Interpreting taskscapes: the rituals of guided Nature-Based (Dis)Integration in Sweden

Abstract

Guided interactions with nature form part of integration programmes aimed at immigrant groups in Nordic societies. Based on data collected on several Swedish Nature-Based Integration (NBI) projects this article examines the rituals nature guides employ on guided walks. It explores how guides enact taskscapes through structured and improvised ritual activity. These taskscapes integrate a moral universe encapsulating nature and society; provide meeting sites for groups of diverse backgrounds; and are a potential base for a wider environmental social movement. I describe moments of apparent integration and conflict over past, present and future usage of nature. Nature guides are prominent in managing tensions and contradictions around integration, a concept containing inherently coercive elements. Guides thus should be aware that their activities may contribute to societal conflicts as well as conciliation. This is of particular relevance with NBI increasingly framed as a potential solution to the ‘problems’ of immigration.

Keywords:

• Nature
• migration
• integration
• environmental communication
• taskscapes
• ritual
• Sweden

Introduction

‘Nature-Based Integration’ (NBI, more details below) comprises a wide body of practices that defy precise definition. However, what unifies different NBI projects is the idea that exposure to local nature increases the likelihood of diverse groups successfully integrating into local society. NBI practices have thus increased in prominence in many Nordic societies (Pitkänen et al. 2017; Gentin et al. 2018), related as they are to two contemporary topics: firstly, a concern among certain social groups that citizens of ‘modern’ societies are increasingly cut off from nature (Öhman and Sandell 2016, 30–32; cf. Franklin 1999). This is considered a source of various health, social and environmental problems. Indeed, in general, advocates of ‘better’ attitudes towards nature highlight the importance of particular engagements with the natural world (cf. Mcphie and Clarke 2018). Secondly, a concern that contemporary population movements between countries represent a ‘problem’ to be dealt with, representing ‘crises’ for welfare states and national identities (Schierup, Hansen, and Castles 2006). NBI is thus posited to provide a mechanism for helping people retain and reclaim contact with nature, whilst also providing a place for disparate societal groups to be ‘integrated’. This article looks at several NBI projects in central Sweden. Specifically, it examines the rituals performed by ‘nature guides’ and those they guide in various projects with diverse groups of participants. Such guides organise and choreograph the ‘natural’ experiences that participants receive and by utilising particular identification practices influence any cultural transformations that occur (cf. Milstein 2011). In particular, I focus upon the ritual production of taskscapes – particular orderings of environmental practice-values and entities. This term highlights that rather than landscape existing as a backdrop to human existence, people dwell in and produce cognitive and symbolic orderings of time and space. These taskscapes have material and discursive elements incorporating selective depictions of past, present and future landscape use (Ingold 2000). In this article, I explore particular taskscapes produced through NBI activities, paying particular attention to their normative underpinnings. I then focus on potential sources of contradiction and conflict within NBI and on the role guides play in mediating these conflicts. I thus critically discuss one proposed solution to the ‘problems’ of integration and (insufficient) connection to nature. In exploring these data, I echo claims that nature may be used as a site for social integration, however, it may also form a site of social disintegration as different worldviews clash (cf. Arora-Jonsson 2017). Nature guides need to be alive to the potential risks in their practice and reflexive of their role in favouring particular groups in extant social conflicts.

This article is structured as follows: (1) in the subsequent section important contextual information is provided – I present the Swedish migration context, the growth of nature guiding practices and subsequent development of NBI in Nordic countries. (2) Theory is then discussed, with the concept taskscapes outlined and the article’s guiding ritual-based analytical approach is described. (3) Methodology is then presented, introducing the research’s structure. (4) A ‘typical’ NBI guided walk is then described. (5) I then present excerpts from the data exploring what taskscapes emerge and examples of conflicts around them. With this, I discuss the implications of NBI taskscapes, with particular focus on the role of nature guides and their need to be reflexive about they contribute to contemporary particular political conflicts. (6) The article then concludes with calls to address certain contradictions and weaknesses arguably integral to NBI.

Modernity, migration, nature and Sweden

Whilst Sweden has a multicultural and globalised history, many contemporary Swedish public debates on migration can be traced to the early 1990s, following the arrival of refugees from the Yugoslav wars (Salmonsson and Hedlund 2018, 525–526). This significantly affected the Swedish parliamentary landscape with populist political parties increasingly prominent. In turn, asylum policy has become more restrictive, with ‘cultural diversity’ and immigration remaining prominent political issues in media debates. The growth of populist political parties has been met with counter-demonstrations and protests. Indeed, ‘cultural diversity’ and guaranteeing immigrants’ social rights remain well-supported (Ahmadi, Palm, and Ahmadi 2016). Despite this restrictive turn and instances of violence towards refugee reception centres (Hirvonen 2013), the number of people seeking asylum in Sweden has increased rapidly. 2015 saw Sweden’s highest ever total number of asylum seekers, 163,000 applicants, 70% of whom originated in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq (Salmonsson and Hedlund 2018, 526). At the same time, the influx of people has led to increased interest in the exclusion of migrants from Swedish politics (Dahlstedt and Hertzberg 2007). In sum, numbers and the perceived ‘otherness’ of certain immigrant groups, alongside the actions of politicians seem set to make migration and integration prominent political issues for the foreseeable future.

Alongside migration, environmental issues have become increasingly prominent in contemporary Swedish society. Nature conservation has been practiced in Sweden for over a century, but the past twenty years have seen increased state expenditure (cf. Caselunghe 2018, 86–89). Concomitant to this has been a greater focus on presenting nature as part of environmental protection (e.g. Naturvårdsverket 2011), echoing shifts elsewhere (Arnell et al. 2009, 109–110). According to one review, this change of emphasis ‘endorsed outdoor recreation, the role of humans in nature, visitors in protected areas, information, and nature interpretation as vital parts of nature conservation’ (Caselunghe 2018, 90). As a consequence there has been a burgeoning of nature interpretation – ‘communicative activities in sites of natural heritage’ (Caselunghe 2018, 93) – practices around Sweden and many local governments have funded the development of nature interpretation centres and schools. This includes hiring paid ‘nature guides’ (naturguider) or ‘nature interpreters’ (naturvägledare) who provide nature interpretation services often in the form of guided tours.

This trend towards nature interpretation largely builds on the view that people’s feelings for nature and particular environments are affected by their personal, embodied and emotional experiences of nature (Milton 2002) alongside other experiences and social interactions (Sandell and Öhman 2013). Indeed, contemporary environmental education research argues a lack of nature-connectedness is a ‘problem’ even as it struggles to define what it means (see Mcphie and Clarke 2018). A wide variety of interdisciplinary research argues that transition to sustainable societies requires people to acquire or regain values and beliefs to facilitate pro-environmental choices. Such values and beliefs are intepellated with particular connections people have to nature (see Giusti et al. 2018, for a review). Echoing this, contemporary Swedish nature conservation advocates for the idea that in order for people to care for the environment they need opportunities need to engage with and learn about their local, national and global environments. ‘Nature’ needs to become a ‘place’ that people care for through ‘context-specific experience of the more-than-human world’ (Beery and Wolf-Watz 2014, 203). Such practices are also considered to have a role in social change towards a more sustainable Swedish society (cf. Caselunghe 2018; Barthel et al. 2018) that will also accrue the health benefits of outdoor recreation (Lisberg Jensen and Ouis 2008, 176; Sandell and Sörlin 2008). Likewise, mediated engagement with nature also has deliberative democratic potential (Caselunghe, Bergeå, and von Essen 2019).

As mediators nature guides thus have a prominent role in curating particular interactions with nature (cf. Milstein 2011) and society. However, nature interpretation in Sweden remains under-researched (Caselunghe 2012, 3–4). Indeed, as with other environmental education measures, the delivery and reception of nature interpretation are likely shaped by cultural activity and background (cf. Fletcher 2015, 3). Furthermore, arguments for nature interpretation resemble that of ecotourism rhetoric, which has been criticised as facilitating the expansion of ultimately environmentally destructive capitalist economic systems (cf. Fletcher 2015). Finally, it is worth considering the impacts of different nature experiences on different groups of people (cf. Lloro-Bidart and Russell 2017) as cultural background has been suggested to affect perceptions of nature (cf. Kloek et al. 2017).

Nature-Based Integration in Örebro

NBI links to two perceived contemporary Swedish societal issues: the need to ‘integrate’ diverse groups and the need to present nature as part of orienting society in a healthier and more sustainable direction. NBI activities are diverse, although recently defined as ‘the process in which an immigrant gets familiarized with the local environment, through activities that take place in a natural environment … ’ (Gentin et al. 2018, 17). This is then at times linked to the idea that exposure to nature and particular ways of engaging with nature are integral to Nordic cultures (Pitkänen et al. 2017). More specifically, ‘nature-based outdoor recreation’ (friluftsliv) has been highlighted as an integral part of modern Swedish identities (Sandell and Öhman 2010, 115–116). In Sweden, nature-based outdoor recreation goes hand-in-hand with ‘universal access laws’ (allemansrätt, Naturvårdsverket n.d.), which accord inhabitants considerable rights to roam and collect resources from the countryside. The universal access laws are popular in Swedish society (Sandell 2006), symbolic of societal egalitarianism among some societal groups (Dahl 1998, 300–301). As such, the turn to nature interpretation and subsequently NBI must be understood with an awareness of the symbolic importance of nature-based outdoor recreation in many Swedes’ eyes (cf. Beery 2013). NBI can thus be understood as tools for migrants to integrate into Swedish society through particular shared embodied engagements with Swedish nature. In Sweden, NBI projects include guide training programmes, the provision of active excursions to migrants and educational projects (Sandberg 2016) and schemes to ‘match’ immigrants with employers in the Swedish agri- and horticultural sectors (Johnson et al. 2017). Whilst at present there is a dearth of precise information on the number of NBI projects in Sweden, several reports reflect growing interest in Nordic countries. Similarly, inquiries to the Swedish Centre for Nature Interpretation suggest that a majority of Sweden’s 33 extant Naturum (nature-interpretation centres) currently implement some form of NBI activities (personal communication).

The specific focus of this paper is several NBI projects in Örebro County, central Sweden. Örebro is medium-sized city of approximately 120,000 inhabitants located in south-central Sweden roughly mid-way between Stockholm and Gothenburg, on the shore of Lake Hjälmaren. Örebro has focused on developing it’s outdoor recreation possibilities with 22 nearby areas classified as nature (20) or cultural (2) reserves set aside for people’s recreational and educational use. Development is restricted in these areas with habitats and/or buildings protected as parts of Örebro County’s natural or cultural history. Örebro’s local authority has been recognised as Sweden’s ‘Friluftskommun’ in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2017 because of this focus (Svennebäck 2017). The specific NBI projects studied originate with two environmental organisations Naturskyddsförening Örebro län (NSÖ, ‘Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, Örebro County’) and Hopajola, staff of which were key to NBI taking place. NSÖ represents the local branch of Sweden’s largest environmental organisation. Hopajola is a local alliance between various authorities in Örebro County, which collects money for environmental projects. NBI activities largely began in 2015, with a project to train a small number of immigrants as nature guides. Through a lengthy process, two trained guides (from Syria and Kosovo respectively) were eventually employed by the local authority. These guides estimate that since then they have guided over 2300 people, largely pre-booked groups of schoolchildren. In addition, they also provide services to adults, including foreign visitors, groups of Swedish language learners and a series of ‘Nature Experiences in Several Languages’ (Naturupplevelser på Flera Språk, NFL). These latter activities target members of local society who wish to participate in languages other than Swedish. Subsequent to the guide training project, NSÖ launched two separate NBI projects. The first ‘Chat Between the Pines’ (Språka Mellan Tallarna, SMT) is conceived as a ‘language-café’ in nature, with a single person (from Afghanistan) specifically hired to organise and conduct a series of excursions, around Örebro and nearby towns and natural areas. At present, the project continues through several continuing excursions and planned future activities in Örebro Region. Many of these continued activities are organised by participants on a third NSÖ project ‘Education for Nature Interpretation in Several Languages in Örebro Region’ (Utbildning Naturvägledning på Andra Språk i Örebro län, ENL). This entailed provision of four three-day courses variously in the towns of Nora, Karlskoga, Örebro and Kopparberg, which were attended by 109 participants in total. Data were collected from a range of these different NBI programmes, with details listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Observations collected.

Activity type	No. of activities attended	Attendance
Språka Mellan Tallarna (SMT, Chat Between the Pines)	7	Highly variable attendance (2–17 including guide and researcher). Included one larger-scale snowshoe excursion.
Naturupplevelser på Flera Språk (NFS, Nature Experiences in Several Languages)	3	Included an open day at Örebro Nature School. Attended by 4 (different) people each time including guides and researcher.
Utbildning Naturvägledning på Andra Språk i Örebro län (ENI, Education for Nature Interpretation in Örebro County)	7	Researcher completed the course twice plus one extra session. 109 participants over the seven attended sessions including guides and researcher.
Other	1	Activity organised by Swedish teacher for a group of medical workers learning Swedish in order to work within the medical system. 7 attendees including guides, teacher and researcher.

Theory

The epistemological starting point for this research draws on the broad environmental consensus that nature is to some degree socially constructed (Hannigan 2014). This article analyses various NBI activities using a selection of theoretical lenses to bring the dialogic process of social construction into focus. These operate on slightly different theoretical levels. Firstly, a geography-inspired lens is described to analyse the (social) constructions of observed NBI activities. Secondly, a ritual lens is offered as a way to home in on discrete activities, leading into the study’s methodology.

Pure – scapism. Memory, task and visionscapes

In this article, NBI activities are understood to articulate particular normative standpoints about the landscapes within which they take place and the wider Swedish society and nature that they are nested in. Firstly, within NBI activities certain activities gain particular symbolic weight and either encouraged or tabooed. Thus, for example, littering in nature is a behaviour that is heavily discouraged. Furthermore, the character of any given place will depend on the different kinds of (inter)activities its inhabitants (human and nonhuman) engage – dwelling ‘in’ rather than ‘on’ landscapes (cf. Ingold 2007, S33). The boundaries of a place likewise relate to these activities (Ingold 2000, 192–193). What are continually constructed are taskscapes comprising orderings of environmental practice-values and entities (Ingold 2000). People and place itself are in fact products of the tasks (or movements) that people make through the world (Ingold and Kurttila 2000; Ingold 2010). Focus is thus very much on practice – NBI activities do not take place in extant landscapes (although, of course, reality does affect things), but rather are coproduced with taskscapes themselves. NBI activities thus actively generate particular taskscapes that reflect the assumptions of organisers and participants in their choices of educational tools and techniques with concomitant strengths and weaknesses (cf. Sandell and Öhman 2013, 37). Furthermore, in generating taskscapes, people draw upon bodies of conscious knowledge and tacit skill in dialogue with the world (cf. Ingold 2018).

There is an integrally temporal element to taskscape work; tasks take their ‘meaning from [their] position within an ensemble of tasks, performed in series or in parallel, and usually by many people working together’ (Ingold 2000, 195). Performances of taskscapes are therefore acts of temporalisation, a taskscape is an arrangement of activities in both time and space and thus is a memoryscape. A memoryscape is a cultural landscape that is not merely descriptive but also informs us about different close human associations with nature (Nuttall 1991, 39). Many NBI activities more or less explicitly involve selective remembering of different uses of a particular landscape, it is thus relevant to explore how NBI discourses frame distinct bounded localities, and the political use of local knowledge (Sejersen 2004, 71). Indeed, selective memories of land-use and epochs are integral to all enactments of ‘nature’.

NBI activities do not simply look to the past, they also look to the future. A dynamic relationship with nature thus combines ‘experience and expectations in such a way that the landscape is simultaneously constituted as a memoryscape and a visionscape’ (Sejersen 2004, 72, my emphasis). Thus while NBI may utilise retrospective rhetoric, this is integrally linked to a forward-looking perspective – a particular past is remembered as part of efforts to engender a particular future society and nature. Furthermore, pertinent to NBI is that local memory and visionscapes will overlap with, affecting and being affected by national visions as steered by central administrations (Sejersen 2004, 81). In sum, this research sees NBI as performing particular cartographic practices through tasks, ordering the world utilising selective presentations of past, present and future. These presentations entail narratives, not so much about what has happened but what will happen if the story is followed. Such stories ‘help to open up the world, not to cloak it’ (Ingold 2000, 208). However, this is not say that NBI taskscapes are necessarily homogeneous. Indeed multiple taskscapes may be performed and even conflicting within NBI activities.

Ritualising Nature-Based Integration

This paper explores the tasks that comprise a taskscape through a ritual lens. The study of rituals has a long history of social scientific study, indeed humans have been famously typified as ‘ritual animal[s]’ (Douglas 2002, 77), continually remaking social order through ritual action (cf. Turner 1995, 4). Indeed, the choreography and rhythms of rituals are part of necessary basis for any social action (Richards 2017, 99–100). Definitively defining ritual as distinct from other forms of action however is a context-dependent, challenging task. Indeed, one is often aware of a ritual when one occurs, but ritual’s uses are so numerous that no single definition is likely to be acceptable in all cases (Grimes 2014, 187). Instead, it is better perhaps to understand ritual frameworks as heuristic aids useful for making productive sense of complex reality each with advantages and disadvantages. I echo this here, paying attention to the way that different extents NBI practices are ritualised (cf. Grimes 2014, 193–194), thus providing a way of understanding the structuring of guided NBI activities. This article sees ritual in open, unessentialised terms as ‘embodied, condensed, and prescribed enactment’ (Grimes 2014, 195) – thus NBI ritualisation is seen as a bodily process, with actions removed from the everyday in a specified way but with no claim that this is the only way to make sense of NBI activities (cf. Grimes 2014, 336).

Several streams of research on ritual are pertinent to this project. Firstly, there is a large extant body of scholarship examining the role of ritual in various group dynamics. This has obvious relevance to NBI as the concept of ‘integration’ necessarily entails some conceptualisation of groups meeting, merging and changing. Ritual studies past have looked at how rituals effect and acknowledge the changing status of individuals and/or groups within society (cf. Grimes 2014, 279–283). Similarly, rituals may also mediate different worldviews and perspectives, e.g. in peace-making rituals (Richards 2010). Indeed, rituals are often understood as expressing societal values in some form as well as their transformation (e.g. Turner 1995). Secondly, as noted in the introduction, NBI also relates to people’s interactions with nature, entailing an embodied perspective and calls have been made to pay more attention to the effects of tactile experiences around environmental issues (Carolan 2006; Fiske 2018). This resonates with studies that highlight the deeply embodied and often emotional nature of much ritual activity, paying attention to changing mood and behavioural states (Grimes 2014; Westman 2011). Furthermore, as the background sections have shown, much environmental education seeks to engender particular embodied and emotional experiences of nature. Indeed, environmentalism has been compared to certain religious sects (Douglas and Wildavsky 1983) and there is increasing interest in the conversions or ‘inner transformations’ that are required to engender the necessary ecological mind-sets required for sustainability (cf. Neves 2009; Wamsler 2019). A ritual lens is thus employed to examine different aspects of NBI activities among different groups.

Thirdly, building on the foregoing, while the term ‘ritual’ in popular perception conjures up images of obeying clear rules, creativity and improvisation are important parts of ritual acts. After all, whilst a performance may be scripted, each individual performance remains a unique act in time and space (Grimes 2014). This is of particular relevance to the investigation of NBI as creativity is an important component of environmental education (Mcphie and Clarke 2018). Indeed, in this conceptualisation nature is creativity. A ritual focus thus makes it possible to explore the creative aspects of NBI, how participants co-construct nature and society within the ritual framework.

Method

If learning about nature is an active, embodied, dialogic process, through which both ‘nature’ and those engaging with it are constructed, attention turns to the constructors. In the case of NBI, these are guides and participants. This research takes an ethnographic-inspired approach (Agar 2008). Ethnography entails ‘immersion in the practical world, being caught up in the incessant flow of everyday life’ (Pálsson, 1994, 920). As such, the starting point for this research was active participation in NBI projects during the fieldwork period – December 2017 until February 2019. I collected empirical material using a variety of methods during the fieldwork period, most prominently participant observation and interviews. I involved myself in as many NBI activities as possible. I attended three ‘Nature experiences in several languages’ (NFS), seven ‘Chat between the pines’ (SMT) sessions and completed the ‘Education for nature interpretation in several languages in Örebro Region’ (ENI) course twice (six training days in total plus one ‘thank you’ guided walk). I also attended a guided walk teaching Swedish to foreign medical staff. These observations with one exception took place around Örebro or the nearby town of Nora. Participating in NBI excursions allowed data collection in situ as we moved through the landscape (Kusenbach 2003; cf. Grimes 2014, 25). This is relevant as I was interested in NBI participants’ experiences and instant emotional reactions to NBI activities. It also allowed me to observe participants at different times. After all, NBI experiences may also be multi-phasic, people may participate in repeated experiences over time (Stewart 1998). As such, research participation also provided opportunities to experience and observe the temporal effects of NBI (Bolger, Davis, and Rafaeli 2003, 585). I recorded these NBI experiences in a field diary, camera and portable voice recorder. This prolonged contact with people involved in NBI facilitated the building of social relationships and allowed me to attend other, linked events outside of NBI.

The standard format of each excursion was a guided walk (a typical example of which is described below) although the different types of activity had slightly varied itineraries. Notably, the nature interpretation courses involved much longer days and a focus on teaching the skills of nature guiding rather than simply informing. Likewise, one of the ‘Nature experiences in several languages’ entailed an open day at Örebro Nature School. The demographic make-up of different activities varied, one language-café was attended by just myself and a guide. By contrast, two of the guiding course days in Nora had 21 attendees including teachers. For the purposes of this analysis, I divide participants and respondents into two categories: ‘newcomers’ and ‘Swedes’. Such a demarcation is clearly problematic. For one thing, it homogenises both categories, obscuring considerable diversity in background, mobility, culture and origin. Secondly, it risks feeding into highly charged debates on the rights of different people to make their home in Sweden. There is also considerable variation within public discourse and in respondents’ answers. However, the very concept of ‘integration’ entails separate things merging. I have thus found it necessary to gloss several terms that emerged during data collection. ‘Newcomers’ is employed to denote those perceived to need to be integrated. These were sometimes referred to as invandrare (‘immigrants’), nysvenskar (‘new-Swedes’), personer med utländsk bakgrund (people with foreign backgrounds) and nyanlända (‘new-arrivals’) in the data. Likewise, ‘Swedes’ denotes those to be integrated with. Respondents and project documents also used the term Swedes (svenskar), ur-svenskar (‘original Swedes’) and svensktalande (‘Swedish-speakers’). Newcomers and Swedes are imperfect terms employed whilst conscious of the issues with the terminology and should not be taken either as linked to residency status or as a judgement on people’s rights to live in Sweden.

For the most part, ‘newcomers’ outnumbered ‘Swedes’ at NBI activities. The exception to this was a ‘Chat Between the Pines’ excursion using snowshoes. In this case, the seventeen participants (including guides) were evenly mixed between native Swedes and non-Swedes. In general, the largest group of non-Swedes came from Syria, with the proportion of men and women varying somewhat. Table 1 lists the different activities attended and the number of attendees.

Participant observations are supplemented by nine semi-structured interviews, listed in Table 2. I divide interviewees into two groups. Firstly, all the people who worked as guides on the aforementioned NBI activities (Interviewees 1-5), complemented by an interview with Hopajola’s (see above) then Project Leader (Verksamhetsledare) (Interviewee 8), who had been involved in project planning and observed the decisions around funding the projects. It is from these interviews that the bulk of analysis is taken. These six interviews are supplemented by three further interviews, two with Swedish-language teachers (Interviewees 6-7) who have booked guiding services and an ecologist employed by the local authority (Interviewee 9), whose role includes maintaining online information on local nature and culture reserves (natur och kulturreserv). Interviews were conducted according to respondents’ linguistic preferences: all except interview 3 were conducted in Swedish. Each interview took between approximately 45–90 minutes and was recorded on a voice recorder and subsequently transcribed and checked. These data were collated using NVivo allowing juxtaposition and analysis of different forms of data utilising consistent codes (Paulus, Lester, and Dempster 2014). Taking an abductive approach, coding categories were generated moving between theoretical literature and the data itself. These codes were reviewed throughout fieldwork and afterwards, with care taken to ensure the contexts of field observations (in particular) were not obscured; paying attention to the different dimensions of ritual such as the various modalities, how activities were received and the internal form and flows of NBI events (Grimes 2014, 73–75). After completing training in nature interpretation, I also collaborated twice with respondents in planning and conducting guided activities. The first instance involved a guided walk with a group of Örebro University students of diverse backgrounds. The second was an NFS session open to Örebro citizens. These activities provided opportunities for reflection and discussion of the nature guide’s role. As such, I discussed preliminary findings with respondents as part of furthering our mutual thinking, allowing me to gauge the intentions behind and understandings of particular rituals (cf. Grimes 2014, 296). However responsibility for analysis and any errors remains solely my own.

Table 2. List of interviews.

Interview No.	Newcomer or Swede	Role
1	Newcomer	Nature guide
2	Newcomer	Nature guide
3	Newcomer	Nature guide
4	Swede	Nature guide
5	Swede	Nature guide/Project Leader at Swedish Society for Nature Conservation
6	Swede	Swedish-language teacher
7	Swede	Swedish-language teacher
8	Swede	Project leader at Hopajola
9	Swede	Local authority ecologist

The rituals of guiding: Rites of nature; rights to nature

This section presents an overview of the different stages of a generalised NBI guiding activity, taking them as a ritual; breaking them into their component parts (Grimes 2014, 293). While there were periodic variations, the standard overall format is that of a guided walk with one or more guides taking groups of participants around various nature reserves in Örebro, Nora or the surrounding countryside. Notably, all the reserves have long-histories of human use and alteration, which continue in their current situations as local authority-maintained reserves. This necessarily feeds into the guiding stories and activities, shaping what is done and what nature is ritually constructed (cf. Sandell and Öhman 2013). In presenting NBI observed in standardised format, I firstly describe various ritual activities in linear fashion. Secondly, I then delve deeper into what occurs, highlighting the different participant roles and ritual modalities. Finally, I describe and discuss the aims of these rituals.

A standard guided excursion

Any NBI activity requires planning. Different activities have different pedagogic purposes and guides seek to create cohesive lessons communicating particular messages. In order to ensure that a guided walk functions smoothly, guides should know the landscape through which they will be guiding. Despite the fact that walks often occur in regular places respondents, in both interviews and on excursions, repeatedly highlighted the importance of reconnoitring (att reka) any area visited. Reconnoitring is the most prominent pre-guiding activity. It allows guides to plan with up-to-date knowledge of local conditions and to decide on where and when during a particular walk particular activities will be performed and what is to be said, taking into consideration expected group make-up and the pedagogical purpose of the trip. Guides also draw upon learning resources (e.g. previous guide itineraries or history and biology books), which may have greater or lesser influence on planning. Thus, some reserves have particular stories that are easy to tell. For example, when I planned a guided walk with a respondent we approached reconnoitring with some ideas about what we wished to say and then adapted to the conditions we found, whilst building on an extant narrative ‘the lake that disappeared’ that had previously been used in that area (Nerikes Allehanda 2010). We thus improvised the final guided walk by moving between prior aims and assumptions about the group to be guided and the landscape itself with stopping sites selected depending on local conditions (e.g. background noise, space or sources of light). Through this process, the activities and tools required (e.g. binoculars for bird watching) are identified to be collected in advance.

The extent that guiding aims were predetermined varied between different NBI activities. Several respondents explained that booked guided NBI activities usually involve outside input into where, when and what is done on a guided tour (Interviews 1-2). Indeed, these respondents stated that they may meet participants in advance in order to prepare. Likewise, some NBI activities require more preparation than others – Chat Between the Pines (SMT) were much shorter affairs with less active planning than the Education For Nature Interpretation (ENL) courses, which held activities over whole days.

Having gathered the tools required, guides typically try to be at a pre-agreed meeting point. Once the group has arrived (sometimes arriving together or in dribs and drabs), guides commence the excursion’s ritual activity. What follows is typically a journey through a nature reserve following the planned route. This journeying is punctuated by various stops, where guides gather the group and present information (e.g. on the reserve’s rules), ask and answer questions and start various activities (e.g. a quiz). Most of these stops will have been arranged in advance, with guides following the pre-agreed ‘script’ of information to share. However, guides may also stop spontaneously to discuss things that arise naturally (cf. Caselunghe, Bergeå, and von Essen 2019, 15), which were generally of much shorter duration than the planned stops. Likewise, guides are monitoring the extent that planned activities are working and may abandon or change plans if appropriate. However, during the ENL courses, it was pointed out that changing plans spontaneously, particularly when working as part of a guiding team, could lead to confusion and less positive guided experiences. I witnessed this first-hand as respondents periodically voiced their frustrations to me when colleagues appeared to go detrimentally off-script.

Typically, a guided walk would begin with a welcome activity that commenced the excursion. This usually involved presentation of information about the day’s activities but could also include a game. On several occasions, guides led ‘icebreaker’ games to get participants active and to help learn names. For example, on one occasion the group tossed a soft toy to one another, with the catcher saying their name. On other occasions, participants are taught early on particular techniques for assembling around guides. For example, one guide liked people to form a ring with their thumbs touching their neighbours’. These activities introduced the group to the principal pedagogical format as well as beginning to create a group identity, something stressed as important during the ENL course.

Generally, an activity would occur at each stop. This might simply involve the guide making a presentation but could also involve active tasks for group members. For example, during different trips, I participated in activities aimed at exploring the surroundings by looking for particular colours or utilising magnifying glasses. At other times, participants were encouraged to shut their eyes and listen or to walk in silence, subsequently talking about what they had noticed. Learning games were also taught, for example, on several occasions, quiz questions were hidden around a clearing and participants worked in groups to try to answer them. Finally, other group or individual tasks included teaching and practicing fire-starting, collecting mushrooms, socialising over coffee or preparing a meal together. Typically, the group would gather at the commencement and ending of a given activity and would often assist in tidying up mess that had been made, guides monitoring and controlling the amount of time taken. Thus, each stop can be understood as its own ritual space.

Finally, once the day drew to a close guide performed a ritual of ending. This often summarised the trip as a whole, sometimes soliciting group members’ involvement. Guides also periodically organised games to provide some levity. For example, one guide several times led a humorous call and response game about a hunter and a squirrel in the forest involving various physical actions. This had a dual role of being entertaining and warming, an important consideration at certain times of the year.

Once the participants had left, the greater ritual was over. Guides would tidy up anything remaining and head back home or to their office. There they would then record the number of participants and evaluate the day’s activities. More informally, guides commented that they were always learning and reflecting on the success of different guiding techniques.

Participant roles – guides and participants

Among those performing NBI rituals, it is possible to discern two main roles, which I call ‘guide’ and ‘participant’. Guides are the most obvious and they carry out a series of tasks as the main pedagogic instruments of NBI. Typically numbering 1–3 individuals, guides distinguish themselves through behaviour and dress. Guides typically have better outdoor clothing than participants and can be easily identified by the extra equipment they carry, in many cases pulling a trolley. At SMT events, the guides easily identified by badges denoting affiliation with the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. In organising and regulating group activities and membership, guides mediate participants’ engagement with local environment by choosing where to stop and what to do (cf. Milstein 2008; Öhman and Sandell 2016, 36–38). For example, on one guided walk, the group was told to disperse in the immediate area to collect mushrooms, which were then pooled together for identification, bringing a particular aspect of local biodiversity into focus. At times, this periodically required disciplining participants to ensure they remain on task. The roles guides perform in NBI largely resemble nature interpretation elsewhere in Sweden: defining legitimate topics; playing ‘a crucial role in initiating and affecting meaning-making between all participants’ (Caselunghe, Bergeå, and von Essen 2019, 10). As such, the guides put on a particular ritual show through performed activities, translating actions ‘into both profoundly meaningful and culturally comprehensible moments’ (Milstein and Kroløkke 2012, 85).

‘Participants’ on the other hand formed a diverse group, with different levels of appropriate clothing in evidence and hailing from a diverse range of countries. As such, a typical NBI activity looked like a group of ordinary people following a hiker lugging a trolley along a forest path. However, participants are not purely passive – whilst activities generally followed the guides’ plans, this required participant cooperation. As the discussion section will elaborate, this did not necessarily always occur, which then presented guides with a problem as they had few tools to actively coerce NBI participants. As such, rather than simply being spectators participants should be seen as ‘interactive co-creators of the [ritual] performance’ (Bowman 2006, 104).

The aims of NBI: having fun and learning

Guides largely agreed that their practices have two main functions: enabling participants to have fun and to learn, an approach also followed by other forms of environmental education, e.g. in zoos (Lloro-Bidart and Russell 2017, 42). However, the particular emphasis varied from guide to guide. NBI was also posited to have a third function, linked to learning: the fostering of an ‘ecological mind-set’ as part of a basis for a new environmental social movement. These are presented in turn.

Fun was engendered in several ways, firstly, many of the activities were designed to encourage participants to show creativity while working together, providing opportunities for humour. For example, at one ENL stop various participants cooperated in trying to build a ‘bird nest’ from materials around the forest, which precipitated much good-humoured discussion over form and style. At other times, the process of travelling together and gradually getting to know people increased the pleasure of events. For example,. on another ENL excursion a running gag developed around the existence (or not) of trolls, which along with discussion of the translation of the word ‘troll’ into different languages led to much good-natured bickering. These moments would often break up drier moments of absorbing information, allowing learning almost by accident. Pleasure during NBI rituals was often linked to creativity and drew upon the inherent randomness of nature. This is notable as psychologists argue that pleasure, creativity and randomness have a role in the forming of affective relationships (Barthel et al. 2018). Furthermore, it was also often through these moments that I personally began to feel connected with my fellow participants as we got to know one another and rather than simply generic faces, personalities emerged.

In terms of learning, most of the activities observed sought to engender knowledge of (and obedience) to Swedish law alongside ecological knowledge, including the links between society and nature. Guides often used the allemansrätt (see above) as a way to focus excursions with one or two of the rules being emphasised. This was combined with an overall message about nature ‘don’t disturb, don’t destroy’ (stör inte, förstör inte) that was reiterated almost every time. One pedagogic feature of many NBI rituals was that they explored less visible aspects of the local environment and natural history (cf. Neves 2009, 153). This could involve particular equipment for example binoculars or a magnifying glass. Alternatively, it could provide a way for participants to leave the beaten track in the form of hidden questions to be answered in various games. These encouraged participants to look and move all around the immediate area, with questions hidden both high and low utilising different senses. The local area was thus not simply observed from the path but physically engaged with, moved through (cf. Ingold 2010). NBI must then be understood as tactile spaces (cf. Carolan 2006). Encounters with discarded rubbish, for example, forced embodied knowledge of and reflection upon the political and social linkages bringing rubbish into the natural world (cf. Fiske 2018).

The extent that these activities succeeded on their own terms is hard to judge. Certainly, my impression was that participants enjoyed proceedings for the most part, with activities generally taking place in a genial atmosphere. There were infrequent instances where participants voiced a desire to get home and likewise at times participants appeared to oppose guide actions (below). Likewise, in terms of learning, with participants from diverse backgrounds, it was likely quite variable how much and what each participant took with them.

Discussion: Taskscapes emerge. Becoming one with the group, one with Sweden, one with nature

NBI rituals transform landscapes into taskscapes. These taskscapes are not homogeneous; however, it is possible to identify a generalised taskscape within repeated performances. The subversion of these performances is the topic of a later section.

The taskscapes of NBI are both particular and general, while they take place in a particular time and space they also form part of a greater taskscape within Sweden and beyond. As such, the transformative message of NBI often engages with local features but pertains to wider Swedish and global society and nature. Through NBI, spaces become places (cf. Beery and Wolf-Watz 2014). Places with local histories but which are also sites for general behaviours and journeys that are valid throughout Sweden. The Swedish countryside thus becomes a place where particular activities (e.g. berry picking, bird watching or camping) are ordered as valid. These ‘correct’ tasks contrast with activities that are prohibited, e.g. illegal hunting, the picking of endangered species or littering. The intention is thus to foment a particular spatial relationship to the local area and Sweden in particular (Öhman and Sandell 2016, 38). NBI participants thus learn to read particular signs (both official and implicit) within the local landscape (cf. Sandell and Öhman 2010). There is a further dimension to this, discussion of behaviour in wider Swedish society also occurs. For example, I witnessed a guide disciplining a participant who had arrived late to a guide-interpretation session. The guide asserted bluntly: ‘In Sweden, time is important, not like in Syria. One must start on time … it is a key rule, respect it’. A wider taskscape beyond the reserve is thus framed, where bodies are disciplined and norms internalised through ritual (cf. Milstein and Kroløkke 2012, 98).

As noted earlier, taskscapes are integrally temporal: framing concomitant memoryscapes and visionscapes. I witnessed unusually clear examples of this at Oset & Rynningeviken reserve on multiple occasions. Oset & Rynningeviken has an unusual history: it was originally land claimed from Lake Hjälmaren during a major nineteenth-century engineering project, which proved disappointing as arable land. Subsequently, it became a refuse dump, oil harbour and army testing ground that effectively cut Örebro off from the lake. In the 1990s, the landscape was actively restored, with the current amalgamation of previously separate nature reserves opening in 2010. Through this history, a story is told about industrial development, guides using pictures of times past to bring the transformation home. It is a tale of loss of contact with nature and subsequent redemption as evidenced by the return of life to the area. While Oset & Rynningeviken is unusual in that a very clear story emerges, all NBI taskscapes frame memories and visions in particular ways, uniting people with a shared past and vision of the future.

Several interviewees were explicit about the importance of performing shared activities in nature (i.e. sharing taskscapes), arguing that many newcomers to Sweden are lonely, cut off from both society and nature, with concomitant mental and physical health consequences (Interview 2). Indeed, different incoming groups are normatively depicted as better or less able to adapt to Swedish society. For example, one respondent had observed that those from the Middle East have different outlooks on nature-use and behaviour in nature than those from North America (Interview 1). The respondent felt that newcomers from the latter group have an easier time integrating. These examples echoed with another recurrent theme that Sweden is characterised by an outdoor culture (see background literature but also repeated by numerous respondents) and thus accessing outdoor nature increased the possibilities for meeting Swedes (Interview 8). One Swedish language teacher asserted that for newcomers to meet and understand Swedes it was important for them to be aware of the types of activities and interests many Swedes have even if they decide ultimately that is not for them (Interview 6). Through NBI the Swedish landscape is performed as accessible and something that Swedes access; as one guide stated clearly to a group of foreign medical staff ‘In Sweden one goes out all-year round’. Thus in order to integrate newcomers need to be able to access the same taskscapes as ‘natives’ but also be aware of what is or is not appropriate behaviour when they do come there. Such activities also provided opportunities for participants to be active contributors, linking their memories and stories to a new place. For example, at one SMT stop near a waterfall, we were asked to close our eyes and listen in silence. We were then asked what we were thinking about, with several participants remembering times and places in far off lands provoked by the lapping of the water. Shared performance of Swedish taskscapes is thus a dialectic conceived as bringing people together both in each NBI group and in wider Swedish society. Shared tasks are intended to bridge cultural and linguistic divides between people. Indeed, by participating in enjoyable activities, previously generic forests became ‘emotion-scapes’ provoking particular memories and feelings about both people and landscape (cf. Dilger, Kasmani, and Mattes 2018, 94; cf. Rishbeth and Finney 2006). NBI rituals can thus be interpreted seen as a way to integrate ‘outsiders’ from Swedish society into the social structure (cf. Turner 1995, 120). Swedish society is thus interpellated with NBI taskscapes.

Beyond Swedish society, NBI taskscapes also relate to feelings of connection to nature as a whole. The embodied, aesthetic engagement with the local environment integral to NBI rituals brings home the point that nature everywhere (not just locally) is a changing, dynamic place (cf. Neves 2009) inhabited by a variety of nonhumans. The environment thus becomes meaningful (Milstein 2011). By acquiring experience-based knowledge of nature, it is hoped that a ‘relational ethical perspective’ will be fostered (Sandell and Öhman 2010, 124; cf. Milstein and Kroløkke 2012, 86). The rituals of NBI thus aim to change participants, who are hoped to gain a more ecological mind-set (or at least move towards one) through their participation. Some respondents were explicit that this mind-set would have a further role beyond the NBI activities, framing NBI activities as part of building a green social movement, bringing together different groups within Swedish society in common moral cause (Interviews 5 and 8). For example, at a thank you excursion for those who had completed the course the lead guide was explicit: ‘This is only the beginning … . The start of a movement that is only happening in Örebro County’. The guide then urged participants to remain in touch and to come to her or the other guides if they have any ideas for getting more people out in nature. As such, echoing the background literature, these respondents envisaged NBI as part of reorienting society in an ecologically mindful manner (cf. Wamsler 2019). The reasons given for this by respondents were both instrumental: society is dependent on nature, thus sustainability demands an environmental concern; and spiritual and moral – it is wrong if humans become cut-off and dissociated from nature. As such, NBI was seen by some respondents as a first step to ‘converting’ people to an outdoor, environmentally friendly lifestyle (cf. Sandell and Öhman 2010, 116; Rau 2018) for a sustainable Swedish society .

One should not overstate this political aspect of NBI. As noted earlier, NBI rituals perform a taskscape of learning but also a place where above all people should have fun. For example, one guide saw that as his main emphasis over other objectives (Interview 1). This meant that guides generally delivered information about the landscape in a straightforward, neutral way, with, for example, little discussion of historical and contemporary political struggles around land use. Returning to Oset & Rynningeviken for example, guides presented the reclaiming of land as a technocratic effort to alleviate poverty in Sweden rather than as an environmental catastrophe or land grab by local landlords. Indeed, in discussions with several guides, it often felt that there was little reflection about the implicit values of certain narratives and their implications (cf. Caselunghe, Bergeå, and von Essen 2019, 17–18). For example, whilst activities promoted an ecological sensibility, the notion that the environment exists for human use remains implicit to many NBI rituals (cf. Lloro-Bidart and Russell 2017, 46). Furthermore, if the wider realities of newcomers’ lives work against developing an environmental sensibility then the ‘nudges’ NBI applies may have limited efficacy (Kennedy and Hauslik 2018, 193). Perhaps related to this, one respondent expressed frustration that they were unable to take a more overtly political role in their work (Interview 4).

Taskscapes in conflict?

My foregoing depiction presents an image of NBI rituals proceeding in a smooth manner. Likewise, the formation of a shared taskscape and thus collective and environmental sensibility appears in overly harmonious terms. It is as if participants magically become one whole with shared environmental values. This is of course incorrect, something that respondents were also well aware of. Indeed, with the diversity of NBI participants’ backgrounds, it is unsurprising that there are different views about what is appropriate in nature. Most of the time this likely just means that certain rituals do not work as well as others; with people not bonding or absorbing the messages put forward. As a participant, the extent that this occurred was obviously hard to judge although there were times when people became obviously confused. At other times, however, alternative taskscapes emerged and appeared to be clashing with those being promoted by NBI (see below). These moments of disruption served to bring the implicit, integral norms behind NBI rituals into focus (cf. Arora-Jonsson 2017).

As noted earlier in background, Swedish national discourse frames nature to use as an egalitarian pleasure, a right of all Swedish inhabitants. As promulgated by guides, this incorporated mainstream Swedish norms of gender equality. However, on several occasions, guides or participants would disrupt this egalitarian taskscape. In the first example, at an EDL course, an older Syrian man was pulling the equipment trolley over an overgrown field. A Swedish female guide went to help him. This elicited a heated exchange, where the man insisted that in Syrian culture women should not carry heavy things. The guide refused to let go stating that in Sweden such behaviour was acceptable. Another Syrian man then decisively ended the argument by briskly taking the trolley off the guide. I argue that this somewhat awkward moment, with conflict resolved forcibly, highlights two things: firstly, that different groups will have different views of appropriate behaviour (Kloek et al. 2017; cf. Lisberg Jensen and Ouis 2008, 175) and; secondly, contacts between culturally diverse groups don’t inevitably lead to mutually agreeable accommodation (cf. Lisberg Jensen and Ouis 2008, 178). Indeed, rituals engendering confrontations with an ‘other’ may also elicit hostility and discomfort (Lisberg Jensen and Ouis 2008, 180).

At other times, respondents seemed to resist the guides’ authority. For example on the EDL course in Örebro, participants repeatedly ignored instructions to bring packed lunches. Thus, what had been planned as a group activity of eating together was disrupted as various members of the group split off to return to town to buy food, much to the guides’ frustration. At other times, participants would appear late. Participants might also subvert particular rituals. On one occasion, in Nora, the group was playing a vocabulary-building game where they had to explain the meaning of particular words on printed paper hidden about the reserve. Tasked with the word ‘bark’ (the word has the same meaning in both English and Swedish), one of my teammates cheerfully ignored the morning’s instruction on the rules about not damaging the local environment and stripped some bark off a nearby tree to visually illustrate the word’s meaning to a nonplussed guide. This highlights the difficulties of instilling particular values in participants, whilst trying to maintain a level of entertainment. In this case, the guide opted to ignore the behaviour rather than abruptly change the activity’s happy tone.

Participants could also actively contest their position within ritual taskscapes. This was rendered very clear at the end of one guided walk. We were drinking coffee by a fire in a Sami-style tent. One of the guides was explaining to a group of three medical workers and their Swedish-language teacher the importance of getting newcomers out into nature, asserting that few have seen snow and many are too timid to come out. As part of proving his point, the guide asked the group if they’d ever seen snow. The first respondent, a Syrian, informed him that he saw snow every year where he was from. The second, an Iranian, likewise stated that snow falls in several parts of his country. Only the last, a Mexican, had not encountered snow before coming to Sweden. However, rather than being scared, he asserted he loved it. Participants thus directly contesting the framing of immigrant winter taskscapes.

Finally, periodically participants would assert an alternative taskscape of nature use at odds with ‘Swedish’ performances. On an EDL course in Örebro, one participant liked to play Syrian music on his phone-speaker. Whilst perfectly within his rights to do so, it was striking how dissimilar this was to the hushed atmosphere within which one typically encounters others in Swedish nature. One can imagine that other forest users may have found the sound disturbing, in discussions with Swedish friends it certainly clashed with the behaviours they expect in nature reserves.

These examples highlight a tension within NBI rituals: taskscapes aimed at opening up the Swedish landscape to newcomers are conditional on adopting particular behaviours and values both implicit and explicit. Furthermore, the behaviours and activities encouraged largely embody normative ‘Swedish’ values of nature use . Thus, there is an element of coercion integral to NBI, newcomers should be using nature but in the prescribed way – they must be ‘enlightened’ about the Swedish ‘correct’ way of doing things (cf. Dahlstedt and Hertzberg 2007, 175). Several interview respondents were aware of this aspect of NBI, conceding it was a difficult to find a balance. For example, one respondent told a story of confronting newcomers who were leaving cigarette butts on a beach. The respondent described how they did not want to appear hostile to newcomers but decided that must say something: ‘We must say when one does something wrong or when one does something right … because when we go to other countries it is different’ (Interview 8). In this, respondents recognised that integration involved tension with and also transformation by the group that is to be integrated with (Gentin et al. 2018, 16).

In sum, when performing NBI taskscapes, not all the people involved are of equal importance. Around NBI, guides have an important role in these processes in their role as ritual regulators of ‘proper’ behaviour (cf. Milstein and Kroløkke 2012, 87). In practice, NBI involved the performance of particular activities intepellated with particular values of land-use and societal behaviour. Within this, while integration is acknowledged to be two-way, certain values and practices are esentialised and encouraged as ‘Swedish’ and therefore desirable. NBI is predicated on the idea of performing shared taskscapes, which entails dialogue. However, for NBI to function as actual sites of dialogue between Swedish societal groups then there needs to be awareness of several things. Firstly, acknowledgement that there are integral power iniquities within NBI practice, between guides and participants, and, more subtly, between Swedes and newcomers. Secondly, these data have highlighted that dialogue inevitability entails the possibility of disagreement over various values of nature and society. As such, future NBI should consider how conflict may be managed to constructive ends (cf. Hallgren, Bergeå, and Westberg 2018; Sund and Öhman 2013). If this does not occur, NBI’s effectiveness may be negatively affected. Furthermore, there is also a risk that NBI inadvertently contributes to conflicts over ‘correct’ usages of space and fails to ameliorate existing environmental injustices around nature-access in Sweden (cf. Timmons Roberts, Pellow, and Mohai 2018).

Conclusion

This article has examined the activities that took place during NBI guided walks, interpreting each guided walk as a ritual comprised of various individual NBI activities. The purpose of these rituals is largely to provide participants with entertainment, learning and integration. This article has argued that NBI rituals use the local landscape to enact a particular taskscape. This taskscape comprises a moral universe encapsulating both nature and society. Through enacting this taskscape together integration is envisaged to take place. This integration takes place on three levels. Firstly, participants integrate within the group on a given excursion, providing opportunities for fun, friendship and learning. Secondly, by moving through the NBI’s ‘Swedish’ taskscapes it is hoped, newcomers gain understanding and knowledge comparable to Swedes. People of diverse cultures and backgrounds are conceived as becoming similar through shared embodied experiences. Thirdly, on some level, in the background of many NBI is a desire to inculcate an ecological mind-set in NBI participants. Many NBI thus attempts to integrate participants (both Swedes and newcomers) within a new ‘sustainable’ taskscape of Sweden (and beyond). At times, NBI link into political social movements to change Swedish society and actively resonate with much of the literature on environmental education.

These data have highlighted the role of guides as the ‘priests’ of NBI rituals in designing and managing the performance of taskscapes. As such, guides have an important role in how particular activities play out. However, participants as NBI ‘initiates’ are not simply passive recipients of wisdom. Rather each ritual is a unique performance that is scripted but also retains space for creativity and improvisation between all who are involved. Performance of rituals is not necessarily smooth and the performance is affected by socio-political conflicts between participants. This article has highlighted several examples of clashing taskscapes being performed, with the result at times seemingly at odds with what guides had intended. NBI thus constitute sites for both the reproducing extant social norms and for new norms to emerge.

With NBI increasingly popular as a potential part of the ‘solution’ to integration-related issues, guides and others who are involved in NBI need to be aware of and, ideally, trained in dealing with conflicts inherent to ritual performances. This includes both greater reflexivity about the implicit political assumptions integral to the taskscapes they produce but also an awareness of their role in shaping the form of interactions that may lead to conflict or conciliation. This increased awareness will reduce the potential for nature-based disintegration occurring as group boundaries form around opposing visionscapes of nature and society. This will likely hold for NBI that take quite different forms (see background) to those described here (e.g. efforts to train immigrants to work in the forestry sector). Nature may be ephemeral but it is unlikely to be a magic bullet.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all respondents for this study. It was interesting and fun. Thanks also to participants who commented at a CBM seminar, also to Andrew Mitchell and Janne Rantala. Dedicated to Sir who joined Pop, Ethel, Anne and John as an ancestor during the writing of this paper.

Notes on contributor

Benedict E. Singleton is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, where he conducts research on the project Intersectionality and Climate Policy Making: Ways forward to a socially inclusive and sustainable welfare state. His is also an affiliated researcher at the Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, from which this article’s research originates.