Feeling at Home from A Distance? How Geographical Distance and Non-Residency Shape Sense of Place among Private Forest Owners

Abstract

Out-migration from rural areas and generational shifts create conditions whereby increasing numbers of private forest owners live at a distance from their forestland. Geographical distance and non-residency have been raised as issues that may possibly weaken these owners' relationships with their properties. Drawing on the "sense of place" concept as a frame of analysis for 51 qualitative interviews with resident and nonresident private forest owners from two areas in Sweden, this study provides in-depth understanding of how geographical distance and place of residency shape owners' feelings about their forest properties. The study shows that sense of place is constructed in complex and multifaceted ways over time and that social and historical contexts and processes beyond the forest environment can make owners feel closeness to their distant properties. Thus, geographical distance or residency alone does not explain variations in these forest owners' feelings of distance or closeness to their properties. ARTICLE HISTORY

Forest social values: the case of Dalasjö, Sweden

“…By itself, then, the fact that the limited data expressed such great variation can thereby be seen underscoring the greate potential variation in social values placed on forest (as highlighted further in studies of place, e.g. Bergstén and Keskitalo 2019).…”

“…Thus, the study demonstrates that forest social values are not only about forest per se, or even the physical and user values per se (cf. Anderson et al 2018;Bergstén and Keskitalo 2019;Rawluk et al 2019). Thereby, the typology by Kellert (c.f.…”

What Can an Understanding of the Changing Small-Scale Forest Owner Contribute to Rural Studies? The Swedish Case

“…A large interview study selecting forest owners living at different distances from their properties, in different types of municipalities including large urbanities, and with different sociodemographic characteristics, illustrated particularly these factors (Bergsten and Keskitalo 2018). The study illustrated that forest owners' sense of the forest property was constructed by the owner not so much in relation to the geographical distance as in relation to their historically and socially grounded emotional bonds with their forest properties.…”

“…These elements are also influenced by various sociodemographic characteristics, technologies and infrastructure for travel and management, as well as mental or psychological distance, for instance not having a clear relation to it. This means that even a forest property that is far away can be mentally close to and central to its owner Bergsten and Keskitalo 2018).…”

“…Examples exist of people living an hour by plane from their property, who nevertheless view the property as central to them, as well as of people who live closer but are less focused on the forest property. The property characteristics that were valued also varied greatly between the different interviewed forest owners, across the full spectrum from social context or family/ inheritance or legacy value to location, amenity values such as view, and use values such as berry/mushroom picking, hunting and fishing, to forestry economic value (Bergsten and Keskitalo 2018). Westin and Holm similarly suggest that there may thus be a "combination effect" of "the importance of a broader set of resource-oriented local amenities for migration and local development" Holm 2018: 18, cf.…”