21: Imaginings and Practices of Sustainable Living in Sweden

The metrics of sustainable living are highly contested among Swedes. This is the argument that ethnographer Cindy Isenhour argues in her piece, Imaginings and Practices of Sustainable Living in Sweden. The rift exists between those that subscribe to a quantitative metric of lifestyle evaluation and those that subscribe to a qualitative metric. Quantitative metrics are popular as they allow a technical understanding which is often more approachable and respected by the industrial and academic class which dominates urban society. Qualitative metrics allow for a sometimes unexplainable, almost inane connection to the natural landscape that cannot be measured or calculated. A popular belief exists in Stockholm and many western urban centers that urban living is more sustainable as, on paper, it has a smaller carbon footprint. This is based in the fact that often resources are more dense and well connected by multiple modes of transportation. This dense landscape results in a dense lifestyle. Rural Swedes argue that a sustainable lifestyle is one with a more direct connection to the natural landscape. Rural Swedish lifestyles are less dense but qualitatively more sustainable. However, there are several key principles that unite the quantitatively- and qualitatively-sustainable lifestyles. These are principles deep ingrained in Scandinavian culture. The idea of global equity and equal claim to the environment (land) are constitutional and inalienable rights. Both urban and rural dwellers have a merited claim to an open and healthy natural landscape.