Dwelling in unsustainability: tourism landscapes and modern roads in a remote part of Finland

Abstract

The paper discusses tourism landscapes in a remote region of Finland where tourism, nature conservation and industrial land-use coexist in tension. It illustrates deep problems with the language of sustainability but suggests that applying the dwelling perspective (Ingold) to analysing tourism landscapes is an illuminating route to appreciating the unsustainable features of modern life generally, like technical infrastructures and the unsustainable practices they support. Through an analysis of how modern roads have shaped landscapes and livelihoods, the paper makes a case for the strengths of the dwelling perspective as long as sufficient emphasis is put on the wider economic and political conditions within which local life can be reproduced and (ecological) sustainability negotiated. It shows that nature tourism involves different ways of being unsustainable but that it also contributes, as policy makers over decades have hoped, to sustaining local livelihoods.