An ecocritical perspective on friluftsliv students’ relationship with nature

Abstract

Friluftsliv (“free-air life”) and outdoor education programmes should educate for sustainable development in response to the crisis facing the natural world. By aiming for education for sustainable development, friluftsliv education programmes could facilitate an ecocentric shift in the human–nature relationship that is arguably an underlying cause of the crisis. This article seeks new insight into friluftsliv students’ relationship with nature through their reports on their own friluftsliv. The article aims to provide critical insight into how friluftsliv and outdoor education may lead to more sustainable relationships with nature. The empirical work consists of eight interviews analysed within a framework of posthuman and ecocritical theory. The findings indicate that the friluftsliv students in this study have formed an anthropocentric relationship with nature within a nature–culture dichotomy in their own friluftsliv. Although the students in this study are environmentally conscious, as they are building their relationship with nature within a nature–culture dichotomy, they do not hold themselves accountable beyond their own private relationship with nature. Consequently, these students experience tension within this nature–culture dichotomy between their ecologically aware relationship with nature and their anthropocentric view of nature. Friluftsliv and outdoor educational programmes should make their relationships with nature explicit and should critically examine how they represent nature through educational practice.