Mellan fykt och förändring—Utopiskt platsskapande i 1970-talets alternativa miljö

Abstract

In comparison with the buoyantly optimistic 1960s, the 1970s are often characterized as a pessimistic decade. The great hopes and ambitious ideas envisioned by the 1960s generation were replaced by a sense of doom and disappointment in modern society, with its unequal distribution of resources, environmental problems, and the threat of nuclear war.1 Among political radicals, the spontaneous movements of the 1960s grew into more organized and dogmatic forms of leftist political activity. However, as Blake Slonecker has argued, a utopian impulse, reaching from the late 1960s to the communal living experiments of the 1970s, can be traced in the American counterculture movement.2 Many of the experiments of the 1960s lived on and continue to influence Western societies up to this day. Counterculture groups continued to engage in consciousness-raising and new ways of life, often within the framework of intentional cohousing communities. Kristoffer Ekberg investigates such a utopian impulse—in the context of Sweden in the 1970s—in his published doctorate thesis in history entitled Mellan fykt och förändring—Utopiskt platsskapande i 1970-talets alternativa miljö (Between estrangement and change—Utopian place-making in Swedish alternative milieus in the 1970s). The objective of the publication is to investigate how members of the Swedish counterculture movement, known as the alternative movement, articulated and put into practice their dreams of a better society.Alternative movements in the Nordic countries, like their counterparts, the countercultural groups in other Western countries, experimented with new forms of living in new kinds of places, both urban communes and rural collectives. Ekberg argues that a study of specific places, as well as practices enacted in those places, provides new ways of understanding the political significance of the 1970s alternative movement. The social movements of the 1960s, the highly politicized climate of the 1970s, and the growing awareness of the environmental problems caused by modern capitalist societies constitute the context for the investigation. Ekberg bases his study on newspaper articles, newsletters, and, most important, interviews by sociologist Britta Jonsson in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The central places are intentional communes founded in the 1970s such as Moder Jord (Mother Earth) and Skogsnäs, as well as urban squats and the nomadic Karavan project.Ekberg's published thesis sheds light on a somewhat neglected aspect of the Swedish political scene in the 1970s. Although the alternative groups have been pointed out as precursors to the environmental movement and the Green Party, their political significance has remained largely unacknowledged. The focus on formal political organizations is one reason for the failure to acknowledge the political aspirations of the alternative movement. Social movements such as the situationists of the 1960s are often mentioned as a backdrop for counterculture collectives. Other sources of inspiration, perhaps more important in Sweden, were the criticists of economic growth and early environmental thinkers (anarchist and situationist groups were fewer in Sweden than in other parts of Europe and North America, partly as a result of a strong Maoist and Leninist Left). Ekberg places the alternative groups in a continuum, leading up to the environmental movement and to the punk scene of the early 1980s.A further reason for the lack of recognition of the political nature of alternative groups may have to do with the rural ideals of the groups. In addition to being interested in communal living and in producing their own vegetarian food, the groups favored an “authentic,” rural lifestyle, which led to the forming of collectives in the countryside. As a result, the groups were criticized for abandoning the political arena in favor of nostalgic rural dreams, and according to Ekberg, the existing research echoes this view. Ekberg challenges this simplified notion and sets out to problematize the motives for alternative lifestyle choices by analyzing the degree of estrangement and engagement visible in the alternative strategies. There were among the groups those that preferred to keep their distance from urban society, while others chose to engage with the surrounding society, be it urban or rural. Indeed, some of the collectives were urban, and as Ekberg shows, the rural and urban groups had largely similar values: he argues that alternative groups were anti-state rather than anti-urban. Moreover, Ekberg argues that alternative groups were engaged in politics in a prefigurative sense and that they partook in prefigurative politics by making the places where they put their visions for a better future into practice. Hence, the concept of utopian place-making aptly describes the activities in the rural collectives analyzed in the book. Utopian goals were enacted as practices in the present.Ekberg is cautious about characterizing the groups he investigates as a movement. Instead, he stresses that the individuals engaged in the making of the investigated places should be seen both as parts of specific groups and as networks in the making. Ekberg shows that various alternative groups both in Sweden and in other Nordic countries kept in contact and met in order to share experiences and exchange ideas related to alternative lifestyles and communal living. Among the spiritually inclined, the Farm in Tennessee and Findhorn in Scotland were influential, while the more politically oriented found inspiration in the Uruguayan Communidad del Sur. Contacts with other commune dwellers were kept through travels and meetings such as the Ting Meetings (Tingmöte), which alluded to medieval Nordic assemblies. Through such contacts, the groups were part of an international network of alternative places in Europe and the Americas, places that could be considered sites or nodes through which knowledge and experience could be transmitted not only to other collectives but also to new generations of commune dwellers. Ekberg argues that these places and the relationships between them formed the basis of the movement.By considering 1970s counterculture communities as a continuation of a development that began in the 1960s and carried on in the 1980s, the study creates a bridge between the alternative political movements of the 1960s and the environmental movements of the 1980s. Moreover, Ekberg hints at some interesting fragmentation in the early 1980s, when some individuals engaged in Green politics while the consciousness-raising component of the alternative movements gravitated toward New Age spirituality. A third strand might be the punk movement.Kristoffer Ekberg's published thesis is a carefully conducted scholarly study. The theoretical apparatus is somewhat heavy, but it is well chosen and supports the analysis. The study casts light on new aspects of the Swedish political scene in the 1970s and provides important knowledge about the 1970s counterculture movement as prefigurative political practice and transnational network. A six-page-long summary in English is included (225–31) for those who do not read Swedish. An international article presenting the research results, particularly on transnational counterculture networks, would be welcome.