Anxiety

I've got the uneasiness that comes with a big transition. While I cannot wait to be home, I don't really want to leave. OK, yes, I want to leave, but it is about home not about ending my time here...does this make sense? I guess it is a good thing. I love it here. I love my time here. It was not all smooth ice and beautiful snow, but it was a rich learning experience.


I just got off the phone. First with Patrick, a colleague here at GU...he called to wish me the best. I don't work with Patrick, he didn't really need to reach out the way he has, thus his friendliness (and that of his wife, Caroline) was so appreciated.

This photo is from the day I 'helped' Patrick put his boat in the water for the season, we took a ferry out to the islands and then rode the boat back into Göteborg.

..and then I spoke with Alex. I have not had a strong connection to Alex and Jacob during this time in Sweden, it may be me, it may be their age and interests (i.e. they have better things to do than hang out with an old guy), however, I feel a real affection for Maggan's boys. Alex called me the other night and I finally returned the call--felt good to say good bye. He is a fine young man with a warm heart.


Back to packing and cleaning, I have a mess on my hands...

Art

It is nice to know someone is reading my blog! Amelia asked about the 'women hanging off the building photo' from my previous post, here's another pic:

It's called 'sculpture'...it is art designed to grab one's attention! She is climbing on the side of the Culture House in Segel's Square in downtown Stockholm...it made me think of Kaija!

As long as I am here (blogging)...I just went out for a run and ran into a very odd situation. Today is Derby, i.e. two Göteborg soccer teams are playing each other, a bit of a rivalry...well a couple of gangs supporting the opposing teams met for a brawl and I almost ended up in the middle of it. A few of us on the path down Vasagatan (a fairly main street) and noticed a sudden surge of young men running toward us, it was shocking at first, but got even weirder when police emerged from every direction...police on foot, police on horses, police cars racing down the sidewalk...we all moved toward a stationary objects (like trees), and hoped that we would not get hit by either a running 'hoodlum' or a cop in pursuit. Pretty wild! Apparently, some Swedes have taken to fighting in support of their sports teams...yes, incredibly stupid.

Later in my run I noticed people walking to the fotboll match wrapped in the team scarves, with many groups having 'opposing scarves' walking together; thus, some fans do seem to be able to get along!

This is the building all the action emerged from the backside...(granted this photo was taken a few months ago! The tree in the picture is actually a horse chestnut that is in bloom right now!):

Tyresta

Despite my effort to stay present in Sweden, thoughts of leaving creep in, I continue to reflect.

As I attempt to work (and play) right up until departure, I have considered my progress quite a bit…questions like, will I leave Sweden having completed ‘enough?’ While I feel good about my efforts, my summer of writing and analyzing will be the real proof of whether or not I have done ‘enough.’ One of the things I have learned in my whole Fulbright experience is that one must work for everything, no free lunch with this experience. Without initiative there is nothing!

When I think about all the people I have tried to reach out to, all the leads I have tried to track down, all the possibilities I have explored, I get a little exhausted. It has been a year of me trying to make my way. Thus, my reflection: initiative—it takes an incredible amount of initiative to make things happen. One must be humble and ask for help, ask for opportunity, ask to participate…My whole being here is based, in part, on my not being afraid to ask Marie if I could come and work with the Swedish Friuftsliv research team…and when I think about it, it still amazes me that she said yes….It is slightly embarrassing to think of all the dumb questions I have asked a long the way in the effort to figure things out.

I was in Stockholm over the weekend. I organized a Fulbright excursion to Tyresta National Park…

A park within an hour’s commute from Stockholm, one commuter train and one bus. Here is Ryan and Jimmy on the commuter train:

A National Park within real access to a city of over 1 million people—how great is that!? The irony, however, is that national parks are not the true story of access in Sweden. The universal access law of allemansrätt is the real story. One does not need National Parks for access to nature. Swedish National Parks share a common history with American national parks with an original mission as serving a sort of museum-like role, with a basic intent of protecting nature from people. And while I am care deeply about nature preservation, I am actually way more interested in nature access. I believe that our history of separating people from nature is a part of the environmental problems we face today. We don’t see our selves as a part of nature, but rather simply an observer at best, or a threat at worst.

Of course when we watch oil pour out into the Gulf of Mexico, it is hard not to see our role as one of destruction. In order to counter this, we I really believe that we need daily and regular access to nature—perhaps the most important reflection of my studies here is value in regular and accessible nature. I’m glad there are people ready to work hard to save our ‘monumental’ nature, but currently, I am much more interested in saving our common nature, nature that we have a chance to be a part of, daily.

Stockholm had its' usual interesting vibe...

Reflection #1

I spent this past weekend with Maggan, Ulrik, Viktoria and Johan. We celebrated Valborg in the rain, watched the May Day parade, ate fish (the picture is my favorite Göteborg dish--fish gratäng: white fish and mashed potatoes in a sauce of shrimp, crayfish and dill--so good!)...


It's good to have Swedish friends...



I am trying not to have a lame-duck finish to my time here. I have much to do right up until the end of my stay in Sweden. That said, I still can't help but reflect. So, I will post a number of reflections up until my departure. This first reflection is about independence. I have considered myself quite independent and have succeeded in spending much of my time here alone--happy and productive. I have, however, decided that I don't want to be so independent. I wish Kerry was with me here in Sweden...we should have planned it that way.


Next time I take off, it will be with Kerry. I want us to be together. I miss other family and friends too, a lot. And yes, I miss my crazy cat as well.

Anyhow, the rhododendrons are beginning to bloom...spring on the West Coast!

Democracy?

The Rhododendrons are just beginning to bloom, but more importantly they are more vibrantly green everyday.

Much of this blog has probably read like a travel log, Tom's friluftsliv adventures...every now and then I have reflected a bit on issues and even commented on the politics back home--like my cheering the health care efforts. I have deliberately tried to avoid spending too much time complaining about the state of American society...it's easy to see the things that bother me from a distanced perspective; I actually think I have spent much more time thinking about all the American things I care about and miss. But today I cannot contain my disdain for the news from home. I am referring to Arizona. I feel the strongest sense of dread for my country than I have since the start of war in Iraq (the second one).

How often do we hear the phrase, ‘we live in a global society’ and accept it without really thinking about what it means? I have to admit to not clearly understanding the idea of globalization despite its’ ubiquitous presence in our daily lives, much like the term ‘sustainability.’ There is assumption that everyone shares a common understanding. Thus while reading a very interesting book, For Space by Doreen Massey (2005) I was struck by Massey’s consideration of 'globalization.' There is one particular reference that really provoked me, given its timing in conjunction with political events back home. Massey writes:

The dominant institutions and governments which clamour most strongly in favour of globalization argue for it in terms of free trade. And they argue for ‘free trade’ in terms which in turn suggest that there is some self-evident right to global mobility. The very term ‘free’ immediately implies something good , something to be aimed at. It is self-evidently right that space should be unbounded. Yet, come a debate on immigration, and they immediately have recourse to another geographical imagination altogether, another vision of global space which is equally powerful, equally—apparently—incontrovertibile. This second imagination is the imagination of defensible places, of the rights of ‘local people’ to their own ‘local places’, of a world divided by difference and the smack of firm boundaries, a geographical imagination of nationalisms. In one breath such spokespeople assume that ‘free trade’ is akin to some moral virtue; in the next they pour out venom against asylum-seekers (widely assumed to be bogus) and ‘economic migrants’ (‘economics’, it seems is not good enough reason to want to migrate—what was it they were saying about capital?). (p. 86)

The timing I reference is the signing into law the anti-illegal immigration bill in the US state of Arizona. My analysis of this bill signed into law concludes that it is nothing short of institutional racism. While few would argue with a region’s desire to rid itself of drug trafficking and other illegal activity (the reasons usually presented in conjunction with this law), the reality from my viewpoint is that the United States has created a situation where it wants its economy to flourish ‘globally’ i.e. having access to the rest of the world, yet without providing reciprocity in terms of open borders for economic opportunity. My guess is that most people in Arizona (and all over the USA) benefit from cheap labor all over the world just via the clothing that they wear…and the cheap gas prices allow us to use resources at an alarming rate without paying the true ‘global’ environmental costs…Americans benefit, via inexpensive products, at the cost of other people producing for export when they should be producing for local consumption and regional sustainability…It represents policies that argue for the free movement of capital yet against the free movement of labor. Massey writes: “So here we have two apparently self-evident truths, a geography of borderlessness and mobility, and geography of border discipline; two completely antinomic geographical imaginations of global space, which are called upon in turn” (p. 86). It is this very contradiction which is so difficult to understand, especially while living in Sweden and trying to gain a deeper perspective on the EU, i.e. how Sweden fits into a united Europe. One of the accomplishments the EU notes on the official EU website is ‘borderfree travel and borderfree business’ thus, it is from this emphasis on the shared identity of the European nations comprising the EU that I look back to the US. Not a fair comparison on many levels, but what does globalization really look like? Massey writes:

And so in this era of ‘globalisation’ we have sniffer dogs to detect people hiding in the holds of boats, people dying in the attempt to cross frontiers, people precisely trying to ‘seek out the best opportunities’. That double imaginary, in the very fact of its doubleness, of the freedom of space on one hand and the ‘right to one’s own place’ on the other, works in favor of the already powerful. Capital, the rich, the skilled…can move easily about in the world, as investment, or trade, as sought-after labour or as tourists; and at the same time, whether it be in the immigration-controlled countires of the West, or the gated communities of the rich in any major metropolis anywhere, or in the elite enclosures of knowledge production and high technology, they can protect their fortress homes. Meanwhile the poor and the unskilled from the so-called margins of this world are both instructed to open up their borders and welcome the West’s invasion in whatever form it comes, and told to stay where they are. (p. 86-87).

Massey’s rich imagery gives me ideas of what globalization looks like to many…It is obvious from world events that the point Massey is making is that ‘globilization’ exists for the powerful, certainly not for all. I am disgusted by the actions in Arizona. Not wanting to sound overly dramatic, but I fear for our American democracy. There you have my left leaning perspective on this gray May Day in Göteborg...


Global Göteborg

South

I had the opportunity to spend much of the last week exploring the far South. When I dream about Sweden, I usually think North…thus more time in the south is good for me—expands my idea and understanding of Sweden. And most valuable for me gives me a broader feel for the varied Swedish landscape.

First stop was a quick trip to Uppsala (not Southern Sweden) for a Fulbright lecture and tour of that historic city…

A city of Viking mounds, the oldest University in Sweden, the most important cathedral of Sweden, the burial place of Swedish kings and 'heroes'…for example, here is the Carl Linnaeus burial site in the Cathedral in Uppsala (just in case you are wondering, Linnaeus is the father of modern scientific binomial nomenclature…the Latin system for naming living things…)

From Uppsala it was south to the Swedish region of Blekinge. There does not seem to be a direct route and my travel to Blekinge required three train changes. The entire coast of Blekinge is defined by its islands.

The Friluftsliv I Förändring team met on one of the islands, Tjäro...here is where I stayed:

The gathering was the annual Spring meeting of the research team. I am very impressed by the organization and focus of this group, while the individual researchers are all engaged in different questions, the interconnections are strong. This meeting was particularly valuable for me in terms of testing my conceptualization of friluftsliv and seeking ideas for a few of the research questions I am juggling. I am very grateful to the team for their willingness to let me participate.

At the conclusion of the meeting, I caught a train deeper South. I traveled with one of my Friluftsliv collegues (Mattias Boman) to his home in Malmö, deep into the heart of Skåne.

Skåne is one of the Swedish cultural landscapes that take special pride in its distinct heritage. Back during the time period of war between Denmark and Sweden (hundreds of years of bloodshed), this region was at times ruled by a Danish King, and times the Swedish. You see the Danish medieval influence in architecture and you hear the strong dialect. The land is heavily agricultural and very flat…the coast is sand beaches, the forests are few and largely deciduous…here one can find beautiful beech forest!

Vitsippor in bloom everywhere!

The agricultural landscape is dotted with modern wind turbines and medieval churches. And the capital city of this region, Malmö, has a unique sense of contemporary urban design.

The most famous element of this new design is the skyscraper, the ‘Turning Torso’—a highly interesting building towering above the West Harbor and thus serving as a reference from most parts of the very flat city.

I found the Torso to be interesting, but not nearly as engaging as the infill neighborhood that surrounds it.

Like Göteborg, the empty spaces of a past ship building industry are slowly being reclaimed. The neighborhood is a jumble of contemporary styles, almost all interesting.

The landscape architecture and the relationship of the entire neighborhood to the sea is terrific. One can see over the water, Öresund, to Copenhagen. It is interesting to me to think about what nature feels like to someone living on dredged land in a highly engineered environment yet with such access to endless beach, sky and water…

I also wonder about the creative impact on a person of living in such interesting esthetic environment.

Mattias gave me a grand tour of the area around Malmö—from the frilufts (outdoor recreation) area outside of town where we ran 10 km through beautiful beech forest...to a small national park...to the old university town of Lund.

It is interesting to think of the new Sweden, as you travel around you meet people from all over the world who now make Sweden their home. Sweden has become a destination for immigration and Malmö is one of the places you see that diversity.

And another thing you can't help but notice in Lund and Malmö are the bikes! The cost of gas, coupled with environmental awareness and aided by the flat topography, makes for a bike-rich world.

The final bike shot above is actually a floating bike parking area just outside the train station in Malmö! 'Overflow' bike parking?

So after an interesting and active tour through the South, I wearily returned home to Göteborg; one of the most striking images I noted pulling into town were the hills and rocks...a return to topography! The lovely hills of Göteborg...