During the last two decades the shore protection law [strandskyddslagen] in Sweden has undergone changes to make it easier for municipalities to infringe on protected areas. This paper offers a contribution to the understanding of the interplay between common environmental theory perspectives and the environmentality discourse, something that has been missing from the academic field. Earlier research has been dedicated to show how certain types of environmentality tend subjects to internalize certain norms that legitimizes a neoliberal order. This order fosters a development norm that stands in conflict with an ecocentric perspective. Using a modified version of Bacchi and Evelines WPR-method, we found that the discourse among Swedish municipalities, Stockholm being an exception, interpret the part of the shore protection law which purpose is to protect animals and vegetation as a hindrance to development. This highlights the problematic relationship between environmental protection and economic growth. By applying an ideal-type analysis on overview plans and consultation responses of ten Swedish municipalities we were able to identify a shallow, neoliberal perspective on nature which enables a neoliberal environmentality. The interplay between shallow perspectives on nature and neoliberal environmentality creates a hegemonic structure in which critical voices tend to be marginalized, resulting in a post-politization of beach protection discourse.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mdh-58653 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Nyholt, Kristoffer, Eklund Svedlin, Märta Florentina |
| Publisher | Mälardalens universitet, Akademin för ekonomi, samhälle och teknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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