Contested construction of nature for city fringe outdoor recreation in southern Sweden: The Arrie case

Abstract

IntroductionThis study deals with the process of change from industrial to recreational land use on a 60 ha piece of land. The site called Lake Arrie is situated 12 km southeast of Malmö in southernSweden (see Fig. 1). The lake, covering more than a third of the area, has originated from an abandoned gravel quarry in the midst of an agricultural landscape. It is argued that the case study of Arrie illustrates several general aspects of contemporary changes of land use in the contested city fringe. In this paper, we will put emphasis on conflicting interests, construction of nature and outdoor recreation, and on pluralism as a moral imperative. However, as the research project runs parallel in time with the planning and development process of the site,there is yet no final design of the area to be evaluated. The objective of this paper is to explore how complex social and political planning processes interact with changing and ephemeral views of nature and its physical manifestations in the landscape. Although the area itself is rather small and still in a transitional state, it provides significant examples of more general contemporary trends regarding landscaping in the city fringe. Results and knowledge produced in this research project are of a more general character, and are not primarily aiming at solving management issues in Arrie. Our study approaches the process from a human ecological point of view, looking at three 'levels of reality': the person, the society and the biophysical environment (Steiner, 1993, p. 56). None of those three take precedence over the other, but they are equally important to the multidisciplinary understanding of the process. Departing from this so-called 'human ecological triangle', we set out to identify and discuss the three levels, looking at the renegotiation of nature in the post-industrial society. The three levels can also be interpreted as constructions in three dimensions (Ouis, 2002): the mental, social and material dimensions.This differs from the social constructivist approach that tends to ignore the material reality (for a critique of such an approach, see Hacking (1999)). In this case, nature is constructed in the most physical of meanings: areas of wasteland are to be re-designed into nature for outdoor recreation. The new design, however, is ruled by contested ideals, social tensions and power relations, and those conflicts are in focus of our investigation.In this paper, we present a short background to the area and the current situation in Lake Arrie, setting out to capture the tendencies of the contemporary construction of nature for outdoor recreation. We will then move on to discuss the salutogenic (health promoting) aspects of outdoor recreation, and how these can be understood in the landscape of LakeArrie. We will further discuss the post-modern ideal of diversity as opposed to modernity's ideals of monoculture and universalism. Post-modernity cherishes diversity both in nature and culture. These ideals apply both to the planning process and to result...

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