The Green Zone series: Narrating Transhumance and the more-than-human: Folklore and Sustainability

Seminar

Date: Thursday 27 November 2025

Time: 15.00 – 17.00

Location: Accelerator

In 2024, Norwegian and Swedish transhumance traditions were added to UNESCO’s intangible heritage list. Once widespread, today only a few hundred summer farmers remain, yet their stories reveal rich insights into human–nature relations, resource use, and sustainability.

Kyrre Kverndokk, Professor in Cultural studies, University of Berge will present. Kyrre is a folklorist that has worked for example with climate change temporalities and crisis awareness.

Abstract

In 2024, Norwegian and Swedish transhumance traditions were inscribed on UNESCOʼs intangible heritage list. This tradition is still alive, yet summer farmers have declined from 52 000 in the middle of the 19th century to less than 750 today. This changing history of transhumance may inform understandings of nature, more-than-human relationships, and sustainable resource management.

Based on Norwegian transhumance storytelling, this paper will suggest some possible ways of exploring relations between humans, plants, animals, landscapes, and supernatural beings. The presentation will discuss how oral traditions give insight into notions of nature and more-than-human relations, that also include the supernatural. By doing so, it will point out how resource management in the mountains were negotiated through storytelling. Based on this analysis, the presentation will also open for discussions on the following questions: In what way does this traditional notion of resource management correspond with, or differ from contemporary notions of sustainability? And in what way do traditional notions the-more-than-human relations and resource management relate to a heritagized contemporary summer farming culture.

The Green Zone Seminar Series Autumn 2025 at Accelerator Art Hall

Welcome to the higher seminar in Environmental Humanities at Stockholm University.

23/10 kl. 15.00 - 17.00 The Green Zone seminar series: Figuring Nämforsen: Image, Friction and Relationality along the Ångerman River

6/11 kl. 15.00 - 17.00 The Green Zone seminar series: Extinction Remains: The challenge of displaying contemporary mass extinction

27/11 kl. 15.00 - 17.00 The Green Zone seminar series: Narrating Transhumance and the more-than-human: Folklore and Sustainability

Christina Fredengren, Lotten Gustafsson-Reinius, Lars Kaijser and Karin Dirke.

Join the Environmental Humanities and Speculative Fiction Reading Group

The reading group will explore places where environmental humanities, archaeology and speculative fiction overlap. During the meetings, the group will read and discuss a range of texts - academic and fictional - and may write their own texts about possible futures. The reading group is open to everyone who would like to join.

Environmental Humanities and Speculative Fiction Reading Group

Theme

Last updated: September 23, 2025

Source: Områdeskansliet för Humanvetenskap

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