Dammed – conversations against the current

These questions were in focus of the BIOrdinary Summer School. For three years in a row, a research group at Stockholm University based at the Department of Social Anthropology, has organised these research schools as part of the research project BIOrdinary. People are brought together from different disciplines and career stages – from master’s students to senior researchers – to explore how biodiversity shifts are perceived, understood, and managed in ‘ordinary places’ as opposed to biodiversity-rich and protected nature hotspots.

The 2025 BIOrdinary Summer School was set in the vast but sparsely populated county of Norrbotten, a landscape deeply shaped by a century of hydropower expansion. During four long and bright midsummer days, the team travelled upstream along the 461-kilometre-long and heavily dammed Lule river to explore the long-term impacts of large-scale hydropower projects on biodiversity from a range of local perspectives.

The Lule River has been harnessed to provide the country with power and light for over a hundred years. Names such as Harsprånget, Suorva, and Porjus are commonly synonymous with power plants. Today, fifteen active hydropower plants are placed along the river, accounting for approximately eleven percent of the total Swedish electricity production. However, the researchers in the BIOrdinary group question the dominant narrative of today that praises hydropower as a green and abundant electricity and calls for a more thorough analysis of how the expansion will affect local communities, other species, and habitats.

”Our journey was guided by the questions of biodiversity justice. It’s a framework inviting us to consider not only ecological loss but also shifts in livelihoods, land relations, and rights of the many human and non-human communities living in and around the Lule River. Challenging the idea of Norrbotten as Sweden’s ”last wilderness”, we instead approached this region as a place shaped by millennia of indigenous land stewardship and a century of hydropower expansion. We wanted to learn about the impacts of green energy production on local communities, other species, and habitats”, says Vilma Johansson, research coordinator for BIOrdinary and one of the participants of the Summer School.

By visiting fish farms and power plants as well as speaking to local ecologists and indigenous activists, the summer school travelled against the current to learn about the social and environmental impacts of industrial expansion. In the short film “Dammed: Conversations against the current”, the participants share their experiences of today’s modern Lule River, which was once an untamed river.

The short movie "Dammed – conversations against the current"

”Witnessing firsthand the radically different landscapes – some beautiful, some rather brutal – that make up Sweden’s hydropower systems, sparked conversations that I doubt would have emerged in a classroom setting. Guided by authors, biologists and activists with long-standing personal relationships to the river, we were reminded that nature governance is an inherently human concern. We share a common history, and so too a common future. What do we want that future to look like? These were the kinds of questions that this year’s Summer School sought to unpack – and successfully did”, says Vilma Johansson.

The previous Summer Schools explored the long-term impact of mining on landscapes and biodiversity in Norberg, Bergslagen, and examined shifting marine biodiversity in Tjärnö and the Koster Sea, Bohuslän.

The Summer Schools are part of the research group BIOrdinary’s outreach model. This includes a dynamic model based on dialogue, situated learning, and collaborative research. This approach enables multidirectional flows of knowledge, mutual learning, and the sharing of findings and perspectives, according to Karin Ahlberg, researcher in Social Anthropology, and one of the project leaders of BIOrdinary and brains behind the Summer Schools.

”By disrupting the roles of the researcher as an expert and the audience as a receiver, these activities allow us as researchers to learn from our conversation partners. Over three days, researchers and students from different disciplines meet with experts, locals, artists, activists, and professionals to explore a shared theme. The message from this outreach model, is that we can all get involved in processes of restoring damaged landscapes around us,” says Karin Ahlberg.