Sebastian Djup: Distorted natures: Shifting ideologies of nature in Swedish geography school textbooks 1866-2012

Abstract

Historically, nature has worked and functioned as a powerful idea. Therefore, this thesis provides a historical account of how ideologies of nature have been articulated and transformed in Swedish geography school textbooks (secondary and upper secondary level) from 1866 to 2012. It does so by contextualizing them and by synthetizing three bodies of scholarship: geographic curriculum theory, the production of nature thesis and (its relationship to) the ideology of nature, and a theory of ideology. Central to the analysis of the content of the textbooks is “the ideology of nature”. This ideology presents a distorted view by positing the existence of a contradictory dualism. The external conception of nature views human society and nature as autonomous realms, and the universal conception of nature views humans as part of nature. Empirically, the thesis focuses and examines six themes which are not only historically rooted, but constitute the most fertile grounds for understanding the shifts and workings of ideology: 1866-1962, (i) environmental determinism and (ii) the idea of race; 1962-1994, (iii) the environmental crisis and system’s ecology and (iv) neo-Malthusianism; 1994-2012, (v) climate change and (vi) sustainable development. The thesis argues that throughout the period of investigation, important ideologies of nature, such as ideas about determinism, human nature, balance, equilibrium and natural limits, have been (re)articulated in the textbooks and they have worked towards different effects. In relation to geographic curriculum theory, not only does the thesis show precisely how textbooks have rearticulated ideology, but as part of that, it revises the claim that the content of the curriculum has undergone little change. Thus, although inertia certainly is a characteristic feature, an analysis of ideology reveals that change is as constant as inertia. In turn, the analysis increases our understanding of “the ideology of nature” by showing how it changes form. In the end, the thesis argues that while critiquing ideologies of nature is essential, the key question is how nature is produced and to what ends; that is, there is a need to consider the production of alternative natures.