The tourism business operator as a moral gatekeeper – the relational work of recreational hunting in Sweden

Abstract

The article analyses how hunting tourism businesses in Sweden navigate in the nexus between moral and economic value spheres. Through the analytical lens of 'moral gatekeeper', the business operators are depicted as acting from a position where they navigate in a contested space. The analysis demonstrates how the operators balance different norms and practices of recreational hunting, wildlife management, business ethics and customer expectations. The study is based on ethnographic interviews with business operators, observations of hunting arrangements, and document analysis of hunting media, with a focus on narratives and accounts of value. The findings show a complex moral economy where stewardship hunting and gift economics are both intertwined with and kept separate from market relations, which makes the hunting arrangements, appear as a 'peculiar' form of commodity. The analysis demonstrates how moral arguments concerning wildlife management and human well-being are embedded in market relations and discourses on experiences, entailing seemingly opposite forms of commodification. One is related to calculable values, as in trophy hunting, and one is related to the embodied experience of nature. The study provides nuanced and contextual knowledge of the intertwinement of personal and market relationships in recreational hunting and the commodification of wildlife experiences.

Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Consumer Profile of Hunting Tourism and Trophy Hunting from Tradition to Protected Areas: Study Case on Romania and Spain

“…Hunting is an activity with strong cultural roots that, in the 21st century, became a phenomenon with important social, economic, and spatial repercussions to become a real business [6]. Hunting tourism is a consequence of the changes that the practice of this ancestral activity has experienced over the centuries, as well as the increase in globalization, in which many activities are involved, including tourism.…”

“…• As a product of leisure and recreative [4], namely hunting tourism, due to the increase in experience in practicing this information in recent decades; • as the use and conservation of natural spaces to keep the animal population controlled and ordered the number of specimens to support the natural balance, intersected with wildlife regulation [5], the commodification of wildlife experiences [6], and wildlife management for sustainable hunting [7]; • as an economic activity by setting up an income supplement in hunting areas, a market hunting being created as a new tourism economy [5] especially in rural areas [8], jobcreating activity [1,9], and sometimes with the purpose of reducing poverty [10]; • as cultural heritage [9,[11][12][13] and traditional activity [14].…”

“…Hunting has also been the subject of worldwide criticism in recent years, both moral and economic value of hunting tourism business [6] or regarding the negative impact among the locals [10,21] being researched by academics. Both ethically, as well as biodiversity conservation, or economically [28], it is rightly called into question that hunting is an activity based exclusively on the appetite of a limited group of people who enjoy the mere fact of killing animals.…”

“…Other European countries, such as Ukraine [2], Spain [3,44], Serbia [37,45,46], Croatia [20,42,[47][48][49], Sweden [6,9,50], Norway [4,12,51], Czech Republic [40,41], and Finland [38,52];…”

“…Focus group discussions with stakeholders and local households [19] or local communities [15,55]; • ethnographic interviews with business operators [6,61]; • community perspectives of empowerment from trophy hunting tourism [21]; • semi-structured interviews with community members by applying the empowerment theory to trophy hunting tourism [21], the Community-based natural resource management [56] or key stakeholders [13]; • interviews with a small number of Swedish hunters regarding the human-nonhuman animal relationship [50].…”