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