Discourses on illegal hunting in Sweden: the meaning of silence and resistance

ABSTRACT

The first rule to poaching is that you do not talk about poaching. If you do, you do so behind a veil of anonymity, using hypotheticals or indirect reported speech that protect you from moral, cultural or legal self-incrimination. In this study of Swedish hunters talking about a phenomenon of illegal killing of protected wolves, we situate such talk in the debate between crime talk as reflecting resistance, reality or everyday venting. We identify four discourses: the discourse of silence; the complicit discourse of protecting poachers; the ‘proxy’ discourse of talking about peers; and the ‘empty’ discourse of exaggerating wolf kills as means of political resistance. Our hunters materialize these discourses both by sharing stories that we sort into respective discourses and by providing their meta-level perceptions on what they mean. Specifically we examine whether Swedish hunters’ discourses on illegal killing are (1) a means of letting off steam; (2) a reflection of reality; (3) part of a political counter-narrative against wolf conservation; or (4) a way of radicalizing peers exposed to the discourse. We conclude that illegal killing discourses simultaneously reflect reality and constitute it and that hunters’ meta-talk reveals most endorse a path-goal folk model of talk and action.

KEYWORDS:

• Discourse
• wolves
• hunting
• everyday resistance
• poaching
• illegal hunting

Acknowledgements

This research is based on the FORMAS-funded project ‘Confronting challenges to political legitimacy of the natural resource management regulatory regime in Sweden - the case of illegal hunting’ (grant numbers 2012-7896-23062-36).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Jägarna (1997), ‘The Hunters’, is a classic Swedish thriller about a Stockholm police officer who moves back home to Norrland to investigate poaching, finding that his brother is involved.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas 2012-7896-23062-36;

Notes on contributors

Erica Von Essen

Erica von Essen is a hunting sociologist whose research focuses on dissent, resistance and law-breaking in the context of wildlife. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on illegal hunting in Sweden. She is particularly published in scholarly wildlife ethics debates and applies a political perspective to human–animal relations.

Hans Peter Hansen

Hans Peter Hansen is a researcher at Aarhus University in democratic theory and critical utopian action research, where he applies his societal and political perspectives in the context of natural resource management conflicts and planning. Today, he is involved in both the practice and the theory of wildlife management in Denmark, active at the Bioscience department.

M. Nils Peterson

M. Nils Peterson is an associate professor at the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at NCSU, where he uncovers the drivers of human behavior in relation to wildlife conservation. Peterson’s area of expertise is on human–wildlife conflicts, hunting issues and environmental literacy.

Tarla R. Peterson

Tarla R. Peterson is a professor of communication with a long background in environmental planning, conflict mitigation, discourse studies and wildlife management. She has served as Boone & Crocket chair of Wildlife Conservation Policy and today publishes papers on democracy and environment.