The politics of invasive alien species in Sweden: Affective alliances and heritage work

How to manage invasive alien species, IAS (non-native organisms with impacts on biodiversity, human and animal health and/or the economy), conceptualised by us as the politics of IAS, propels regulations and actions worldwide.

This three-year ethnographic study investigates how national authorities, regional groups and individuals identify, interpret and deal with the phenomenon of IAS in a Swedish context.IAS activates environmental work, causing emotional reactions and affective alliances reinforced by ideas of historic landscapes and heritage.

With the purpose to deepen understandings of how environmental challenges are culturally imbued, this study applies a critical heritage perspective when exploring affective alliances in environmental engagement.

It will show how ecological threats and related management pratices, are contextual and part of meaning-making processes in society.We ask: What species are emphasised as invasive and alien, and what motives and threats are articulated? What is recognised as legitimate knowledge and practice in IAS management, and how is this acted out?

How is the politics IAS related to time and place and past natural and cultural landscapes and of the future?

What alliances and conflicts are constituted?The project offers insight into ideas about human responsibility towards other species, the separation of nature and culture, and the understanding of the relationship between the past, present and future in environmental work.