and reproduced, but also what implications those representations can carry with them. Thereby, we seek to distinguish and make visible how nature in Swedish national parks is portrayed, represented, and assigned values in a touristic context. The material consists of pictures and texts from websites and books with a touristic orientation towards national parks. One part is produced by three tourism actors who market or sell travels to the Swedish national parks, while the other part is produced by actors who state themselves as experts in conservation questions. These actors produce and communicate information about the national parks and the nature within them, but they are also carriers of discourses, which makes them potential influencers on the touristic discourse on nature in Swedish national parks. By visual discourse analysis, aspects of power, subjectification, objectification, normalization, naturalization, marginalization as well as internalization and externalization, are put into focus. The analysis was done stepwise to discern analytical themes, guided by the material. The result shows that the touristic discourse on nature contains utopian imaginaries and portrayals of nature in national parks, where nature is understood to be ideal and of a sublime character, where humans are temporary guests. Simultaneously, nature is portrayed as a pedagogical exhibition for tourists to learn from. 

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Kulturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Cultural Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Utopianism

Environmental Ethics

Visual Discourse Analysis

Non-human

Subjectification

Nature-Based Tourism

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