karlstad university studies, fredrik hoppstadius...

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM IN A BIOSPHERE RESERVE

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ANDTOURISM IN A BIOSPHERE RESERVE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM IN A BIOSPHERE RESERVE

FREDRIK HOPPSTADIUS

FREDRIK HOPPSTADIUS

A CASE STUDY OF LAKE VÄNERN ARCHIPELAGO BIOSPHERE RESERVE, SWEDEN

KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY STUDIES, 2018:34

Contemporary society has gone through comprehensive changes over the last century, and now faces growing global problems and crises, including increased globalisation and mobility, the exploitation of nature and people, growing environmental problems and climate change. These problems have brought about discussions on sustainable development as an expression of how to begin tackling some of the large-scale problems originating from modern society.

One way to counter the societal problems of implementing sustainable development was initiated by UNESCO in establishing biosphere reserves. These reserves are meant to be learning sites for sustainable development, and often include tourism as a means of becoming more sustainable. Tourism is an expression of how society operates, and therefore problems in society, such as a lack of sustainability, are reflected in, and amplified by, tourism.

The aim of this study was to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of sustainable development by researching tourism in a biosphere reserve. Findings suggest that sustainable development is a spatial relation, and something that we make together with other people, and that tourism, under certain circumstances, has the potential to contribute to sustainable development.

DOCTORAL THESIS | Karlstad University Studies | 2018:34

ISSN 1403-8099

ISBN 978-91-7063-963-0 (pdf)

ISBN 978-91-7063-868-8 (print)

Tryck & layout: Universitetstryckeriet, Karlstad, 2018

Sustainable development and tourism in a biosphere reserveA case study of Lake Vänern Archipelago Biosphere Reserve, Sweden

Fredrik Hoppstadius

Fredrik Hoppstadius | Sustainable developm

ent and tourism in a biosphere reserve | 2018:34

Sustainable development and tourism in a biosphere reserve





Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Human Geography


ISSN 1403-8099

ISBN 978-91-7063-963-0 (pdf)

ISBN 978-91-7063-868-8 (print)



Fredrik Hoppstadius

Print: Universitetstryckeriet, Karlstad 2018

Distribution:Karlstad University Faculty of Arts and Social SciencesDepartment of Geography, Media and CommunicationSE-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden+46 54 700 10 00

© The author

ISSN 1403-8099

URI: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-68691

Karlstad University Studies | 2018:34

DOCTORAL THESIS

Fredrik Hoppstadius

Sustainable development and tourism in a biosphere reserve - A case study of Lake Vänern Archipelago Biosphere Reserve, Sweden

WWW.KAU.SE

ISBN 978-91-7063-963-0 (pdf)

ISBN 978-91-7063-868-8 (print)

For Louise

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Acknowledgements

Dear reader,

There are so many wonderful feelings rushing through my body as I write these words. There are feelings of accomplishment, of gratitude and of humility over the lessons of recent years. So many people have helped me on my way and in becoming the person I am today. Writing a thesis is hard, and at times it cannot have been easy being around me. It takes a lot of effort dedicating many years to a single pursuit, but the rewards have proven to be exceptional. I have grown as a per-son and have so many of you to thank for it!

First of all, I would like to thank my parents, my sister and my brother for all their support and encouragement over the years. I could not have done it without you! Further I want to thank my grandparents and the rest of my family for giving me endless joy and laughter, and for their support throughout my life.

I am immensely grateful for all the help, support and advice from my supervisors Margareta Dahlström and Cecilia Möller. Thank you for believing in me, and thank you for guiding me through my time as a PhD candidate. Also, thank you for the collaborations on my articles. You have helped me tremendously and for this I am very thankful. Thank you Klas Sandell for our collaborations on one of my articles. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from you.

I would like to thank my colleagues in the Department of Geography, Media and Communication, and the Centre for Regional Studies and the Graduate School in Regional Studies at Karlstad University for their support, participation in discussions, and valuable contribu-tions. I want you all to know how much I appreciate your company.

I would like to give special thanks to Mekonnen Tesfahuney, Thomas Blom, Lars Aronsson, Mats Nilsson, Ida Grundel, Lena Grip and

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Thomas Torbjörnsson, for their comments on my research. Advice given by Eva Svensson, Annica Dahlberg, Marie Stenseke, Annika Jonsson, Gillian Rose and Shova Thapa Karki has been a great help in framing the research and methods used in my study. Furthermore, I would like to give a warm thank you to my opponents on my progres-sion seminars. Thank you Lena Grip, Peter Fredman and Linda Lundmark. Without you I would not have found my way. Inger Mag-nusson and Thina Wallin, you have done so much for me over the years. Thank you for everything! To my friends who shared the PhD journey with me I would like to say that having you along for the ride made me feel like I was part of a community. Thank you to all the PhD candidates at the Graduate School in Regional Studies, and a special thanks to Nina, Mats, Leena, Sascha and Linnea. I owe you all so much. Ida and Camilla, there is so much I want to say to you. When I first started at Karlstad University you took care of me and showed me how to survive and navigate the academic world. You two are my friends and partners in crime. Thank you for all the fun times, deep talks, quick chats and support. Thank you Christer Clerwall, for listening and being a great head of department. Further, I would like to thank Åsa and say that the Ginger Runner buff that you gave me is one of my most treasured pieces of clothing. Talking to you about ultra running is always an awesome part of my day. My fieldwork was made possible with funding from The Swedish So-ciety of Anthropology and Geography (SSAG) under SSAG fund, 2015. And parts of my PhD studies have been co-financed by the project “Professur med inriktning mot innovation och regional utveckling, Dnr 2013-41, project 4434, co-funded by Karlstad University and Region Värmland”.

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Last but not least, Louise. I do not have the words to describe how much you mean to me. I owe you so much for your patience, under-standing and support in everything. You are an amazing person and I love you.

Fredrik Hoppstadius 2018-08-19

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Articles included in this thesis

Article I

Processes of sustainable development: Ecotourism in biosphere reserves Fredrik Hoppstadius and Margareta Dahlström (2015). Journal of Envi-ronmental and Tourism Analyses 3(1): 5-25.

Article II

Tourism – as Exploration and Demonstration of Which Sustain-able Development? The Case of a Biosphere Reserve Fredrik Hoppstadius and Klas Sandell (2018). TOURISM: An International Interdisciplinary Journal 66(2): 161-176.

Article III

‘You have to try being a role model’ – learning for sustainability among tourism entrepreneurs in a Swedish biosphere reserve Fredrik Hoppstadius and Cecilia Möller. Article accepted for publication in European Journal of Tourism Research 27-04-2018.

Article IV

Tourist reflections on environmental sustainability in a bio-sphere reserve landscape Fredrik Hoppstadius. Manuscript submitted to International Journal of Tourism Research 14-02-2018.

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Collaborations and roles of contributors

The main body of this dissertation is an original intellectual product of the author, F. Hoppstadius. Three of the four articles included in the dissertation were co-authored with colleagues. Article I was co-authored with Prof Margareta Dahlström. Article II was co-authored with Prof Klas Sandell. Article III was co-authored with Dr Cecilia Möller. Article IV is the independent work of Fredrik Hoppstadius. Author contributions to Article I The overall work on this article was performed in collaboration with second author Margareta Dahlström. My role in Article I was to col-lect the empirical data, analyse the findings and write the first and final drafts of the article. As first author, I had a leading role in pre-senting our findings at conferences and was responsible for all corre-spondence connected to publication of the article. First author’s contributions to Article I

- Constructing the design for analysis of the data - Collecting data from research databases - Writing text for all parts of the article - Presenting the findings at international conferences - Corresponding with reviewers and the editor during the sub-

mission and publication process

Second author’s (Margareta Dahlström’s) contributions to Article I - Advising on the research idea and design of the article - Discussing the idea of the project - Overseeing the writing process, reviewing and revising drafts of

the article

Author contributions to Article II My role in Article II was mainly to provide the empirical findings, and contextualise these in relation to the conceptual frameworks of bio-sphere reserves, tourism and sustainable development. This involved interviews, document studies and comprehensive investigations of the state of the art, with regard to these research areas. Also I had a lead-

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ing role in the technical and communicative aspects of publishing the article.

First author’s contributions to Article II - Discussing the idea of the project- Collecting the majority of the empirical data- Analysing the empirical material and secondary data- Writing up the findings, conclusions and part of the theoretical

approach- Participating in revisions of the article- Presenting the findings at workshops and international confer-

ences- Corresponding with reviewers and the editor during the sub-


Second author’s (Klas Sandell’s) contribution to Article II - Advising on the research idea and design of the article- Overseeing the writing process, reviewing and revising drafts of

the article- Writing the introduction and theoretical approach- Advising on and discussing the analysis

Author contributions to Article III My role in Article III was to collect the majority of the empirical data, write the theoretical content connected to learning, place and sustain-ability, and take the leading role in communicating with the journal. The overall work of the article was performed in collaboration with second author, Cecilia Möller.

First author’s contributions to Article III - Coming up with the idea and overall plan for the project- Constructing the design of the project- Collecting the majority of the empirical data- Analysing the empirical material- Writing most of the text for the article (introduction, learning,

place and sustainability, methodology, findings, conclusions)- Corresponding with reviewers and the editor during the sub-


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- Organising resubmission of the article

Second author’s (Cecilia Möller’s) contribution to Article III - Advising on the research idea and design of the article- Overseeing the writing process, reviewing and revising drafts of

the article- Writing the entrepreneurship and learning section- Participating in, and co-conducting, two semi-structured inter-

views- Discussing the analytical framework- Advising on the revision process

Author contributions to Article IV I was the sole author.

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Table of contents

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vArticles included in this thesis .................................................................. ixCollaborations and roles of contributors ................................................... x

1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 15

1.1. Aim and research questions ............................................................ 211.2. Theoretical perspectives and concepts used in the study ............... 221.3. Thesis outline ................................................................................... 26

2. The complexities and dimensions of sustainable development ...... 27

2.1. Tourism as part of learning for sustainable development ................ 38

3. Research on sustainable tourism in biosphere reserves ................. 46

3.1. The production of sustainable tourism in biosphere reserves ......... 483.2. The consumption of sustainable tourism in biosphere reserves ...... 50

4. Biosphere reserves .............................................................................. 56

4.1. Lake Vänern Archipelago Biosphere Reserve ................................. 64

5. Spatial theories connected to sustainable tourism in biospherereserves ..................................................................................................... 67

5.1. Relational place and tourism ........................................................... 675.2. Substantive landscapes and BR tourism ......................................... 73

6. Methods ................................................................................................. 78

6.1. Methods and analysis in the articles ................................................ 796.1.1. Case study ................................................................................ 816.1.2. Semi-structured interviews ........................................................ 846.1.3. Participant observation and photographing .............................. 906.1.4. Secondary data ......................................................................... 936.1.5. Thematic analysis ..................................................................... 95

6.2. Methodological limitations .............................................................. 101

7. Article summaries ............................................................................... 104

Article I – Place-specific and relational aspects of sustainable development in BR tourism ................................................................... 104Article II – Tourism and shifts in the interpretation of sustainable development ......................................................................................... 106Article III – Social and place-specific processes of learning for sustainable development among tourism entrepreneurs ...................... 108

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Article IV – Tourist reflections on sustainability in a biosphere reserve landscape ............................................................................................. 110

8. Discussion ........................................................................................... 112

8.1. Breaking down larger processes of sustainable development in BRs .............................................................................................................. 1138.2. The interpretation of sustainable development in a BR is affected by tourism development ............................................................................ 1168.3. A relational understanding of place influences learning for sustainable development in a biosphere reserve ................................. 1198.4. A substantive understanding of landscape provides insights into the role of tourists in BRs ............................................................................ 123

9. Conclusions ........................................................................................ 127

9.1. Future research ............................................................................. 129

References .............................................................................................. 130

Appendix 1 .............................................................................................. 147

Article I

Article II

Article III

Article IV

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1. Introduction

Contemporary society has gone through comprehensive changes over the last century, and now faces growing global problems and crises, including increased globalisation and mobility, the exploitation of nature and people, growing environmental problems and climate change (Urry, 2015). The effects and realisation of these problems has brought about a discussion on sustainable development as an expres-sion of how to begin tackling some of the large-scale problems origi-nating from modern society and human (over)development.

The concept of sustainable development can be traced back to the Brundtland Commission’s report (1987), Our Common Future. Sus-tainable development is defined in the report as “…the kind of devel-opment that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland Commission, 1987). It can be argued that there is tension among sus-tainable development actors regarding whether the treatment of prob-lems generated by industrial societies is enough to achieve greater sustainability, or whether fundamental structural changes are needed (Redclift, 2005; Saarinen, 2013; Sharpley, 2009; Westley et al., 2011). Whichever development path one prefers, it is clear that sustainable development is complex, and consists of more than finding a balance between economic development, social development and environ-mentally-friendly development. In addition, Redclift (2005) argued that the broad scale of sustainable development makes the concept inaccessible and cluttered. One way of making sustainable develop-ment less cluttered is to analyse the concept in specific places and in relation to phenomena that reflect how modern society operates. Con-sequently, in this dissertation, I present analyses of sustainable devel-opment from the meeting point between tourism and a biosphere reserve (BR).

Tourism is an expression of how society operates. Gössling (2002) argued that tourism is a central part of modern society, and therefore problems in society, such as a lack of sustainability, are reflected in, and amplified by, tourism. These are vital problems for contemporary society (see Steffen et al., 2015). Tourism, and especially global tour-

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ism, is not sustainable (Gössling, Hall, Ekström, Engeset, & Aall, 2012). Yet tourism has been mobilised to assist in sustainable devel-opment (Amore, 2015). This paradox merits examination. Buckley (2012) noted that sustainability efforts in tourism are brought about by enlisting tourism to promote economic development, while simul-taneously safeguarding the future of humanity. As tourism is an ex-pression of how society functions, it becomes clear that ‘business as usual’ will not bring about changes in how sustainable development is understood. If one is attempting to change the way contemporary society understands sustainable development, then it makes sense to study sustainable development in an area that attempts to tackle the problem that sustainable development is meant to be the solution to. One way to counter the societal problems of implementing develop-ment that is sustainable was initiated by the United Nations Educa-tional, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in putting forward and sanctioning BRs. Such reserves are meant to function as “learning sites of excellence to explore and demonstrate approaches to conservation and sustainable development on a regional scale” (UNESCO, 1996, p. 16); as with all global concepts, BRs are filtered through national, regional and local conditions when such concepts are applied in place. The main idea with BRs is that humanity and nature can coexist and bring about development that is sustainable and beneficial to all, and that learning is an important aspect in this transition (UNESCO, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2010, 2013a, b). The BRs function as semi-protected test-ing sites for interdisciplinary advances in generating understanding, and dealing with changes and the interplay among social and ecologi-cal systems (UNESCO, 1996). Just because BRs aim to increase sus-tainability does not mean that they are inherently sustainable. Also, places with unprotected environment could likewise have the poten-tial to become more sustainable. BRs are supposed to show us how we can go about achieving sustainability, but research has shown that it is not that simple (Lyon, Hunter-Jones, & Warnaby, 2017), even in an area intended to be an example to be imitated, and particularly as the interpretation and expression of sustainable development in a BR might be affected by tourism development.

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In 2018, there were 686 BRs located in 122 countries around the world (see www.unesco.org/mab/ for a full list of these). The concept was put forward as a means of creating international cooperation and collaboration in regard to global environmental problems. The goal is to combine environmental conservation with socioeconomic objec-tives in chosen localities. The difference between BRs and other pro-tected areas is the explicit focus on sustainable development. Conse-quently, to a degree, this limits the transferability of my research find-ings, although these findings are applicable to areas with the dual aims of both conservation and sustainable development. This disser-tation reports on sustainable development at the meeting point be-tween tourism and BRs. Here, BRs are explored in terms of being part of local and destination-based conditions that give insights into sustainable development. UNESCO’s vision of the BR concept is to promote selected localities with high conservation credentials as test sites for sustainable devel-opment that can function as inspirational examples (UNESCO, 1984). The different reserves have the same basic framework, but place-specific manifestations of sustainable development are developed through a learning process. Such processes are herein understood to be the practices through which society changes between conditions, including the goals (e.g., sustainability) of the practices, as argued by Sharpley (2000). Tourism in BRs is recognised as a method of providing ways to devel-op small-scale and locally-anchored nature tourism, with the ambi-tion of minimising negative environmental effects, as a way of en-couraging nature and community engagement in sustainable ways, and enabling learning for sustainability (Ishwaran, Persic, & Tri, 2008; UNESCO, 2002). Learning is vital to sustainability in BRs, functioning as an important measure for stimulating sustainable envi-ronmental, economic and sociocultural development (UNESCO, 1996, 2015a, 2016). Research in BR tourism can provide important insights into local approaches to sustainable development by highlighting place-specific practices and approaches to linking socioeconomic development with biodiversity conservation. Place-specificity is un-derstood to include extensive stakeholder involvement, and takes into

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account geographical variations and local conditions, as proposed by Borsdorf et al. (2014). The importance of studying tourism lies in the best case scenario of tourism as an agent for sustainable development (Lyon et al., 2017). The implementation of environmental sustainability through sustain-able tourism has been discussed by Packer, Ballantyne, and Falk (2010) as changing human awareness regarding the environment, developing a way of living that refrains from activities that have a negative impact on the environment, and promoting large-scale life-style changes designed to support sustainability. Sustainable tourism does, however, have major flaws, as shown by certain recent studies. Saarinen (2013) argued that one of the main difficulties with sustain-able tourism is that much sustainable tourism research has focused on how to make tourism development more sustainable, calling for research into the opposite situation, in which tourism-centric devel-opment perspectives are shifted towards sustainability-centric per-spectives, along the lines of Morelli (2011). Sustainability-centric tourism research would generate a new body of literature investigat-ing how sustainable tourism can contribute to sustainability. Similar issues have been raised by Bramwell (2015), who stressed the need for increased critical engagement in the application, evaluation and con-ceptualisation of sustainable tourism. Research focused on the destination is often preferred by the tourism industry, as it highlights specific and local approaches. A destination is understood to be a place where tourists, locals and tourism stake-holders interact, and where tourism development and planning is emphasised (Laws, Agrusa, Scott, & Richins, 2011); however, a sys-tematic approach to tourism research where tourism is understood as part of a larger system would offer more leeway in generating general information and new knowledge that could be adapted to other places and situations. Tourism represents many of the shortcomings of con-temporary society, while at the same time being enlisted to solve questions of sustainability (see Amore, 2015; Gössling, 2002). The concept of tourism herein draws inspiration from the works of Duffy (2013) and Gössling et al. (2012), who noted that the complexi-

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ties of planning, production and consumption are apparent in societal structures, in individual agencies and on different geographical scales. In other words, whilst I conducted my research on a destination, the findings have implications for the systematic perspective of tourism. This study was inspired by the knowledge force-field developed by Tribe (2006). He argued that the factors that influence the processes in which the phenomenon of tourism is deciphered into its own field of knowledge is the knowledge force-field. According to him, this can be simply illustrated: “Tourism PhenomenonçèKnowledge Force-FieldçèTourism Knowledge” (Tribe, 2006, p. 362). The knowledge force-field consists of five factors relating to power and knowledge – position, person, ideologies, rules and ends (Tribe, 2006). Position entails geographical situatedness, academic field and academic influence and position. Person refers to the interplay be-tween the self and research and, for example, subjective views and the utilisation of objectivity. Ideologies connect to the researcher’s set of beliefs. Rules consist of the conventions the researcher adheres to and works according to. Ends is reflected in what truths the researcher seeks. For me, this determined that the phenomenal world of tourism, and the canon of its knowledge, in this study, be influenced by: position – being a PhD candidate in Human Geography, and having grown up with a sense of Nordic geographical situatedness (Olwig, 2013; Peet, 1998); person – interpretative epistemology (Phillimore & Goodson, 2004) applied through qualitative methods; ideologies and rules – “critical perspectives on the nature of tourism as a social phenome-non” (Franklin & Crang, 2001, p. 6); and ends – a societal develop-ment in which a better understanding of the complexities of sustaina-ble development and sustainability-centred tourism research contrib-utes to more informed decision-making. Relational theories connected to place and landscape were the two geographical perspectives used in this study. Places and landscapes have discrete boundaries, with internal mutual features that, over

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time, will change and transform, spatial units that interact with other similar or divergent spatial units; they are imbued with relational, cultural and subjective meaning and representation (Gkoltsiou & Terkenli, 2012; Massey, 1994; Olwig, 2013; Paasi, 2002). The con-cepts of place and landscape were used to provide spatial knowledge that could contextualise the findings and overall contribution of this study. Relational place was chosen as a theoretical foundation, as it is socially constructed, influences economic and political decisions, includes interactions between groups and individuals, and gives value to the language of representation and identity creation (Agnew, 1987; Martin, 2003; Massey, 1994). Relational theories of place provided context to learning for sustainability among tourism producers. In addition, a relational understanding of landscape provided the study with a focus on how physical, social and biological components in our surroundings intermingle and become perceived in the interrelation-ship between humans and their surroundings (Gkoltsiou & Terkenli, 2012). Relational theories of landscape provided context to how tour-ists consumption is manifested (Terkenli, 2002). In addition, land-scape was chosen as a theoretical foundation, as it is directly connect-ed to tourist consumption and UNESCO’s preservation objectives (Terkenli, 2002; UNESCO, 2015b). My case study was Lake Vänern Archipelago BR in Sweden. The re-search published in the articles and herein examined sustainable de-velopment in the nexus between tourism and a BR in different ways. In this nexus, the expressions of the inner workings of contemporary society and those of the ways in which the problems of contemporary society were tackled. The BR is a popular destination for tourists dur-ing the summer months, and one of the main objectives of the BR is to function as a testing site for sustainable development. The BR has been directed towards tourism development, as a means of generating economic growth, and sustainability, whilst simultaneously providing a local application of the BR concept. Many of the sustainability pro-jects and processes in the BR focus on the local business community and the development of tourism. Two notable projects are the ‘eco-tourism network’ 2009–2012 and the ‘international destination ready for export’ 2013–2014 (Backman, 2012; Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, 2013; Lindström, 2012).

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1.1. Aim and research questions

The overarching aim of this study was to contribute to a more com-prehensive understanding of sustainable development by researching tourism in a BR. To achieve this, I attempted to address one of the large-scale problems originating from modern society by drawing attention to empirical examples of the use of tourism in relation to sustainable development. Sustainable development is based on a broad range of environmental, economic and social elements, bound together by the fact that devel-opment is limited by boundaries in the environment (Ciegis, Ramanauskiene, & Martinkus, 2015; Steffen, Rockström, Cornell, Fetzer, Biggs, Folke, & Sörlin, 2015). Studies on tourism have the potential to contribute to sustainable development by changing envi-ronmental awareness, by promoting a way of life that reduces envi-ronmental impact, and by suggesting sustainable lifestyle changes, as noted by Packer et al. (2010). It is this aspect of sustainable develop-ment that I have addressed, as a contribution to the knowledge base, via the example of tourism development in BRs. Exploring the com-plex interaction between sustainable development and tourism in a BR provides the added value of a case study in which sustainable de-velopment is central and actively promoted, as BRs are meant to be learning sites for sustainability (UNESCO, 2016). By incorporating and highlighting a theoretical foundation, consisting of relational place, substantive landscape and sustainable develop-ment, this study included analysis of a selection of concrete tourism-related features, activities and actors, all of which influence sustaina-ble development. Consequently, the main research question of this study was:

How is tourism mobilised by different actors to attain and promote sustainable development in a BR?

This dissertation is a compilation of four articles and their combined contribution. Each of the articles addresses different aspects of sus-tainable development, various concrete tourism-related activities, and

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tourism actors. They report on: the potential contribution of tourism development to sustainable development in BRs; the potential influ-ence of tourism development on sustainable development in a specific BR; the way in which tourism producers learn sustainable develop-ment; the way in which tourism consumers understand their sur-roundings; and how place-specific and landscape-based understand-ing influence and shape BR agendas. The different concrete activities and actors in tourism were studied separately, but are interconnected, as I will elaborate on and discuss below. Four sub-questions were formulated in order to unpack the aim and main research question:

I. How does research on BR tourism contribute to an in-creased understanding of sustainable development?

II. How does tourism development affect local interpretations of sustainable development by different actors in a BR?

III. How does a relational understanding of place provide in-sights into learning for sustainable development among tourism producers in a BR?

IV. How can a substantive understanding of landscape provide insights into sustainable development and tourism con-sumers in a BR?

The four sub-questions took their place of departure from recent de-velopments in research, but also relate to how the progress of this study unfolded. Questions I and II highlight the overall role of tour-ism in a BR, while questions III and IV were used to take a closer look at specific actors in the production and consumption of tourism in a BR. This study was aimed at shedding new light on sustainable devel-opment by researching tourism in a BR. The implications of the re-sults presented herein will be useful in furthering our understanding of sustainable development.

1.2. Theoretical perspectives and concepts used in the study

In this section, I provide a brief outlook on the theoretical and con-ceptual approaches used in this study. The theories are explored in

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following sections, and the concepts are used throughout the disserta-tion in order to provide context. The theories and concepts are central to the included articles, and provide an opening for discussing sus-tainable development from the basis of my empirical material.

1.2.1. Theories used in the study

The theories used in this study were, to a large degree, influenced by the research questions posed by the articles included herein. The cen-tral theories are those of sustainable development, sustainable tour-ism, place and landscape. These were motivated by the aim, the re-search questions and the current literature. Starting with the articles on tourism in BRs, I put forward theories on sustainable development and learning for sustainable development, based on the production and consumption of sustainable tourism, place and landscape. The theories were chosen for various reasons connected to the four articles presented herein, and they and their paradoxes are discussed and problematised in the following chapters. Theories of sustainable development help to provide an ideological understanding of the problematic normative sustainability objectives connected to BRs by highlighting how complex sustainable develop-ment is. In addition, learning for sustainability, as a central aspect of UNESCOs BR objectives, highlights the social conditions of sustaina-ble development, and provides insights into the relationship between sustainability and tourism producers in BRs. Furthermore, theories of sustainable development provide the foundation for understanding the different processes included in the concept, and how different dimensions of sustainable development are affected by tourism and tourism development. Current debates around, problems with and aspects of sustainable development were analysed. Problems with sustainable development, aspects of environmental sustainability and the inclusion of tourism and learning for sustainability were consid-ered, while tying together tourism with one of the main goals of BRs. Research on sustainable tourism in BRs links previous research on tourism with BRs, and the chapter on BRs introduces the history and

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development of the BR concept, and the place-specific characteristics in the case of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR. Place was chosen due to the predominant research focus on tourism; place, which is common in tourism research, is often overlooked in BR tourism. Place provided a solid base for understanding and prob-lematising spatial manifestations of sustainable development and tourism. Subsequently, theories of place gave depth to the exploration of the relational and place-specific features of learning for sustainable development among tourism entrepreneurs. Theories of landscape provided added degrees of understanding, and help to materialise the spatial interactions of scenery in nature, in the institutions active in the landscape, the resources available, and con-textualisation of the substantive landscape in a BR. Landscape is di-rectly connected to both tourist consumption and the preservation objectives put forward by UNESCO. Furthermore, the use of relation-al landscape theories provided insights into sustainable development in a BR from the perspective of tourists. Relational perspectives on place and landscape help to unpack the top-down approaches in BRs, and provide different ways of under-standing the demarcated absolute spaces that are inherent to BRs.

1.2.2. Concepts used in the study

This study used several concepts that, in different ways, assisted the discussion of the relationship between sustainable development and tourism in BRs (see Appendix 1 for a detailed list of the most fre-quently used concepts and a brief explanation of their usage in my research). There was a change in focus with respect to the concepts during the progression of the research presented herein. Initially, ecotourism was central to the research conducted for Article I. During the later stages of the study, ecotourism became less central, as the concept contributed less to the understanding of tourism in the case of the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR. Ecotourism did play a role in my case

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studies, but it was mainly connected to a previous attempt in the BR to generate an ecotourism network. During the research for Article III, tourism entrepreneurship and learning for sustainable develop-ment provided the literature background, together with theories on place, whilst in article IV, sustainable tourism and theories on sub-stantive landscapes proved to be better suited to the study. Another concept that was central to the earlier stages of producing this dissertation was sustainability transitions, which provided the theoretical foundation for contextualising the crucial sustainable de-velopment processes in BR tourism for Article I. Consequently, as the research on the case of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR proceeded, other concepts provided additional case-specific knowledge that was better fitted to the research. The concept of sustainability transition is still part of the conceptual understanding of the complexities and dimen-sions of sustainable development presented in this dissertation, but more in a reinforcing capacity than I initially expected. The use of environmental sustainability in some of the articles origi-nated from the notion that the environmental aspects of sustainability have been a major focus in BRs. Today, after the Seville Strategy (UNESCO, 1996), environmental and conservatory aspects of sustain-ability are no longer the main focus of BRs. Rather, there is an at-tempt to adapt BRs to cover a broader understanding of sustainable development that includes social and economic dimensions. Whereas environmental sustainability was used in the study, it was meant to be understood as a clarification of the environmental focus of the sus-tainable development being discussed. In this work, sustainable de-velopment was understood to be the nexus of sustainable environ-mental, social and economic dimensions in which the environmental aspects are prerequisites for social and economic development. This understanding of sustainable development draws inspiration from Morelli (2011), who argued that environmental sustainability has the potential to function as a stand-alone concept, but that it always inter-links with the social and economic dimensions of sustainability. Mo-relli had an environment-centric perspective, which shares traits with the school of deep ecology, as argued by Naess (1973). Goodland

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(1995) professed that, without the environment, the social and eco-nomic dimensions of sustainability would fail.

1.3. Thesis outline

This dissertation contains nine chapters. Chapter 2 gives an account of The complexities and dimensions of sustainable development, and introduces tourism as an aspect of learning for sustainable develop-ment. Chapter 3 introduces Research on sustainable tourism in bio-sphere reserves, providing an account of the state of research on BRs, with a focus on the production and consumption of sustainable tour-ism. In Chapter 4 – Biosphere reserves – the emergence of, and phil-osophical shifts related to, BRs from the 1970s onwards are examined, giving the specific case of the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR. Chapter 5 presents Spatial theories connected to sustainable tourism in BRs, representing the key theoretical underpinnings of the study. Theories of relational place and substantive landscape are explored and put into the context of the study, and essential aspects of sustainability are discussed. Chapter 6 – Methods – contains deliberations on the different types of methods used, descriptions of the empirical material used in the different articles, and a depiction of how the empirical material was analysed. The relatively limited empirical material, in terms of quantity, was used to provide a broad and qualitative base for analysing and problematising the enlistment of tourism for sus-tainable development in BRs. Chapter 7 is Article summaries, in which my published articles, accepted article and manuscript are introduced. Chapter 8 is the Discussion, in which the theoretical and empirical material of the study is discussed and placed into a broader context, ending with suggestions for future research. Chapter 9 – Conclusions – provides a discussion of the contributions of this study to the general field, and its specific and general implications.

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2. The complexities and dimensions of sustainable development

Simplified, sustainable development is about planning for the future and balancing environmental, economic and social considerations in the pursuit of an improved quality of life for all of humanity (Ciegis et al., 2015; Redclift, 2005). It is difficult to even comprehend the scope of sustainable development. Jeronen (2013) argued that the principles and ideas behind sustainable development rely on a foundation of comprehensive, diffuse and contested concepts, such as environmen-tal preservation, equality, social progress, poverty alleviation and peace. Together, these concepts highlight the multitude of priorities and focus points that sustainable development encompasses. In this chapter, an overview of different uses, understandings and conceptu-alisations of sustainability are provided, as these are central to the research problem, providing insight into the complexities, and some-times opposing sides, of ecological modernisation, with growth hi-jacking sustainability on one side and the environmental aspects of sustainability on the other. Moreover, tourism, as part of learning for sustainable development, is discussed in order to clarify my take on sustainable development, and how it was used in this study in relation to structure, agency and scale. Sustainable development ranges from the local to supranational lev-els, and that is also reflected in the kind of institutions that BRs are (UNESCO, 2015b). Local initiatives and actions aimed at increasing sustainable development are influenced by global ambitions, such as reaching different stages of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed upon by the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2015 (UNESCO, 2015b). The 17 SDGs (Table 1) all have very different geographical implica-tions, depending on how local and place-specific actions are connect-ed to supranational ideas on sustainability. Different places influence, and are influenced by, sustainable development in diverse ways. The outcomes of sustainable development are often the result of local and national interpretations of supranational agreements, such as the

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SDGs (Ishwaran et al., 2008; While, Jonas, & Gibbs, 2010). This is one of the reasons why place was used in the study. Table 1. Description of SDGs (after UNESCO, 2015b, p. 14)

SDG Target Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote

sustainable agriculture Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives, and promote well-being for all at all ages Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education, and promote lifelong

learning opportunities for all Goal 5. Achieve gender equality, and empower all women and girls Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation

for all Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for

all Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and

productive employment, and decent work for all Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable indus-

trialisation, and foster innovation Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustain-

able Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for

sustainable development Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems,

sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the Global Part-nership for Sustainable Development

The background of sustainable development can be traced back to societal changes regarding the environment. One example is the de-bate about resources in Meadows, Meadows, Randers, and Behrens III’s (1972) Limits to Growth. Aronsson (2000) argued that sustaina-ble development as a concept has, since the 1970s, had enough trac-tion to establish itself as a school of thought in contemporary devel-

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opment theory. The concept of sustainable development gained a footing after the Brundtland Commission’s report (1987). Also, inter-nationally, sustainable development has been a central concept in the world since the Rio de Janeiro UN conference in 1992 (UNESCO, 1992). It is here, in the wake of Our Common Future and UNESCOs implementation, that this study took its starting point to explore sus-tainable development. One could argue that a significant tension in sustainable development pivots on whether treating the environmen-tally-negative effects of industrialised societies is enough, or if radical or fundamental changes in the prioritisation of these industrialised societies are needed (Redclift, 2005; Saarinen, 2013; Sharpley, 2009; Westley et al., 2011).

Different understandings of sustainable development

Sustainable development seems to be such a basic notion, filled with morally good intentions. Everyone seems to know what the concept aims to achieve – sustainable development is to undertake develop-ment environmentally, socioculturally and economically sustainably. Previous works have analysed sustainable development from many different aspects, for example, social, ecological, economic, ethical, political and many more. Dzemydienë (2008) argued that the prob-lematic nature of the sustainable development concept lies in the great variety of research techniques and fields that have explored the concept. In other words, sustainable development has become an empty signifier. The most comprehensive, broad understanding and definition of sus-tainable development comes from its origin in the Brundtland Com-mission’s report (1987), Our Common Future. In the report, sustaina-ble development is described as “…the kind of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This early definition of sustainable development is the most cited, and yet it is a definition formulated as a universal moral principle, rather than one that facili-tates practical application (Ciegis et al., 2015). This has created a situ-ation in which everyone seems to have his or her own approach to

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sustainable development. The SDGs (Table 1) were formulated, in part, to address this by operationalising sustainable development, and trying to move towards practical applications. Spaargaren (2011) em-phasised that two important reasons that sustainable development is so difficult to achieve, from a practical and moral standpoint, is that society needs to change its consumption habits towards sustainable consumption, and that this has to be done under constantly changing cultural, political and economic conditions. So, different agents have different understandings of what sustainable development is, and what has to be done is different for every situation. Ciegis et al. (2015) came to a similar conclusion when they argued that sustainable development in general is easy to grasp and under-stand on a conceptual level, but that an exact definition of the concept becomes almost impossible due to different, and sometimes contra-dictory, meanings attributed to the notion in the academic literature. They researched the concept of sustainable development and its use in sustainability scenarios and did not find a single reference that gave a definition of ‘sustainable’ that provided an ideal understanding of the concept. The ambiguity of sustainable development makes the concept very receptive to criticism. Svensson (2015) stated that the field of sustain-able development would benefit from recognising that there are com-peting interests and unequal power and social relations. This would facilitate participation and connection through strengthened contri-butions to sustainable development. One way to make sustainable development more manageable as a research tool is understanding that sustainable development is made up of smaller processes (Stagl, 2007). Breaking down large develop-ment problems into smaller pieces can often help clarify the bottle-necks that make development problematic in the first place. Harlow, Golub, and Allenby (2013) elaborated on this point when they ex-plored themes in sustainable development discourse, finding that developing small-scale experiments could shift the discussion from a countless number of definitions towards practical results at small scales.

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Sandell (2005) stated that the dichotomy of domination versus adap-tation is commonly identified when discussing the sustainability and dynamics of human relations with landscape and nature. A compara-ble division in the field of regional development was proposed by Friedmann and Weaver (1979), with the concepts of ‘territorial’ and ‘functional’ development. This approach allows for many different aspects, such as politics, culture and economy, to be analysed together with environmental issues. This means that the tension between terri-torial development – closely linked to alternative demands, such as local initiatives, bottom-up approaches and democratisation – and functional development – connected to modernisation and globalisa-tion – becomes useful in the discussion of sustainable development in initiatives such as BRs. Using this dichotomy of place specificity and territorial dependence versus global and universally-abstract conceptualisation – that is, functional dependence – in place of other areas in order to illustrate development choices can highlight important features of the complex-ities and dimensions of sustainability in BR tourism. In reality, sus-tainable development contains both territorial and functional ele-ments, but the balance between the two have the potential to uncover primary goals.

Ecological modernisation and growth As outlined above, there are different schools of thought in sustaina-ble development research, and sustainable development has grown to become more than one interpretation of safeguarding a proposed future. Two extensive schools of thought that have significantly influ-enced contemporary views on sustainability are the ecological mod-ernisation and economic growth-related development strategies. The implications of these schools of thought are explored below via the hijacking of sustainability. Ecological modernisation is a perspective that plays an important role in conceptualising the competing interests that, on different scales,

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make up the contemporary environmental regulatory framework (Gibbs, 2006). The perspective of ecological modernity proposes to provide a middle road to social equality, economic growth and the protection of nature (ibid.); however, it is a middle road that gives more attention to safeguarding economic development, and is not overly restricted by the dimensions of social and environmental sus-tainability. Glasson (2012) considered the threat of climate change to be a new factor for legitimising neoliberalism via ecological moderni-sation. There are important economic consequences to consider in sustainable development, as sustainable economic development is part of the triad of sustainable development objectives; however, all the different uses for, and all the different conceptual and practical applications of, sustainable development seem to point to the conclu-sion that sustainable development requires something more than upholding a balance that allows humanity to maintain the status quo, with small measures making sustainability more effective. This some-thing more could be change – small steps towards an increasing reali-sation of our inability to continue as before. One main objective of sustainable development is economic growth (Redclift, 2005). There are a number of questionable assumptions about economic growth, in relation to ecological modernisation and sustainable development: first, that high growth can be maintained; second, that it is necessary in order to address social and financial problems in sustainable development; and third, contradictorily, that growth is incompatible with sustainable development (Chen, 2009; Jännicke, 2012; Martinez Alier, 2009; Riley & Love, 2000; van den Bergh, 2011). Jännicke (2012) argued that accepting the reality of merely moderate growth in developed countries is a crucial necessity in combatting the illusion that all fiscal problems can be overcome by higher growth rates. Further, he argued that moderate growth in the present market system needed to be accompanied by a large increase in eco-innovation, together with steps towards less of a focus on growth. Green growth is another common concept found in the sustainable development and ecological modernisation literature. It denotes a strategy for crisis prevention, as proposed by the Organisation for

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Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Jännicke (2012) defined green growth as moderate growth that is compensated for by eco-innovations. The term ‘green growth’ applies to growth of the entire economy due to investment in, and upgrading of, the produc-tion system so that it involves environmentally-aware products and processes (Jänicke, 2012). Green growth is a response to two large challenges facing humanity – addressing environmental challenges and expanding the economic possibilities for an ever-growing global population. The OECD defined green growth as the stimulation of economic development and growth while safeguarding the natural resources and environmental condi-tions necessary to ensure the future well-being of the global popula-tion (OECD, 2011). The OECD pointed out that green growth is not meant to be a replacement for sustainable development strategies. Instead, green growth is viewed as complementary to sustainable development, assuring the economic potentiality of environmental and natural resources in a sustainable way. When problematising economic growth in relation to sustainable development, it is important to bear in mind that approaches such as green growth are depleting resources to a lesser degree than non-green approaches. Green growth is better for the environment than non-green growth. This understanding has received criticism, as it fails to problematise capitalism or the concept of growth. This means that green growth is lessening the negative environmental effects of traditional industry and commerce by making capitalism more eco-efficient. Bina and La Camera (2011) claimed that policy responses under the various ‘green’ labels fails to address rising human inequali-ties and the environmental crisis situation. Brand (2012) stated that a continued depletion of resources could generate conflicts on different spatial scales, and will most likely require different solutions than those solely focusing on economic growth. In addition, focusing more on growth than, for example, on equality and justice means that such approaches are counterproductive to the SDGs. Much of the contemporary criticism of sustainable development, green growth and the green economy seems to be directed at neolib-

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eral capitalism. This can be seen in the work of Prudham (2009), who argued that green growth draws its roots from capitalism’s pursuit of accumulation for accumulation’s sake. Kennet and Heinemann (2006) sanctioned green growth by pointing out the importance of environmentalism, and defining ‘green economics’ as the manage-ment of economics to safeguard nature as usual, rather than envi-ronmental management for business as usual. This, they argued, re-quires an integrated community, wherein nature and people are acknowledged for their integral parts in green economic development. Hoffmann (2011) stated that transformation toward greener devel-opment ought to go beyond innovation and include structural chang-es, democratisation of the economy and cultural change. In essence, the question comes down to human willingness to change, or human willingness to keep doing what humanity is already doing. The idea of economic growth in relation to sustainable development is an oxymoron, utterly complex, and riddled with political and ideolog-ical notions, but so is the concept of sustainable development itself.

Hijacked sustainability

The idea that sustainability has been hijacked is one problem that permeates sustainable development, and has been postulated by Parr (2009). The hijacking of sustainability refers to the usage of sustaina-ble development, and how such usage obscures conflicts with balanc-ing the economic, social and environmentally sustainable aspects. Parr (2009) goes on to argue that the culture that surrounds sustain-ability is inherently eurocentric, and intertwined with the logic of capitalism, which involves the productive and political force of the culture coming from its ability to generate economic value. This can be seen in the environmental campaigns of large oil companies that attempt to broaden their market base through environmentally-responsible corporate images, and through recent interest in the sus-tainability movement by Hollywood (ibid.). Another example could be the implementation of a strategic expan-sion of tourism in BRs. The hijacking of sustainability is a term that

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describes the processes of green-washing, and environmentally-friendly initiatives driven by economic incentives (ibid.). In other words, focusing on how sustainable development can contribute to tourism development, instead of the opposite. Notions like the hijacking of sustainability shed light on the complex relationships and interplays between nature and society, with respect to sustainable development. Castree (2008) suggested a neo-Marxist approach as a good starting point, by problematising environmental governance and regulation. In doing so, he pointed to issues of de-mocracy concerning the back-and-forth between nature and society. Production depends on the interaction of labour with nature, but the law of value determines how the product of nature is assigned value and distributed across space (Harvey, 1996). The impact of environ-mental degradation is always uneven, in a geographical sense. No-tions of environmentalism and the understanding of nature are at the forefront of progress in sustainable development (Warren, 2012). The benefit of using a relational approach to conducting research on sus-tainable development is that it allows for going beyond the dichoto-mies of nature and society, instead highlighting their intersecting trajectories. Macnaghten and Urry (1998) argued that nature is contested, as what nature is depends on how humans sense it, and that these senses pro-duce different natures. Furthermore, they claimed that the way that people value nature is context- and place-specific, but that this makes it unclear and often inconsistent. This suggests that nature, and how we understand it, is connected and derived from four significant fea-tures: 1) the majority of research related to nature is quantitative, making qualitative, historical and critical research marginal; 2) re-search on environmental issues is contested, as it tackles ideological conceptions that are at the centre of Western thought; 3) research on nature and the environment engages with politics and policies on a variety of scales, ranging from the local to the global; and 4) the ever-increasing global nature of both physical and social occurrences indi-cates that the division of nature and society cannot be sustained (Macnaghten & Urry, 1998). This means that the scenario in which

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hijacking occurs comes into play due to a contemporary understand-ing of the interconnected relationship between humanity and nature.

Environmental aspects of sustainability and links to the field of tourism As noted above, there are many different definitions of sustainable development; however, the many different reformulations of the Brundtland Commission’s definition usually require an understand-ing of sustainable development as being the balance between nature and humanity via environmental protection, sociocultural develop-ment and economic development (Redclift, 2005). This argument was echoed by Steffen et al. (2015) when claiming that sustainability is based on a broad range of environmental, economic and social ele-ments, bound together in the fact that development is limited by envi-ronmental boundaries. There is no questioning the need for sustaina-bility. Social and economic sustainability depends on materials, energy and environmental recourses. Without the environment, social and eco-nomic sustainability will fail (Goodland, 1995). Environmental sus-tainability, as the only piece of the sustainability puzzle that can stand by itself, merits further research in order to provide new information and solutions that can further progress the other two legs of sustaina-bility (Lang et al., 2012; Morelli, 2011; Scott, 2011). Goodland (1995) claimed that environmental sustainability is a rea-sonably clear concept compared to sustainable development. He went on to argue that the great challenge of making sure, in less than two human generations, that over 10 billion people are housed and fed without completely destroying the environment that we depend on will entail reaching, or at least drastically increasing, environmental sustainability as soon as possible. The task of implementing environ-mental aspects of sustainability was discussed by Packer et al. (2010) as changing human awareness regarding the environment, developing a way of living that refrains from activities that have a negative impact on the environment, and implementing large-scale lifestyle changes

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designed to support environmental sustainability. Another way of implementing environmental sustainability is to understand more about environmental impacts, such as the human impact on the land-scape through tourism, and on the environment via pollution and consumption (Knight & Gutzwiller, 1995; Mathieson & Wall, 1982; Sharpley, 2006). Spenceley (2005) determined that there are four distinct features of tourism development that need to be taken into account regarding environmental sustainability: 1) tourism consists of many linked ac-tivities, which makes it difficult to distinguish cause and effect; 2) the long-term effects of tourism are difficult to pinpoint; 3) actual physi-cal changes to the environment and landscape may not always be detrimental to its survival; and 4) the extent to which ecosystems recuperate after impacts is poorly understood. Taking this into ac-count, it becomes clear that tourism has the potential to contribute to environmental sustainability, even though tourism might damage certain natural areas. Tourism has also been hijacked for growth-oriented environmentalism. The key to the role of tourism for sus-tainability centres on structure versus agency, as in its potential abil-ity to implement changes in lifestyle and values that, in a broader sense, contribute to increasing environmental sustainability. This notion requires an understanding that environmental sustainability is a prerequisite to social and economic development, however. If this is the case, then environmental sustainability, as discussed by Morelli (2011), could be understood as broadening the definition of sustaina-ble development (meeting the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs), by adding an interconnectedness that allows for humanity to meet its needs without sweeping away the environmental legs needed to do so. It is in this context that tourism, as part of learning for sustainable development in BRs, becomes particularly interesting to consider. BRs, as test sites for learning and sustainability, have the theoretical potential to implementing sustainability by changing environmental awareness, mitigating negative impacts on the environment, and in-stigating large-scale lifestyle changes in favour of sustainability.

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2.1. Tourism as part of learning for sustainable development

This section contains an introduction to, and discussion on, learning for sustainable development, and outlines the connection between this process and tourism. Learning for sustainable development high-lights the cultural and social dimensions of sustainable development present in BR tourism; however, in order to understand tourism and learning for sustainable development, ‘learning’ in this context first needs to be defined. Learning for sustainable development is a process of sustainability that includes a variety of actors on a local scale who attempt to change according to a certain set of structures decided on at a supranational level. Learning is central to UNESCO’s BR strategies, aiming to facili-tate a context that enables further sustainable development (UNESCO, 2016). The connection to tourism lies in the agency-driven features of learning for sustainability, UNESCO’s integration of tour-ism in sustainable development, and learning as vital to the tourism experience, from both the producer and consumer perspectives (Nguyen, Bosch, & Maani, 2011; Stagl, 2007; UNESCO, 2002). BRs can function as spaces of learning on the premise that consumers and local producers are susceptible to learning for sustainable develop-ment. A certain degree of openness is required, as with all processes. In addition, learning is place-specific, meaning that the actual specific learning conditions might not be transferable, but the facilitating processes and conditions are. The learning of tourism producers and consumers was the focal point in the empirical work behind this study. There are chronological fea-tures to how learning in general has evolved, and the starting point in this chapter is learning within the structure of UNESCO’s BRs, ap-plied to the agency of tourism producers and consumers, and applied scale-wise to a destination. Stagl (2007) labeled learning for sustaina-ble development, in the aforementioned contemporary contex, a mix-ture of tools, procedures and practices among stakeholders that are continuously adjusting to dynamic conditions. The understanding comes from learning for sustainability being mostly interaction-driven, fuelled by networks, meeting new, inspiring people, seeing what others in similar situations are doing, and being influenced by

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local initiatives. Valuable insights into the processes of sustainable development can be found by working from the presumption that sustainable development is made possible through complex learning processes (de Kraker, Cörvers, Valkering, Hermans, & Rikers, 2013; Nguyen et al., 2011; Stagl, 2007). It is therefore important to sort out who is learning – for example, groups, individuals, organisations or institutions – what they are learning, and why (or whether) they should be learning. Learning processes for sustainable development are made up of knowledge and learning, which occur in various constellations and in interactions between people, companies, organisations and institu-tions (Nguyen et al., 2011). The learning processes are action-driven and interaction-oriented among stakeholders, and the outcomes of the learning are connected to both practical solutions to sustainability issues, as well as being connected to general environmental under-standing and different ways of living more sustainably. Three types of learning processes – social, organisational and individ-ual – that could be beneficial to learning for sustainable development can be identified in the literature. Social learning was defined by Keen, Brown, and Dyball (2005) as collective reflections and actions among various groups and individuals in their endeavours to improve environmental and human interrelations. Social learning for envi-ronmental sustainability consists of interactions with others, rather than learning in a more academic context. Organisational learning can be defined as learning that transfers tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge within an organisation (Crossan, Lane, & White, 1999), and is dependent on created environments for learning to occur in, in organisational structures and social systems (Akgün, Lynn, & Byrne, 2003; Stein, 1997). The way that organisations learn centres on acces-sibility and the dissemination of knowledge and information. Individ-ual learning is dependent on environments where information is readily available, and requires contact with multiple sources, such as peers and social networks (Stagl, 2007). The learning processes are found in practices, procedures and institutions for public decision-making (Stagl, 2007).

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Learning processes for sustainable development are an integral part of combatting environmental degradation and climate change, and sustainable development needs to continuously develop new knowledge in order to adapt to place-specific conditions. Without new input, no new actions can be taken to influence humanity’s effects on our surrounding environment. De Kraker et al. (2013) studied learn-ing for regional sustainable development, concluding that learning is very important for implementing sustainable development. Learning for sustainable development benefits from different types of learning and interaction being supported on many scales. Stagl (2007) argued that the support for learning should consist of organisations or insti-tutions initiating procedures that enable learning and practices for learning that make routines for public decision-making easier. Rou-tines and opportunities are important for learning to work. Nguyen et al. (2011) studied learning laboratories as a means of gath-ering local operators and stakeholders together in order to create cohesion in planning for the future and making decisions. This cohe-sion gives stakeholders the opportunity to learn and think, hand in hand, and is an important factor in supporting sustainable develop-ment and the transition needed to facilitate it. Increasingly complex features make up sustainable development, and by focusing research on learning processes, the principles needed to manage this complexi-ty can be determined (Nguyen et al., 2011). Stagl (2007) stated that learning for sustainable development needs empirical research that attempts to capture learning processes, and links between learning processes, on different scales. The constantly changing conditions connected to learning for sustain-able development provided an understanding of learning that was used in this study. Learning is more than formal education, and learn-ing and sustainable development in tourism are made up of intricate interactions and practices among both producers and consumers of tourism. Stakeholders in tourism that might have acted separately in the past usually benefit from cooperation and interaction in complex networks of practices and learning when engaging in more sustaina-ble development (Halme, 2001). The importance of learning process-es in sustainability has been explored from many different angles.

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One example is de Kraker et al. (2013) who postulated that learning processes for sustainable development are important because they tells us about how different actors interact with each other, and how the implementation of sustainable development takes place. Lessons can be learned by looking at the learning processes connected to the production and consumption side of tourism (Regmi & Walter, 2016; Walter, 2013). The learning processes of sustainable develop-ment from the production side of tourism are usually connected to the implementation of sustainable development via lifestyle orientation, financial opportunities, local attachment, administrative options, availability of human resources and time constraints (Dewhurst & Thomas, 2003; Sampaio, Thomas, & Font, 2012; Thomas, 2015). In other words, the learning for sustainability that could occur among tourism businesses is most likely connected to the lifestyle of the business owners or entrepreneurs. Learning for sustainability among tourism producers is apparently connected to whether or not the businesses are earning enough mon-ey to reinvest and make an effort into increase their sustainability efforts. Producer attachments to the place in which they conduct their businesses seem to affect how learning for sustainability manifests. Furthermore, there is a spatiality to learning processes for sustainable development among producers (de Kraker et al., 2013; Nguyen et al., 2011) whereby the places in which learning occurs influence what type of means to engage, and what interactions and outcomes are possible (Koutsouris, 2009; Mesquita, Anand, & Brush, 2008). Place matters, and affects the processes of learning present in producing tourism (Falk, Ballantyne, Packer, & Benckendorff, 2012). Learning suffers when there are no beneficial conditions available, such as opportuni-ties to engage and interact. Schultz and Lundholm (2010) argued that, in order for individual and collective learning to occur in BRs, there need to be clear opportuni-ties for learning for sustainable development. Furthermore, they also emphasised the connection to research on socioeconomic knowledge, and the presence of formal and informal networks in which the learned knowledge can be shared. In other words, learning for sus-

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tainable development and learning in BRs require opportunities, re-search, and a place in which learning can be disseminated. Falk et al. (2012) discussed how tourist learning is connected to expe-riences, expectations and needs. They concluded that tourist learning transcends traditional learning, connected to formal education, as the added dimension through experiences provides the tourists with en-hanced comprehension, and so facts or concepts are most often not the most salient learning outcomes. Instead, place-specific learning becomes connected to the place. The most notable learning outcomes are that tourists learn more than facts; for example, whale watchers gain a deeper understanding and connection to the world, and pen-sioners visiting a new country and learning about its history also de-velop a personal connection to another culture. The learning for sus-tainability among consumers of tourism is connected to the consump-tion of sustainable tourism in BRs, and is further elaborated on in Chapter 3. Tourism that takes place in nature presents risks for potentially dam-aging more vulnerable environments, but bringing people out into nature also provides an opportunity for tourists to learn more hands-on about environmental awareness, local environments and environ-mental protection (Kimmel, 1999). According to Farrell and Twining-Ward (2005), the transition towards sustainable development in tour-ism relies on new knowledge inclusion on complex environmental and social systems, and collaborative research. They found that sustaina-ble development as an end goal is unattainable in tourism, and that the focus should be on understanding and facilitating sustainability transitions through new knowledge concerning various processes of sustainability efforts in tourism instead. They argued that, even though tourism cannot be fully sustainable, we can learn about sus-tainability through research, collaboration and knowledge transfer within tourism.

Sustainable development in this study Analysis of sustainable development in the intersection between tour-ism and BRs permates this dissertation and all of my articles. Here,

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the different understandings of sustainable development, and the links between the pervasive understanding and notions of ecological modernisation (Gibbs, 2006: Glasson, 2012), economic growth (OECD, 2011: Redclift, 2005) and the hijacking of sustainability (Parr, 2009) on one hand, and the focus on environmental aspects of sus-tainable development (Packer et al., 2010) on the other, have been explored in the articles. A focus on the differences between economic aspects and sustainable development and environmental aspects oc-cupies the centre of the research, as tourism development and BRs approach sustainable development with almost opposing objectives. The interpretation of sustainable development, and the processes of sustainable development in BR tourism, were central to the research presented in this dissertation. Considering this, a thorough under-standing of the complexities and dimensions of sustainable develop-ment became paramount during the study; however, as we have seen, sustainable development is broad, and mostly operates as a moral principle, rather than a practical operational strategy. Here, the de-construction of large development issues can shift the focus from problematic definitions towards practical small-scale results, as dis-cussed by Harlow et al. (2013). This approach was used in this study to problematise sustainable development in relation to conception of place from the inside, via local processes and approaches, instead of evaluating the outcome of sustainable development from generalising outside and looking in. The discussions in this chapter relate to the ends aspects of my appli-cation of Tribe’s (2006) knowledge force-field, as the problematisa-tion of sustainable development reflected the information I was seek-ing. In this study, this was represented by the need for a better under-standing of sustainable development that could enable more informed decision-making. Lastly, and as a transition to the following section, the social dimen-sions of sustainable development are highlighted via local approaches to learning. Here, the economic and environmental aspects of sus-tainable development become the objectives and goals for socially- and interaction-driven local processes that have the potential to un-cover, and put actors at the centre of, sustainable development.

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Learning for sustainable development in this study Theories of sustainable development can be used to problematise, contextualise and highlight, for example, the importance of learning in BRs by separating the normative notions on sustainability that UNESCO aims to convey, and instead highlighting learning that is taking place among tourism actors in the BRs as a social process of sustainable development. Learning for sustainable development consists of both what it is that one is supposed to learn about sustainability and how one goes about learning it. This does not mean that the focus of this study was an evaluation on what people and companies have learnt. Rather, it fo-cused on what consumers are supposed to learn, how and what they actually learn, and which messages producers and organisations are sending out. In the case of tourism in BRs, the senders of what is to be learnt are the BRs themselves – with a history in conservation, and an ambition to implement growth that is green – with a focus on the notion that themes, such as environmentally friendly and sustainable, from a nature perspective can be compatible with increased economic development (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, 2017; Malena & Schultz, 2017). In the study, I worked on the assumption that sustainable develop-ment is made possible through complex learning processes, as pro-posed by de Kraker et al. (2013), Nguyen et al. (2011) and Stagl (2007). The aspects of learning for sustainable development were explored in Article III. The way that learning for sustainable devel-opment was used in the study centres on the social processes of learn-ing for sustainability among two types of actors in the BR, the first being tourism producers, the second being tourists that visit BRs. Learning for both tourists and tourism producers was understood to be interaction-driven in this study, and affected by the sustainability framework originating from UNESCO and the BRs. This is where the basic understanding of what sustainable development is, and how

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sustainable development can be implemented, comes from. The tour-ism producers are not as central to the learning processes of tourists as tourists are central to tourism producers, but the producers still play an important role in the interactions of tourists. Knowledge con-nected to sustainable development is then filtered through the tour-ism producers and consumed by the tourists in the BR landscape. Tourists are not passive consumers in these learning processes. In-stead, they are actively participating in the BR landscape, with learn-ing connected to sustainable development becoming central to their experiences, due to the influence UNESCO’s notions have on sustain-able development in BRs. The difference with learning for sustainable development in BRs, compared to other types of learning, is that the learning is place-specific, affected by the expressions of tackling envi-ronmental problems, which is central to BR initiatives.

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3. Research on sustainable tourism in biosphere reserves

The role of sustainable tourism in BRs is discussed in the tourism literature. Tourism has become central to the sustainability objectives of many BRs over the last couple of decades (Beery & Jönsson, 2017; Gu et al., 2015; Malena & Schultz, 2017; UNESCO, 2002, 2010; Yuan, Dai, & Wang, 2008). The objective of sustainable tourism is to miti-gate the negative environmental outcomes and effects of tourism (Ruhanen, Weiler, Moyle, & McLennan, 2015). This objective is ambi-tious, and often leads to pitfalls due to the complexities and dimen-sions of sustainable development (Lyon et al., 2017). It is worth noting that the sustainability in tourism is not solely de-pendent on protected areas, such as national parks or BRs, rather it is about how sustainable tourism is carried into effect, and its underly-ing objectives and focuses. Firstly, studying the enlistment of tourism in increasing sustainable development in BRs could provide insights into how sustainable development is practiced. Secondly, the way in which different actors use tourism in relation to sustainable develop-ment is not only dependent on sustainable tourism. That being said, theories on sustainable tourism and case studies problematising as-pects of sustainable tourism can provide clarification on how tourism is being has been mobilised to assist in sustainable development ef-forts. Buckley (2012) determined that the tourism industry predominantly focuses on the economic dimensions of sustainable tourism develop-ment when it comes to sustainable tourism. In addition, research on sustainable tourism tends to be overlooked by the tourism industry. The results of research on contested domains, such a sustainable tour-ism, tend to become political tools for decision-makers. In the field of tourism studies, sustainability is treated as a small subdiscipline, despite it dealing with the future of humanity and the planet. All this implies that tourism has also been hijacked when it comes to issues of sustainability.

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Saarinen (2013) noted that one of the main problems with sustainable tourism is that much related research has focused on how to make tourism development more sustainable, when the opposite – that is, a shift from tourism-centric development perspectives towards sustain-ability-centric perspectives – would open up new avenues of research into how sustainable tourism can contribute to sustainability. Shifting the focus of the objectives of sustainable development could provide new knowledge and highlight the problems associated with sustaina-ble tourism. Bianchi (2018) argued that an underlying problem in tourism, not just in sustainable tourism, is the too narrow focus and a tendency to em-phasise practical takes on local development, the advocacy of small-scale alternatives to development, and the underlying feasibility of tourism at the local level. Furthermore, he noted that research on tourism and its connections to larger societal issues (for instance, sustainability) are vital in exploring and tackling measures that better address the issues of sustainable tourism. Similar issues were raised by Bramwell (2015) who stressed the need for increased critical engagement in the conceptual application and evaluation of sustainable tourism. Issues regarding sustainable tour-ism mirror how central tourism has become to contemporary Western society. Given that tourism is a central part of modern industrialised and urbanised societies and, consequently, a problem in those socie-ties, in terms of, for example, issues of sustainability, it is not surpris-ing that issues of sustainability are reflected in, and amplified by, tourism (Gössling, 2002; MacCannel, 1976). The following two sections centre on two parallel, yet interlinked, aspects of sustainable tourism in BRs – production and consumption. It is worth noting that these two aspects of sustainable tourism were not viewed in opposition, or as dichotomies, in this study. Rather, the production and consumption of sustainable tourism are interweaved, constituting two sides of the same coin. They are compartmentalised only for practical reasons relating to the gathered empirical material in Articles III and IV, as well as for the presentation of literature and

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case studies focusing on either tourism producers or tourism consum-ers.

3.1. The production of sustainable tourism in biosphere reserves

Starting in 2002, UNESCO advocated tourist-centric development, as the research presented above is critical of. UNESCO saw that tourism, particularly ecotourism, could be promoted in BRs due to ecotour-ism’s explicit focus on preservation, nature, learning and community engagement (UNESCO, 2002). This means that the unsustainable aspects of tourism, for example, transport, exploitation and mass tourism, could be countered on a destination scale by focusing on local, place-specific approaches in which learning came to play an important role. Contemporary sustainable tourism development in BRs is often the result of trying to develop small-scale, localised economic develop-ment that aims to balance economic growth with safeguarding of the environment (Habibah et al., 2012; Maikhuri, Rao, Saxena, Rana, & Nautiyal, 2000; Olson, 2012). Nevertheless, these attempts are usual-ly collaborative approaches that include many different stakeholders, with different objectives and ambitions (Azcárate, 2010). The tourism industry has become part of sustainability approaches and agendas for destinations, municipalities and nations across the globe (Bramwell, Higham, Lane, & Miller, 2017); however, critics have questioned this development, as tourism requires fossil-fuel-intensive transport and often exhibits unsustainable traits at local, regional and national scales (Dubois, Peeters, Ceron, & Gössling, 2011). The logic behind the policy is the drive for tourism development. One big difference between sustainable tourism in general and sus-tainable tourism in BRs is that the BR places and landscapes contrib-ute to a spatial anchoring tied to a certain set of local core values and sustainability ambitions, as laid out by UNESCO (UNESCO, 2015a, b, 2016). Many of these core values are, to a large degree, reflected in the research on sustainable tourism.

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Many insights into tourism in BRs can be gleaned from the investiga-tion of research into sustainable tourism. The dimensions that are characteristic of sustainable tourism in the literature tie BR tourism to the sustainability ideal promoted by UNESCO via BRs. Sustainable tourism has grown significantly in the last couple of decades (Page & Dowling, 2002). Kerstetter, Hou, and Lin (2004) found that sustaina-ble tourism consumers, in most cases, show a high level of under-standing and approval of conservation efforts at their chosen destina-tion, and that they take part in actions that aid environmental sus-tainability at the destination. Page and Dowling (2002) discovered that research on sustainable tourism usually investigated the relationship between tourism and sustainability, but that sustainable tourism was also used to describe commodified environmental tourism activities, such as kayaking, hiking, etc. Thus, the term is often applied to vastly different phe-nomena, and is used inappropriately. It seems that a focus on envi-ronment can be a lucrative business opportunity, an aspect that might explain why governments and tourism operators view sustainable tourism in a positive way, while locals and tourists tend to be more critical of its benefits (Fennell, 2008; Fennell & Malloy, 1999; Jamal & Camargo, 2014; Weaver & Xin, 2016). Kala and Maikhuri (2011) stated that defining sustainable tourism is problematic, as a multitude of definitions are tailored to suit vastly different specificities in fair-trade tourism, nature-based tourism, soft tourism, green tourism, wilderness tourism, ecotourism and many more small-scale tourism activities. Sustainable tourism is not only economic development and touristic consumption, nor only environ-mental awareness, and neither is it solely driven by ethics. Many criti-cal issues relating to sustainable tourism are connected to the ambi-tion of increasing sustainability (Riasi & Pourmiri, 2016). As outlined above, sustainability is a highly contested notion that consists of many problematic elements (Ciegis et al., 2015). Sustainable tourism is gen-erally considered to be an attempt to lessen the outspoken negative environmental impacts of tourism (Jamal & Camargo, 2014). Basical-ly, the paradox is that global tourism is unsustainable (Gössling et al.,

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2012). Consequently, the production of tourism is also unsustainable ipso facto. The production of sustainable tourism is built on the notion that tour-ism entrepreneurs and businesses in a destination both compete against each other and interact as collaborating stakeholders (Cooper, Scott, & Baggio, 2009). Saarinen (2006) noted that one potential for sustainability in tourism rests on the notion that the tourism produc-ers sell a product that is directly connected to their sustainability ef-forts, meaning that the success of sustainable tourism production is intertwined with how the producers tackle sustainability. This is im-portant to note, as many producers of sustainable tourism are small tourism businesses with limited access to capital, and the producers are predominantly motivated by lifestyle factors (Dewhurst & Thomas, 2003). These small firms have a harder time adopting environmental strate-gies due to time constraints, and the lack of administrative and finan-cial resources (Sampaio et al., 2012; Thomas, 2015). Yet, at the same time, the smaller lifestyle-oriented firms may have stronger commit-ments to sustainability issues due to moral, personal and ideological convictions, as well as a local attachment (Dewhurst & Thomas, 2003).

3.2. The consumption of sustainable tourism in biosphere reserves

Tourists, as consumers, are interlinked with tourism providers in the simultaneous production and consumption of tourism (Booms & Bitner, 1981; Smith, 1994). Tourist consumption manifests in many different ways, including, but not limited to: consumption of place, such as the ‘tourist gaze’, as theorised by Urry (2002); as performance and participation, as studied by Edensor (2007) and Larsen and Urry (2011); and as experience, as explored by Chronis (2015) and Ek, Larsen, Hornskov, and Mansfeldt (2008). Below, I explore tourism consumption by looking at tourist experiences, environmental convic-tions and consumption habits.

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Tourist experiences

The experience of tourists is shaped by both what is happening and where it is happening, and is often a reflection of self interpretation (Bosangit, Hibbert, & McCabe, 2015; Chronis, 2015). The experiences of tourists in a BR relate to identity processes (Holden & Sparrowhawk, 2002; Nowaczek & Smale, 2010) and conceptions of nature and landscape in the BR (Assenova, 2012; Healy, 1994; Kim, Lee, Uysal, & Ahn, 2015; Macnaghten & Urry, 1998). According to Rosenbaum and Wong (2007), interactions between locals and tourists in a friendly setting give increased value to the experience of the tourists. Such interactions provide tourists with an opportunity to get involved and contribute to the co-created tourism experience. In a BR, the involvement of tourists centres around gain-ing experiences tied to the value of nature in the BR (Maikhuri, Nautiyal, Rao, & Saxena, 2001), experiences of core values related to learning for sustainability in BRs (Elbakidze, Hahn, Mauerhofer, Angelstam, & Axelsson, 2013) and of sustainability interactions via tourism producers (McCarthy, Whitelaw, Jongerden, & Craig, 2011; Walter, 2013). A further dimension connected to tourist experiences relates to the role tourism plays in tourist lives. Goolaup and Mossberg (2017) noted that, in order for tourism experi-ences to take on an extraordinary character, these need to be insight-ful, and generate a sense of togetherness and luxury in a setting that is perceived as peripheral in relation to one’s own everyday experiences. The notion of extraordinary experiences is found in tourism research in many contexts, yet one of the criticisms it has received is how such understandings contribute to exotification (Duffy, 2013; Smith & Duffy, 2003; Urry, 2002). Ek et al. (2008) analysed the dynamic framework of tourist experi-ences in a paper about the experience economy. They concluded that tourist experience can be understood as the back and forth of ideas, questions and discussions between tourists, companies, municipali-ties, destinations and tourist organisations. The give and take be-tween tourists and different types of producers influences tourist ex-

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periences and suggests that tourist experiences are also a result of a connected notion of tourism systems, and not only a result of individ-ual tourist sensibilities. Pechlaner, Pichler, and Herntrei (2012) expanded the understanding of tourist experience by arguing that the concept is better understood as the interplay between three different spaces – a mobility space that provides tourists with opportunities, an activity space that takes the individual behaviour of tourists into consideration, and the experi-ence space that provides atmosphere and opportunity for involve-ment. In this analytical model, the places and spaces of tourist experi-ences obtain a more prominent role. What is happening and where it is happening both shape the experiences of tourists.

Environmental convictions of tourists Gupta and Chopra (2014) found that increased environmental aware-ness has made tourists more conscious of the environmental impacts of their consumption and their imprint on the environment during travel. Societal structures, to a large degree, shape travel patterns, and to such an extent that the impacts of tourism shape personal identity and ideology (Nash, 1996). In other words, who we are while not be-ing tourists may affect how we choose to experience our tourism activ-ities. Larsen (2008) placed emphasis on everyday life when stipulating that the everydayness of tourism sheds light on the ordinary things that tourists do when vacationing – not only performing the extraordinary, but also socialising with significant others, visiting friends and rela-tives and sharing experiences. In this sense, tourism is not solely an escape from the commitments of everyday life, but also a way of per-forming ordinary life (Larsen & Urry, 2011; Urry, 2002, 2007). That said, Perkins and Grace (2009) recommended defining tourist consumption habits in order to fully understand them. Understanding the consumption habits of BR tourists consists of connecting eventual environmental convictions with tourist activities. Notions of envi-

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ronmentalism and outdoor recreation, such as ecotourism or nature-based tourism, seem to be interlinked concepts. Wolf-Watz (2015) explored the relationship between environmentalism and outdoor recreation. Environmentalist tourists can be driven by social distinc-tion in their outdoor recreation, while at the same time distinguishing among different kinds of outdoor recreation that are subjectively val-ued differently. Taking part in travel and outdoor recreation is sup-ported through commercialisation, high mobility and technological development. Wolf-Watz (2015) found that, in this setting (travelling and spending time in nature), environmentally-concerned individuals could also convey criticism of what they consider to be the downside of contemporary society. Given the systematic nature of tourism, however, the moral, personal and ideological convictions of environ-mental tourists can only go so far.

Consumption habits of tourists Many researchers have argued that the way tourists travel changes not only from trip to trip, but also during their lifetime (e.g., Hearne & Santos, 2005; Holden & Sparrowhawk, 2002; Urry, 2002). It is very common for a traveller to consume nature-based tourism at one time, and urban or heritage tourism at a different time (Fennell, 2008; Mehmetoglu, 2007; Page & Dowling, 2002). The work of Acott, Trobe, and Howard (1998) made clear that the activities and experiences of tourists are better markers of understanding tourism consumption than attempting to classify and segment tourists into pre-existing categories based on tourism production. Interestingly enough, Sharpley (2006) found that there are no sub-stantial differences between mass-tourists and sustainable tourists in relation to actual consumption. Both groups of tourists are looking for, and consume, new, exciting destinations, and the stated individu-al reasons for the tourism experience are similar. The two segments simply feed into different branches of the tourism industry. Duffy (2013) argued that many sustainable tourists are aware of their consumption habits and anchor their differentiation strategies not on

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tourism, but on their philosophical and ethical opinions. She also pointed out that sustainable tourists often want to be different, and be perceived as more insightful than often negatively-stereotyped mass-tourists. Most sustainable tourists have significant economic means, spending more time in, and more money at, their destinations (Nickerson, Jorgenson, & Boley, 2016), and share ideologies and phil-osophical positioning regarding the environment (Fletcher, 2009), which makes them want to differentiate from the negatively-stereotyped mass-tourists (Duffy, 2013). Research on tourist choices has shown that environmental attitudes have the potential to influ-ence the objectives of people’s tourism (Hunecke, Haustein, Grischkat, & Böhler, 2007).

Sustainable tourism in this study

The production and consumption of sustainable tourism in BRs pro-vided ways to problematise sustainable development at the meeting point between tourism and BRs in this study. This provided context on how the production and consumption side of sustainable tourism was connected to UNESCO’s ambition to generate sustainability in BRs (UNESCO, 2015a, b, 2016), given that it defines sustainable tour-ism producers in BRs as small-scale operators with personal interests in environmental issues (Dewhurst & Thomas, 2003; Sampaio et al., 2012; Thomas, 2015). In addition, sustainable tourism places an em-phasis on local actors, and thus has the potential to highlight different aspects of sustainability. It can be, and has been, argued that tourism is unsustainable, and that sustainable tourism is an oxymoron, as it is interlinked with con-temporary neoliberal globalisation and riddled with inequalities. Moreover, the circulation of goods and people are at the centre of the factors that make tourism socially, environmentally and economically unsustainable (Gössling, Ceron, Dubois, & Hall, 2009; Harvey, 2005). Links to certain understandings concerning sustainable development that focus on ecological modernisation, growth and hijacking are at the centre of the unsustainability; however, inaction is not a solution, either. There are those who argue for a middle ground, for gradually

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making tourism sustainable. It is here that the tourists and tourism producers become central. That said, the focus of this study centred on how different actors mo-bilised tourism to attain and promote sustainable development in BRs. In this context, it was vital to investigate the production and consumption of tourism and their connections to themes in BRs. The discussions in this chapter relate to the ideologies and rules as-pects of my application of the Tribe (2006) knowledge force-field, as the problematisation of sustainable tourism reflects the set of beliefs and conventions I adhere to and work according to. Tourism research tends to highlight what is happening at the destination, when concen-trating on the actors that produce and consume sustainable tourism. The distinction between researching sustainable tourism from a sys-tem or destination approach is that these two ways of understanding tourism generate very different types of questions. The system ap-proach allows for greater leeway, in terms of generalisation and ap-plicability to other scenarios, while the destination approach provides detailed, place-specific and subjective findings, tied to the specific conditions under which the research is being conducted, but is also where tourism is produced and consumed. My ambition was not to explore the destination, but to provide insights into, and indications of, the feedback to larger systemic questions, such as the paradox of sustainable tourism and what it entails to conduct sustainability-centred research on sustainable tourism, as opposed to tourism-centric sustainable tourism research. Furthermore, the inclusion of sustainable tourism consumption in the study provided an opportunity to highlight the side of tourism that is not responsible for generating the original message on sustainability provided at the destination. This generates important links to sus-tainable development by highlighting how the consumption of tour-ism is more than solely the buying of tourism products, that sustaina-bility can be understood via the experiences of tourists (Bosangit et al., 2015; Chronis, 2015; Nowaczek & Smale, 2010), and how tourists evaluate their environmental convictions and consumption habits (Duffy, 2013; Gupta & Chopra, 2014).

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4. Biosphere reserves

BRs are localities where global perspectives on sustainability are put into practice in the local environment, and where BR tourism is pro-duced and consumed. Just because localities are BRs does not mean that they automatically become sustainable. With this in mind, this chapter provides an overview of the development of BRs, and their objectives with respect to development and sustainability. One of the stated mission of BRs is to promote learning as part of sustainable development (Schultz & Lundholm, 2010). The BR concept is filtered at national, regional and local levels before it is implemented at the actual BR sites. In order to contextualise BRs and their subsequent application of sustainability, I have studied (a) the BR concept, ambitions and changes over time, and documents related to the historical emergence and spread of the BR concept. The history of BRs has been influenced by the work of Ishwaran et al. (2008), and their review of BR concept development over time. My contribution – including a broadening of their findings – is a discussion on place-specific conditions, and the role of learning in various developmental stages of the BR concept following, for example, Kala and Maikhuri (2011) and Sundberg (2004). In addition, (b) research and discussions on BR tourism in the published literature were used to provide a theoretical foundation for the analysis of BRs. The case of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR is introduced below, along with a description on the evolution of the ideology of BRs and its objectives.

First generation of biosphere reserves

The BR concept was first initiated about 40 years ago, since when sustainable development has grown and become pervasive in most international dialogues related to environmental issues and develop-ment. In 1971, UNESCO launched the Man and Biosphere programme

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(MAB), and the framework developed in this context helped to gener-ate the concept of BRs. The subsequent years saw an increase in the number of BRs around the world, but also a shift in the meaning of the BR concept. At the First International Coordinating Council of the MAB pro-gramme in 1971, it was decided that the focus of MAB should be on a general study of the structure and overall effect of the human impact on a wide range of ecological systems, and on educational and knowledge requirements. Fourteen MAB projects that adhered to this agenda were launched in the early 1970s (for detailed information on the 14 projects, see UNESCO, 1971). The BR concept was intended to direct focus on to the actions needed to combat conservation prob-lems that were noted in the early days of the MAB programme. Sub-sequently, another expert panel met in 1973 to discuss the conserva-tion of natural areas and the genetic material they contain, during which they made the case for a worldwide network of important eco-systems contained in BRs and designated by UNESCO (UNESCO, 1973). The preservation of vital ecosystems was expected have a twofold purpose. First, the BRs would safeguard conservation at the sites through scientific research and monitoring. Second, the BRs would act to increase public awareness of, and support for, conservationist agendas. It is worth noting that the philosophy behind this work was aimed at conserving nature, rather than finding ways for society and nature to coexist through continued sustainable progress. One year after this expert panel met, a task force was engaged to establish crite-ria and guidelines regarding the implementation and selection of possible BR sites. The task force put forward a multitude of categories of BRs, consisting of both natural and human-influenced areas that were representative or distinctive, and which had experienced differ-ent levels of human alteration. These categories resulted in the con-cept of protected core areas and peripheral buffer zones within BRs (UNESCO, 1974).

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Second generation of biosphere reserves – Action Plan for Biosphere Reserves In the 1970s, BRs were meant to promote international collaboration around issues of environmental preservation and research. In 1984, the notion of ‘development’ emerged as a new dimension to the BR concept. This was embodied in the Action Plan for BRs that came out of the 8th session of the International Coordinating Council of the MAB Programme (UNESCO, 1984). The 1984 Action Plan stated that BRs have social and economic benefits for local people, and that the BR concept showed promising indications for generating sustainable development connected to conservation in the reserves. The vision – fortified in 1984 – was one of BRs as designated ecologi-cal areas, with international recognition for conservation and for facil-itating the obtaining of scientific knowledge in support of sustainable development (UNESCO, 1984). BRs came to serve three roles in the wake of the 1984 Action Plan – a conservation role, a development role aimed at associating environment with development, and a logis-tics role that incorporated an international research and monitoring network (Batisse, 1982). This phase bears traces of ‘ecological mod-ernisation’, with scientific knowledge being key. The outer buffer zones came to include a wider range of functions, such as recreation and experimental research, but the dichotomous conceptions of pro-tected and non-protected reserve areas prevailed. These trends be-came crucial in the evolution of the framework of the concept, result-ing in a new definition of BRs by the end of 1995.

Third generation of biosphere reserves - the Seville Strategy

The Seville Strategy defined BRs as areas of coastal/marine and/or terrestrial ecosystems, internationally recognised under the frame-work of UNESCO’s MAB programme (UNESCO, 1996). This defini-tion was a clear step away from the earlier definition of BRs as being protected areas, in the Action Plan for BRs (UNESCO, 1984), and a step towards BRs functioning as worldwide networks of representa-tive or unique areas of ecological interest. After initiation of the

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framework put forward in the Seville Strategy (UNESCO, 1996), BR managers were encouraged to develop regional networks, and submit evaluations of ongoing work to UNESCO every 10 years. Ishwaran et al. (2008) argued that the maturation of the BR concept led to the concept being understood as a way to create learning sites for sustainable development, sustainable development being indirect-ly equated with knowledge, learning and awareness. Furthermore, Ishwaran et al. (2008) noted that much of the elegance of the concept was due to its simplicity, but that operating and bringing the concept to life on a local, regional and international scale would be littered with challenges – a problem shared with the concept of sustainable development, which also appears to be principally simple, yet practi-cally complex. In 1987, Gro Harlem Brundtland elevated sustainable development to a way of initiating a global agenda for change, defining sustainable development as a means of facing a troubling future and safeguarding the interests of coming generations (Brundtland, 1987). Sustainable development, however, can be found in earlier UNESCO documents. There are a large number of studies and research being conducted in and on third-generation BRs around the world. The studies cover many different disciplines and topics, from natural resource use in, and management of, Lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia (Bonheur & Lane, 2002), to furthering knowledge on plant usage in a BR in Mexico (Benz, Cevallos, Santana, Rosales, & Graf, 2000), to respiration of the soil in Dingshuan BR in China (Ding et al., 2010), and possible con-flict solutions between locals, and implementation of conservation policy, in the Indian Nanda Devi BR, located in the Himalayas (Maikhuri et al., 2001). The field is vast, and encompasses both the natural and social sciences. Geopolitical and critical reflections on BRs have been raised by Sundberg (2004) in her study on conserva-tion, gender and race in the Maya BR in Guatemala. She examined how conservation discourses, performances and practices are racial-ised and gendered. Notions of power, race and gender are put at the forefront of the interactions between local Guatemalan women’s groups and United States-based international non-governmental

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organisations active in the BR. Sundberg (2004) argued that the rela-tionship between different local and supranational organisations in the BR in northern Guatemala show identities in the making, identi-ties that unveil how sometimes opposing conservational objectives can shed light on racialised and gendered bias and inequality. Studies with a focus on tourism in BRs can, in most cases, be under-stood as promoting bottom-up approaches that link preservation values with small-scale business operations that support socioeco-nomic development. Habibah et al. (2013) found, in their study on ecotourism in the Tasik Chini BR, that there seem to be four major components that facilitate sustainability in tourism development in BRs: 1) there needs to be an established, sustainable tourism sector, with a favourable supply and demand throughout peak seasons; 2) local community participation; 3) stakeholder participation in plan-ning and decision-making; and 4) all of these combined with an es-tablished infrastructure to support tourism development. These four components combined inspire and facilitate ongoing research and learning connected to sustainable development. Kala and Maikhuri (2011) explored the mitigating effect of ecotourism on conflicts at the Nanda Devi BR, discovering that the participation and integration of local communities have an effect on sustainable development in BRs. One important finding of Ishwaran et al. (2008) was that the contin-ued and future development of BRs – in a post-Seville Strategy con-text, in which the reserves are meant to function as learning labs for sustainability – rely on generating a greater understanding of the connections between learning and context-specific knowledge that is meant to be circulated to stakeholders.

New global strategy – the Lima Action Plan UNESCO’s MAB programme launched a new global strategy (2015-2025) that, through the Lima Action Plan (2016-2025), highlights the program’s active role in the realisation the SDGs of Agenda 2030 (UNESCO, 2015a, 2016). BRs involve a wide variety of stakeholders that contribute to learning for sustainable development with different kinds of local knowledge. Different themes and issues that are the

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main focus of individual BRs can vary, given the local context of each BR. The common denominator is that all BRs are meant to link local, national, regional and international plans and policies to ecological, social and economic features of development in order to highlight challenges and opportunities in the area (UNESCO, 2015a). Scalar dimension is clearly spelled out in the Lima Action Plan. There is a systemic focus that goes beyond the previous dichotomous con-ceptions. The new global strategy requires that ecological, social and economic development are interwoven and interlinked with features of sustainability that must be treated in a joint effort (UNESCO, 2015b). In addition, the new global strategy takes into consideration the consumption and production patterns of developed nations and their undesirable effects on global sustainability. In line with the vision of the new global strategy, “the Lima Action Plan places strong emphasis on thriving societies in harmony with the biosphere for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Develop-ment, both within biosphere reserves and beyond, through the global dissemination of the models of sustainability developed in biosphere reserves” (UNESCO, 2016, p. 2). The shift in the conception of BRs, from the first generation through the second and third generations, to the inclusion of the Lima Action Plan, relate to changing conceptualisations of sustainable develop-ment. The chronological, and sometimes overlapping, progression, from the protection of nature to the conservation of nature, to envi-ronmental control, alternative perspectives, and ultimately sustaina-ble development during the 20th century, is important to take into account in order to understand how the conceptualisation of sustain-able development changes. In the 21st century, there is a tension in sustainable development con-cerning whether countering the negative outcomes of industrialised societies is enough, or whether major changes to priorities in indus-trialised societies are needed (Redclift, 2005; Saarinen, 2013; Sharpley, 2009; Westley et al., 2011). In other words, can sustainable

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development enable us to continue developing in a similar fashion, but with fewer negative environmental, social and economic out-comes, or can sustainable development provide the tools necessary to influence priorities in development? In BRs, this tension can be iden-tified in the changing focus on conservation, and the inclusion of the Lima Action Plan.

Biosphere reserves in Sweden

Sweden became a member of the MAB programme in 1986, and cur-rently hosts five BRs within its national borders (see Figure 1) – Nedre Dalälven River Landscape, Lake Vänern Archipelago, East Vättern Scarp Landscape, Blekinge Archipelago and The Rich Wet-lands of Kristianstad. In addition, Sweden has two BR candidate lo-calities that have not yet been approved by UNESCO – Vindelälven-Juhtatdahka and Voxnadalen (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, 2017).

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Figure 1. Locations of the designated and candidate Swedish BRs. From north to south - Vindelälven-Juhtatdahka (candidate), Voxnadalen (candidate), Nedre Dalälven River Landscape, Lake Vänern Archipelago, East Vättern Scarp Land-scape, Blekinge Archipelago and The Rich Wetlands of Kristianstad. Map created by Jan Alexandersson, and courtesy of the Swedish Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority

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Social sciences studies on Swedish BRs have focused on: different strategies to establish operations aimed at sustainable development (Olsson, Folke, & Hahn, 2004); the organisation of BRs (Olsson, Folke, Galaz, Hahn, & Schultz, 2007); organisational co-management projects in The Rich Wetlands of Kristianstad (Hahn, Olsson, Folke, & Johansson, 2006); co-management and the establishment of nature management (Schultz, 2009); and the rights of common in reserves and BRs (Sandell, 2003). The Swedish BRs are meant to develop local models and methods for sustainable development that integrate ecological, social and econom-ic features of sustainable development (Malena & Schultz, 2017). The experiences gained at the different BRs are intended to spread to the larger society and encourage local collaborations and learning for sustainability. In other words, the new global strategy explains what it is that humanity has to do in order to become more sustainable, and BRs are intended to show how we (humanity) can go about doing it.

4.1. Lake Vänern Archipelago Biosphere Reserve

The empirical material for Articles II, III and IV was gathered at Lake Vänern Archipelago BR in Sweden – a BR aiming to provide the nec-essary conditions to facilitate the joint operations of safeguarding nature and generating sustainable development (Vänern, 2017). The three municipalities of Mariestad, Götene and Lidköping (see Figure 2) conducted a feasibility study in 2004 on the possibility of forming a BR at a locality on the south-eastern shore of Lake Vänern. The pilot study was successful, and the area was approved as a BR candidate by the Swedish MAB committee on 1 July 2006. This meant that the process of application to UNESCO was launched, that the potential of the area’s organisation and geographical distribution had been inves-tigated, and that possible approaches to increase sustainable devel-opment had been examined. On 2 June 2010, the area was officially designated as a BR.

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Figure 2. Map illustrating the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, Sweden, showing its extent (coloured white) and local cities. Inset shows the location of the BR in Sweden. Map created by Jan Alexandersson, and courtesy of the Swedish Map-ping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority

Chronologically, this BR can be categorised as third generation, meaning that it was established after the introduction of the Seville Strategy (UNESCO, 1996). As a result, it incorporates both develop-ment and learning in its objectives. In addition, being a third-generation BR means there is a stronger focus on sustainability that integrates ecological, social and economic development, and less of a focus on traditional zoning and ecological preservation. The aim, fol-lowing implementation of the Lima Action Plan, is for the BR to con-tribute to SDGs 8 (decent work and economic growth), 9 (industry innovation and infrastructure), 11 (sustainable cities and communi-ties), 12 (responsible consumption and production) and 13 (climate action; Malena & Schultz, 2017). The sustainable tourism objectives of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR aim to promote sustainable tourism to

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create jobs, promote local culture, strengthen regional development planning and monitor sustainable development impacts (ibid.). That being said, the BR comprises a combination of protected nature, small cities and a growing tourism industry. The BR encompasses part of Lake Vänern (the largest lake in Sweden, and the third largest lake in Europe), and almost 60,000 people live in the BR. The main cities are Mariestad, Lidköping and Götene, and the BR includes a national park, Natura 2000 sites, nature reserves, protected forest and fish habitats, protected shores and areas of national interest for cultural heritage conservation (UNESCO, 2010). Tourism development in the BR was addressed through an inter-sectorial approach, consisting of identifying tourism stakeholders in the public and private sectors. These stakeholders are responsible for the development of tourism strategy and infrastructure, as well as monitoring resources to implement strategic changes. Together with the stakeholders, the BR management group discussed questions on sustainability, and developed a common vision that everyone could identify with. The BR committee involved stakeholders that would all contribute to the larger picture through a potluck concept (knytkalas) (Malena & Schultz, 2017) in an attempt to generate sustainable tour-ism that contributes to the local economy without exploiting nature.

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5. Spatial theories connected to sustainable tourism in biosphere reserves

I have relied on theories of place and landscape from human geogra-phy to contextualise, and contribute to an understanding of, the geo-graphical implications and conditions embodied in the research phe-nomenon. Given that tourism consumption is place-specific (see Urry, 2002), that learning for sustainability and experience occurs in situ, and that the success of implementating BRs is bound to place, I relied on theories of place in human geography for this study. My use of relational theories of place is also tied to the global network dimen-sions of BRs. Moreover, it is tied to a conception of places as inter-connected. This is especially significant in view of the global nature of the environmental and sustainability issues humanity and the planet are facing. The use of landscape assisted me in my analysis of touristic consumption in BRs by providing meaning connected to becoming, and performance related to subjective ideological convictions. Fur-thermore, landscape is a useful tool for contextualising how land-scape influences environmental concerns of people, and is a pervasive aspect of development objectives in BRs. The following two sections provide a relational understanding of place with respect to tourism in BRs, and a substantive understanding of landscape in relation to the demarcated absolute spaces that are BRs.

5.1. Relational place and tourism

Place is a central concept in human geography, and is prominent in the vast literature on sustainable development, as well as in the tour-ism literature (e.g., Azcárate, 2010; Cresswell, 1996, 2009; Edge & McAllister, 2009; Ek & Hultman, 2007; Loureiro, 2014; Massey, 1994; Rakić & Chambers, 2012; Sims, 2010). Place is also a concept that has many different applications, understandings and interpreta-tions in different academic literature.

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For a long time, place played second fiddle to space in geographical theory. According to Cresswell (2009), place is gaining increasing traction due to globalisation and Massey’s (1991a) theorisation on the progressive sense of place. Further, place is important from a societal perspective, where we see growing nationalism (Trubina, 2017), in-creased border controls (Martin, 2015), globalisation (Farrugia, Smyth, & Harrison, 2014) and ever-increasing tourism (Gössling, Lohmann, Grimm, & Scott, 2017). Place was chosen as a theoretical foundation as it is directly connected to tourism studies via place-based consumption and production (Samsudin & Maliki, 2015; Rakić & Chambers, 2012). In addition, relational place connects tourism experience to both stakeholders and sustainable development in BRs. This line of reasoning is influenced by the discussions of Snepenger, Snepenger, Dalbey, and Wessol (2007) who determined that places are the settings for tourism experience, where social interaction oc-curs that enables explanation of what is happening. The meaning of place is defined by locals and tourists being, and interacting, at the place (Snepenger, Murphy, Snepenger, & Anderson, 2004). In addi-tion, analysis of place and places can be a useful barometer for gaug-ing the functionality and sustainability of destinations. In order to utilise place in this manner, I here lay out how place and relational place is conceptualised. Casey (2013) stated that place comprises social structures and cultural practices. The body, the environment and place are assimilated, and places gather thoughts, things and memories. Casey (2013) also ar-gued that places are not only local, as links and influences to both faraway and local places make up everyday life and the identity of people. Much of modern science has disregarded place, claiming that it focuses on a lack of generality. Casey (2013) believed that ‘getting back into place’ is a way to understand experiences that are local, yet influenced and impacted by global trends. Place links the local to the global in a continuous state of becoming. Tourism is a geographical notion, and place is deeply influenced and shaped by our actions, desires and consumption. Ek and Hultman (2007) stated that the commercialisation of place is paramount in

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understanding other people, contemporary society and ourselves. Urry (2002) argued that tourism is a positional good, and must be consumed on site, at the place of its production. Therefore, place be-comes important as a focus when attempting to explore how people engage with sustainable development, the ways in which they learn sustainable development, and how they understand their lived worlds. The characteristics of tourism practices are central to this objective. Cresswell (2009) understood that place is central both to everyday life and human geography, and that there are many competing under-standings of what place means, ranging from a humanistic essentialist understanding of place to a progressive relational understanding. From a humanistic perspective, place can be understood as being in the world and filled with meaning, as proposed by Tuan (1977). In this understanding, places are sensed by the subject and experienced through various phenomena. A common vulgarisation of place is that it is somehow derived from space. Pred (1984) situated place as a process structured by social processes, meaning that place is an ongoing assemblage of geograph-ically-connected relationships and elements. The emphasis here is on practice, which in tourism would be connected to tourism perfor-mance and experience by producer and consumer. In other words, place is not derived from space, but at the same time, space is entirely filled with place. Later research, from a feminist perspective, argued that places are power-infused social relations, being arenas for place meaning that are highly gendered and racialised (Keith & Pile, 1993). Agnew (1987) defined place as being organised through three funda-mental aspects: 1) location – where places are on the surface of the earth; 2) locale – how the material settings for social relations mani-fest; and 3) sense of place – the why of emotional and subjective at-tachments to places. A relational understanding of place takes the ‘where’ of something into consideration, which is a necessity in the framing of certain characteristics of places, such as north, south, close, far, central, peripheral, etc. But relational place is much broader than simply a description of where something is. Relational place includes ‘how’ something is; places have different preconditions that

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affect their social and economic development, for example (Ek & Hultman, 2007; Massey, 1991b, 1995). The ‘why’ of relational place comes from an awareness and understanding of the sense of place, involving negotiation of the here and now, and the coming together of different trajectories (Massey, 2005). Massey (1991a) described her notion of a progressive sense of place as being that in which the layers of mobility, and connections to the wid-er world, are part of the constitution of place. A global sense of place is progressive, outward looking and multifaceted (Massey, 1991a). The interrelational processes occur simultaneously on all levels, ranging from the local to the global (Massey, 1999, 2005). As mentioned above, the understanding of place used in this study is relational, as influenced by the work of Massey. She attempted to go beyond the essentialness of place to introduce a relational take on place. She argued that we often assume that place is already divided up, that place is closed, that place is integrated as authentic or inau-thentic, but a relational understanding of place involves places having meaning, and being part of our everyday understanding of the world we live in, and ultimately of ourselves. Massey (1991b) built on that notion when postulating that global in-terconnection is a necessity for sense of place. In this understanding, place is more than its imagined borders, as it is constituted of distinct and specific connections to other places and parts of our planet. Plac-es become differentiated from each other through their relational interconnectivities; a sense of place, or rather a global sense of place, is equally constituted of both inside and outside relations, meanings, goings-on and non-goings-on. Sense of place is sometimes under-stood as both the feelings and thoughts connected to a geographical area by an individual, and also the occurrence of emotional and inti-mate relationships between place and self. Massey (2005) claimed that our understanding of place and the speci-ficities of place are a combination of both the collected stories of the wider setting of our lives, our relationships with other people and places, and the meaning and imagination that these collected stories

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and relationships have, but also the disconnections in our lives, the unestablished relationships, the non-meetings-up and the endless multitude of exclusions. In other words, the specificities of places are both the possibilities and limitations they contain. Places come into being by the way in which social relations, institu-tional structures and ideologies are interlinked with practices (Paasi, 2002), meaning that place represents the foundation, opportunities, conditions and the prerequisites by which BR tourism, for example, is infused with meaning. Place becomes relational through our subjec-tive understanding of our surroundings and ourselves. Places are always becoming via negotiations and interactions at the location, but also simultaneously in our subjective minds (Massey, 2005).

Relational place in the study

Relational place is primarily about interconnectedness, linkages and relations. These factors influence BR tourism, as different actors in-teract with local and faraway stakeholders, and global connections to the conceptualisation of sustainable development influence local ob-jectives and ambitions, such that meaning and sense of place is cen-tral to tourism experience. Whilst sustainable development is at the centre of the research con-ducted in this study and presented in this dissertation, it is important to keep in mind that the processes of sustainable development are ultimately derived from local and personal connections and the be-coming of places, paired with specific motivations, experiences and preconditions over time (Ettlinger, 2011; Pred, 1984). Here, the place-specifics and the conceptualisation of place are distinguished by spe-cific (cultural or subjective) meanings through which place and sus-tainable development are constructed in a continuous state of becom-ing. The theoretical use of relational place provides an alternate dimen-sion to the meaning and specifics of how actors use tourism in rela-tion to sustainable development in the delimited absolute space of

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BRs. As outlined in Chapter 4, BRs are represented by top-down or-ganisations that strive to become more sustainable, often with the enlistment of tourism (Beery & Jönsson, 2017; Gu et al., 2015; Malena & Schultz, 2017; UNESCO, 2002, 2010; Yuan et al., 2008). Tourism, contrarily, is often part of sustainability approaches (Bramwell et al., 2017), despite exhibiting unsustainable traits connected to transpor-tation, mobility and exploitation (Dubois et al., 2011). The empirical findings of this study centre on the destinational level of tourism, but the findings are meant to provide consequences for the systematic perspective of tourism. Relational place added a layer of connected-ness to the analysis of the findings in Articles I and III that assisted in this ambition. Place, instead of space, was chosen as a way of provid-ing place-based explanations of phenomena that are anchored in the everyday lives of individuals and individual relationships, instead of focusing on the relation to UNESCO’s spatial context. Explanations have been drawn from Massey’s (2005) deliberations on how notions of being and becoming are central to place. Relational place provided the study with a theoretical platform from which to explore sustainable tourism development and learning for sustainable development. Place as relational was used as a lens for examining empirical material in Articles I and III. In Article I, the emphasis lies in the place-specific processes of sustainability that are found in BR tourism. These processes were analysed using a place-based understanding that attempted to capture the nuances of negoti-ations and interactions that make up the specific challenges of how actors use tourism in order increase sustainability. Article III made use of relational place through the analysis of learning for sustainabil-ity among tourism entrepreneurs in a BR, as representative of both social and spatial processes of sustainable development. Relational place adds a spatial dimension that provides valuable in-sights relating to BR tourism. It assists in exploring how breaking down larger processes of sustainable development changes the out-come from the evaluation of moral principles towards local practical operational strategies in BRs, as proposed by Harlow et al. (2013). Moreover, relational place is utilised to generate the analytical framework needed to explore learning for sustainable development

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among tourism entrepreneurs in a BR. By incorporating relational place, the analysis in this study was able to problematise the top-down BR approaches, the normative notions on sustainable develop-ment, and the interconnection between sustainable development and tourism in BRs.

5.2. Substantive landscapes and BR tourism Landscape theory has not been used to a great extent in tourism re-search (Woźniak, Kulczyk, & Derek, 2018), although it is a prominent feature in BRs, and their objective of transforming the world (UNESCO, 2015b). Knudsen, Soper, and Metro-Roland (2007) argued that the use of landscape literature in geography and tourism substan-tially illuminates issues of meaning for tourists, as raised by Urry’s (2002) tourist gaze. In addition, representations of tourist gaze in landscape research have raised questions of non-representation to highlight different performances and embodied processes in tourism, giving more materiality to landscape in tourism research (see Obrador-Pons, 2003, 2009). Such approaches promote a focus on everyday and mundane practices, which serve to de-exotify the tour-ism experience (Larsen, 2008; Larsen & Urry, 2011; Prince, 2018). These theories advocate an emphasis on everyday life, linking land-scape theory more closely to people’s experiences, and highlighting the concepts of embodiment and performance in which people are presented as subjects engaged in the world (Wylie, 2007). Landscape is more than scenery, it is materiality that involves bodies with its features (Prince, 2018). This means that objects and practices, such as cameras, souvenirs, walking and canoeing, enable people to go be-yond detached gazing by involving the subjects in the landscape. Ingold (2011) suggested that landscape happens due to the engage-ment and activities of those who dwell or perform in it. Practices and materials are incorporated into landscape via embodiment, which helps in avoiding dichotomous approaches to culture and nature. Non-representational landscape literature in tourism research re-orients the significance of meaning in tourism, and also explains and solidifies the role of geography in tourism research.

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The concept of landscape has a double meaning, as it is both the geo-graphical phenomenon and the human perceptions connected to the geographical phenomenon (Olwig, 2013). The use of the concept of substantive landscape in this study was inspired by relational concep-tualisations of how landscape, space and place are interpreted. No-tions of scale become paradoxical as substantive landscape is used in BR tourism, in the absolute space of BRs, with their clear borders, and becomes interlinked in the nexus of tourism and landscape. In other words, the human perceptions of landscape might include different aspects and features than solely the geographical phenomenon. Using landscape as an analytical tool can generate an added layer of expla-nation to the empirical findings by problematising, for example, feel-ings, memory and identity. This is where the substantive understanding of landscape, as lived, material and perceived, becomes central to the research presented herein. Furthermore, the theoretical use of substantive landscape was intended to provide an alternate dimension to how tourists in a Swe-dish context understand landscape through what Olwig (1996, 2013) described as lived, material and historical, as opposed to landscapes as a scenic setting, as in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. The analytical advantage of using theories of substantive landscape is that these can provide a deeper sense of touristic consumption in a BR by including ideological notions connected to sustainable develop-ment. Olwig (1996) noted that a substantive landscape includes issues of culture, economics and environment that are interconnected, and which should be understood through each other by interpreting the local setting, and incorporating texts, images and changes over time. Landscape is given substance via specific community-related history in the continental understating of landscape. Olwig (2013) argued that the use of substantive landscape is important for both contextual-ising people’s understanding of what landscapes mean to them, and in providing an understanding of how landscape influences environmen-tal concerns. Poria, Reichel, and Cohen (2013) found that tourists themselves have an important role to play in their own conceptualisation of the tour-

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ism landscape, via their activities and how they understand land-scapes. Landscape is also a prominent theme in BRs (UNESCO, 2015a). From a Swedish perspective, it becomes important to note that, in Swedish, BRs are known as ‘biosphere areas’ (biosfär-sområden), and not ‘biosphere reserves’ (biosfärsreservat). Area im-plies an open setting without clear boundaries, signifying support for the benefits of utilising a research approach that highlights a substan-tive and relational take on landscape. This means that landscape in Swedish BRs is generally understood to be open, participatory, inclu-sive and embedded in the practices of people. Tourists that visit BRs give substance to the landscape and also aid in constructing the land-scape, both via their participation and by contributing to the local economy (Heslinga, Groote, & Vanclay, 2017). A call for more research in order to understand the significance of landscape in relation to social conditions and physical elements was made by Loureiro (2014). He opined that landscape significantly in-fluences the behaviour of tourists in rural settings, and that this phe-nomenon merits further research. The understanding of substantive landscape in tourism entails landscape being more than simply na-ture, or a way of looking; instead, the tourism landscape represents the meeting point for the global and the local, as tourism consump-tion occurs through symbolic, aesthetic and functional dimensions (Terkenli, 2002). The use of the concept of landscape makes sense of how tourism con-sumption and meaning, experiences and activities – and the ways in which, for instance, landscapes – generate romantic imaginaries among tourists, how the functionality of the landscape influences and shapes tourism consumption, and how aesthetics factor into how tourists give value to their visits (Gkoltsiou & Terkenli, 2012). The social imagination of landscape was a valuable entry point for the research behind this dissertation. Henderson (2003) discussed differ-ent nuances of landscape in his chapter in the anthology Everyday America: Cultural Landscape Studies after J. B. Jackson. He argued that the definition and understanding of a beautiful landscape in-cludes complete participation from everyone, and the economic re-

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sources to do so. He opined that there is room for issues of social jus-tice in landscape studies, and issues of sustainable development with-in the concept of social justice, especially, but not limited to, the con-text of BR tourism. In BRs, economic activity (e.g. tourism) improves the image and the environment in the landscape through production of green tourism products and services, and consumption of ideologies (economic, environmental and social sustainability) and the aforementioned touristic products by the tourists. According to Johnston and Braden (2008), improvement of the environment (i.e., the greening of the landscape), as a development strategy, provides economic benefits that match or exceed many other development strategies. Therefore, research that provides knowledge on the processes of BRs that might assist in generating a greening of the landscape could pro-vide valuable insights into how (perhaps) tourism is a way of perform-ing and possibly (re)producing an understanding of landscape.

Substantive landscape in the study

In addition to the importance of place-specifics in sustainable devel-opment, improvement of the environment and its effect on society can, according to Johnston and Braden (2008), be understood via the production and meaning of landscape. In so doing, the development strategies connected to supranational ideologies, such as the SDGs of Agenda 2030, can be set in a context that highlights the processes connected to the strategies, rather than solely evaluating the norma-tive outcomes the strategies are aimed at. Substantive landscape provided the study with a theoretical platform from which to explore notions of sustainable development among BR tourists. Theories on substantive landscape were used to provide a contextualised analysis of the empirical material for Article IV. Sub-stantive landscapes are representations of lived worlds that are sub-jective and changing, vivid and fluid (Olwig, 1996, 2013). Using sub-stantive landscape in a Swedish setting, in a Swedish BR, is especially

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appropriate due to the way that Swedish people understand landscape as being part of their imagined identity, their historic setting and part of their life realm, by de-exotifying the tourism experience, and re-orienting the focus on to everyday life, embodiment and performance. Substantive landscape can, according to Knudsen et al. (2007), pro-vide useful ways for enlarging tourism theory by better challenging issues of contestation. Moreover, the use of landscape also illuminates the role of geography in tourism research in BRs by drawing explana-tions from a branch of theory that can connect sustainable develop-ment with notions of identity among tourism consumers. This is a way to move the theorisation of tourism forward, through broadening our understanding by acknowledging that tourism in landscapes is more than a visual experience connected to the predes-tined properties and products aimed at tourism consumption. Sus-tainable development is complex and multifaceted; however, breaking it down into smaller local processes can highlight how actors use tour-ism in relation to sustainable development in BRs. Here, the under-standing, focus and practical application of sustainable development can be explored using tourism actors in BRs, and information can be analysed with the help of relational place and substantive landscape. By doing so, I have highlighted the overall role of tourism in a BR, and emphasised the role of specific actors linked to production and con-sumption of tourism in a BR. Conceptualising BRs from the vantage point of substantive landscape also draws attention to the need for understanding BRs as substantive places, to better enhance sustainable tourism programs and aims. The discussions above relate to the position aspects of my application of Tribe's (2006) knowledge force-field, as the discussions of relation-al place and substantive landscape reflect my geographical situated-ness, academic field and academic influences.

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6. Methods

Tourism is a complex phenomenon, both in its production and con-sumption. Its complexities are apparent on different geographical scales, in societal structures, and on an individual basis (Duffy, 2013; Gössling et al., 2012; Ruhanen et al., 2015; Tribe, 2006). The BR con-text provides an opportunity to analyse the local application of an international concept of sustainable development. Spatial theories and human geography are crucial to the understanding of the findings of the research presented herein. A qualitative approach was used, as this offers an opportunity to study complex phenomena in specific contexts (Phillimore & Goodson, 2004). In this case, how tourism is mobilised by different actors to attain and promote sustainable devel-opment in BRs. The discussions in this chapter relate to the person aspects of my application of Tribe's (2006) knowledge force-field, as the method approach raises the back and forth between the self and research via subjective views and the use or non-use of absolute objectivity through the interpretative epistemology applied in qualitative meth-ods. The methods used in the articles included in this dissertation were all qualitative, but different ways were used to emphasise each specific case and research question. Scientific knowledge is dynamic and ex-plorative, through both the collection of relevant new knowledge in a subfield, and simultaneous analysis of the conditions of the knowledge collection (Sohlberg & Solberg, 2013). This meant that I, as a researcher, adhered to generally-accepted scientific criteria for the knowledge collection, ensured transparency and allowed for my find-ings to be scrutinised and/or reproduced, and cited my sources so that it is clear how I reached my conclusions. Decrop (2004) opined that trustworthiness in qualitative tourism research gives credibility to research, as it is a reflection of positivist notions of reliability and validity. One obvious criticism of qualitative research is how sound the conclusions really can be. Usually, qualita-

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tive researchers explore a few examples in great detail, but rarely is the generality or representativeness addressed properly. Sohlberg and Solberg (2013) argued that such scenarios might result in faulty con-clusions and unfounded claims of generality. Trustworthiness through thick description is an attempt to situate and vindicate findings by highlighting their subjective placement in time and space. The methods applied in this study ranged from the macro (Article I) to micro (Articles II, III, IV) scales, focusing on highlighting processes of sustainability (Article I), investigating changes in the interpretation of sustainability in a BR among stakeholders (Article II), understand-ing social and place-specific learning for environmental sustainability among tourism entrepreneurs (Article III), and exploring how tourists reflect on environmental sustainability in BRs (Article IV). This exhib-its one of the most important aspects of a compilation thesis – con-necting different independent studies to a larger theme, and thereby adding to the knowledge base.

6.1. Methods and analysis in the articles

The qualitative research approach required a research process involv-ing different methods at different stages. The first empirical investiga-tion utilised an analysis of secondary data, and the results obtained led to further exploration, requiring the use of semi-structured inter-views, participant observations and photography. Thereafter, second-ary data and interviews were used for the second article included herein. As stated in previous chapters, there is a large and growing literature on BRs, sustainable development, place, landscape and tourism, in which many different methodological approaches and methods have been used. The methods used in this dissertation involve the combi-nation of theory drawn from the above-mentioned fields, combined with the distinct methods used in the four included articles, which all contribute important pieces of the puzzle that is determining how sustainable development and tourism can be understood in the local application of an international concept such as BRs (see Table 2).

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Table 2. Collection of empirical material and analysis of findings

Article I Article II Article III Article IV Semi-structured interviews

8 interviews with the BR office in Lake Vä-nern Archipelago and with local organisations and press (duration: 30–40 min)

9 interviews with tourism entrepreneurs (duration: 1–2 h)

11 interviews with tourists visiting Lake Vänern Archipelago BR (duration: 0.5–2.5 h of active inter-view time in one day)

Observations

2.5 weeks of observations at the BR

2 weeks of participant observation and photography

Secondary data

9 peer-reviewed journal arti-cles, published in 2001–2014 found via Scopus and One Search using the search terms ‘ecotourism’ AND ‘bio-sphere reserve’ AND ‘sustainable development’

Tourism development plans from municipalities in the BR, UNESCO project re-ports, national UNESCO reports, local press coverage

UNESCO project re-ports

UNESCO project reports

Thematic analysis connected to research questions in papers

Explicit and implicit processes of sustainable development related to sustainability transition and inspired by learning processes for sustainable development

For example, material from officials, municipalities, regional or-ganisations and interviews

For example, emergent themes in social and place-specific learning among tour-ism entrepre-neurs in the BR

Reflections on environmental sustainability by informants, categorised by dimensions of tourism consumption of landscapes, as proposed by Terkenli (2002)

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The initial empirical data collection and analysis for Article I was aimed at discovering issues that could be further analysed in subse-quent articles. The overall approach was therefore, to a large degree, inductive in nature. The findings of Article I led to the development of Articles III and IV, which, combined, led to the emergence of the re-search undertaken for Article II. Article II was placed second in the dissertation, as it provides an analysis centred on a multitude of BR actors and the entire destination, while Articles III and IV focus on a specific type of actor connected to either the production or consump-tion of tourism in a BR. This approach can be seen in the progress of the articles that make up the empirical part of the thesis. The empirical work for the overall study collectively employed quali-tative methods (semi-structured interviews, participant observation and photography, and document analysis). Baxter and Eyles (1997), proposed that a mixed methods approach (e.g., interviews, document analysis, observations) helps the qualitative researchers to obtain and increase the rigour in their research. A qualitative methods approach is often time-consuming and strenuous, but the pay-off often includes increased credibility and trustworthiness of the findings through tri-angulation and the breadth of the empirical material. The following sections consist of a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the methods used in the thesis, how the methods were used in the different articles, and a discourse on the analysis of the empirical material.

6.1.1. Case study

Lake Vänern Archipelago BR is the focus in three of my papers – the two studies on tourism entrepreneurs and tourism development strat-egies (Articles II and III) and the study on tourists (Article IV). Much tourism research tends to be case study oriented (Beeton, 2005). Kitchin and Tate (2000) defined case studies as the observation of a phenomenon that is a specific example within time and space. Instead of studying a phenomenon in general, case studies allow the research-er to explore depth from a great variety of perspectives.

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Case studies can involve individuals, events, relationships, communi-ty studies, social groups and organisations, to name just a few scenar-ios. In order to generate findings, the case study researcher can use a variety of methods, such as observation, interviews and question-naires, which are used in quantitative and qualitative research. Sohl-berg and Solberg (2013) wrote that it is important to understand that the informants are the starting points for the research in case studies. The researcher tries to depict the informants according to the aspects investigated in the case. This generates a situation where the inform-ants create the coherency of the account put forward by the research-er. Case study research is concerned with case-specific traits in the context of human actions (ibid.). A case study can be used to either compare between different cases or highlight the specificities of one particular case by exploring the moti-vations and perspectives of informants present in the case (Beeton, 2005). Case study research can use both quantitative and qualitative methods for gathering data (Saxena & Ilbery, 2008; Yuan et al., 2008), although, in this study, the methods used were qualitative, in order to answer each individual research question, which required a qualitative approach. Flyvbjerg (2006) determined that much of the criticism of case study research was based on five misconceptions that appear to be pervasive in the social sciences: 1) practical knowledge generated in a case study setting is less valuable than theoretical knowledge; 2) case studies cannot contribute to scientific progress, as one cannot generalise from a single case; 3) case studies are most useful for generating hypothe-ses, while other methods are better suited for theory building; 4) case studies are biased; and 5) it is hard to summarise case studies. These five misconceptions about case studies were kept in mind during this research, to ensure that the findings did provide a valuable contribu-tion, despite being based on a single case and being qualitative in nature. This was done by elevating the practical knowledge generated in the articles, and focusing on the case-specific findings, while at-tempting to acknowledge bias, and providing research information that was clear and specific.

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The empirical material collected from the case studies presented here enabled what Simpson (2011) called a type of storytelling, which is important to human geographers as it allows people to tell their nar-ratives as embodied geographies, meaning that the informants can give reference to their lives and lived spaces. Many researchers encourage qualitative interpretative approaches, as they have the potential to deliver deep explanations that centre on the informants’ lives and experiences in a spatial context (Moss, 2001; Pile, 2002; Waitt, 2007). In hermeneutic epistemology, claims of absolute objectivity are seen as problematic, and a denial of the role of the researcher in the study (Holme & Solvang, 1997). My own participation in the case study research, through semi-structured interviews, helped to shape the studies, and also affected the knowledge gathered and analysed. Ac-knowledging subjectivity in case study research enables constant jug-gling between the researcher’s interpretations and the reproduction of experiences found in the material (Peet, 1998). In Article III, our subjectivity shaped the questions we asked the in-formants. Steps were taken to provide the informants with leeway to talk about aspects of social and place-specific learning for sustainabil-ity that we had not initially anticipated. The approach of providing leeway for the informants proved successful, as it gave us knowledge on the importance of their daily lives when it came to learning. In Article IV, my subjectivity in the research consisted of being pre-sent and actively participating in the tourism experience, together with my informants. The way that I focused on sustainability influ-enced their renderings and provided information. The questions asked by the researcher always influence the research, but in this case, the fieldwork showed the informants my interests, and how I valued sustainability in different contexts. This undoubtedly influenced the informants, and was acknowledged by me in not pursuing issues of sustainability when a couple of informants expressed that they were

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not interested in this topic. Instead, we talked about tourism in the BR as they saw and valued it.

6.1.2. Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviews provide the researcher with flexibility, for example, by allowing the interviewer to revise and add questions as new topics arise during the interview process. Furthermore, it gives the informants more leeway to talk about related issues that they deem important, in connection with the line of questioning (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008; Phillimore & Goodson, 2004). This interview ap-proach enhanced the flexibility, and provided the informants with a greater freedom to describe and retell their own thoughts; this was a central part in gathering empirical material for Articles II, III and IV (see Table 2). The questions asked of the informants were structured so as to stimu-late them to direct their answers towards the trade-off between sus-tainability and large-scale tourism development (Article II), the broader life-narrative of social and place-specific learning for sustain-ability in the production of BR tourism (Article III), and reflections on sustainability and tourism in BRs (Article IV). The semi-structured interviews created an opportunity for the exploration of new themes and reflections that I had not initially planned for and, as a result, I found out more than I would have if the interviews had not been as flexible as they were. A total of 28 semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather the majority of the empirical material for this study (see Table 3). The interviews were designed to facilitate conversational flow around the themes explored in the individual papers. The selection and locating of informants for the different articles was based on the specifics of each study. Analysis of all the semi-structured interviews was themat-ic, and based on the research questions pertaining to the articles.

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Table 3. Semi-structured interviews for the articles

Number of interviews

During field-work in the BR

Telephone interviews

Duration

Article II 8 2 6 30–40 min Article III 9 9 1–2 h Article IV 11 11 0.5–2.5 h

Semi-structured interviews for Article II In Article II, the selection of the eight informants was based on their professional and/or interest-driven features – that is, two interviews with people working in the BR office in Mariestad, two key people in local nature and heritage organisations, one local journalist active in the BR and three municipal decision-makers in Mariestad, Götene and Lidköping. These informants were found via their professional email accounts. Two interviews were conducted during fieldwork in the BR, and the remaining six were conducted over the telephone. The interviews were intended to provide information on the interpretation of sus-tainable development, and the trade off with tourism development in the BR. The final two interviews with the local BR office, and the one with the municipal decision-maker, did not provide any additional information, and saturation was reached. In Article II, analysis of the interviews and documents was thematically organised according to chronological themes of sustainability connected to different times in the BR.

Semi-structured interviews for Article III

In Article III, the nine informants were selected based on two criteria: 1) that they operated a tourism business in the BR, and that they had participated in the ecotourism network project in the BR between 2009 and 2012; and 2) that they constituted diverse parts of the sup-ply side of tourism that accurately represented the broad and frag-mented tourism industry found in the BR of Lake Vänern Archipelago (e.g., agricultural ecotourism, heritage tourism, large- and small-scale

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accommodation, café business, horseback tours). The informants in Article III were found through their participation in the ecotourism network project of 2009–2012. A total of 20 tourism entrepreneurs fulfilled the selection criteria; these were contacted via email. Six of these potential informants did not want to participate in the study, three others had inactive email addresses, and two simply did not respond. The nine entrepreneurs who wanted to participate were considered to have experience in the requisite fields needed for the article (see Table 4). Table 4. Informants for Article III

Informant Tourism business Duration of interview Mark Hostel 2 h Charles Heritage tourism 1.5 h Johanna Activity tours 2 h Ben Large-scale accommodation 1 h Jessica Café and handicrafts 1 h Anne Culinary tourism 1.5 h Steve Agricultural tourism 1.5 h Sophie Culinary tourism 1 h Margaret Agricultural tourism 1 h The material from the interviews for Article III was analysed using a framework for social and place-specific learning that was developed for the article. The final three interviews with the tourism entrepre-neurs in the BR did not provide any new findings relating to the arti-cle’s focus, beyond the specific conditions for these businesses. At this point, we had interviewed actors from both small and larger tourism businesses, providing a range of different tourism products.

Semi-structured interviews for Article IV The 11 informants for Article IV were tourists visiting Lake Vänern Archipelago BR during July and August 2016. They were found through sharing accommodation in the BR (in one of the businesses involved in Article III, and one that was not) and through sharing experiences at tourist spots in the BR. The interviews were extensive

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and in-depth, the shortest lasting 30 minutes and the longest 2.5 hours of active interview time. The longer interviews continued in short bursts over the course of a day. With the exception of three, a whole day was devoted to each informant and the activities they were taking part in in the BR. During these days with the informants, par-ticipant observations and photography (see Article IV for images) was being conducted (see Table 5). The locations for the 11 interviews for Article IV are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Map of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, showing the locations of the interviews conducted for Article IV. Map Created by Jan Alexandersson, courtesy of the Swedish Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority

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Table 5. Descriptions of informants for Article IV Inform-ant

Age Inter-view setting

Resi-dence

Context and location

Nationality

Bengt (m) 40s Man, two children, and a tour guide

Large city

Visit to millstone mine in Lugnås (Location A)

Swedish

Linda (w) 40s Woman and three children

Large city Kayak tour on Lake Vänern (Location B)

Swedish

Beatrice (w)

60s Woman and her husband

Large city Visit to flower gar-den at Hällekis Säteri (Location C)

Swedish

Mike (m) 20s Man and his girlfriend

Large city Visit to Läckö Castle (Location D)

Swedish

Ulla (w) 50s Woman Small city Bike ride in Götene (Location E)

Swedish

Klaus (m) 40s Man, his wife and two chil-dren

Large city Coffee at Utsikten Kaffestuga Kinne-kulle (viewpoint over Lake Vänern) (Loca-tion F)

Swiss

Anna (w) 30s Woman and her boyfriend

Medium city

Hike to Hindens Rev (Location G)

Swedish

Anders (m)

40s Man Large city Visit to the Mount Kinnekulle trail (Location H)

Swedish

Anton (m) 50s Man Large city Driving to buy gro-ceries (Location I)

Swedish

Hans (m) 70s Man and his wife

Small city Coffee break at Kinnekulle observa-tion tower (Location J)

Swedish

Beth (w) 60s Woman and her husband

Large city Walk to a former limestone quarry (Location K)

Swedish

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The informants were asked about what sustainability in a BR meant to them, and how sustainable tourism could contribute to sustainability in BRs. During the first week of fieldwork for Article IV, five people were interviewed. Six more tourists were interviewed during the se-cond week of fieldwork. For the interviews, there was no intention to gain a representative sample of different ages, or different types coming from specific back-grounds, or to cover all types of tourists visiting the BR; that being said, the final two interviews provided empirical material that result-ed in findings that were in line with the first nine interviews, and sat-uration was thus reached. Additional themes and findings for the article could possibly have been obtained with more time in the field, and from a broader range of informants, but more time in the field was not possible at that time. During the first days of the fieldwork, it proved difficult to find people willing to participate in the study. Many potential informants declined because they were on holiday and did not want to focus on anything else. The workaround for this dilemma came from taking advantage of sharing accommodation with BR tourists. Two different accommoda-tions were used during the fieldwork period. Potential informants could be approached at breakfast and dinnertime, for instance. Ap-proaching the potential informants at these times, without asking them to be part of a study, proved to be successful. It generated a confidence-building way for the tourists to interact with me, and learn more about the research involved in Article IV. Later, several of these tourists chose to participate as informants; although others did not want to participate, due to our previous interactions, they did point out the places in the BR that they had visited, and provided infor-mation on where to find other potential informants. The research requirements set out by the Swedish Research Counsel (2002) stipulate that research should develop further knowledge and improve on methods to obtain future knowledge without endangering or misrepresenting informants. These requirements were met in this study. The potential benefits from this study include a greater under-

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standing of the facilitation and development of a more sustainable social world. The positive benefits outweigh the potential negative consequences for the informants, as the findings might further and situate the debate on how resources and sustainable development can assist human progress. In Article IV, the informants were not misled into participating without their knowledge. I clearly stated that I was conducting interviews and participant observation in the BR, and all of the informants that chose to participate did so knowing that they were taking part in academic research. The thematic analysis used in Article IV focused on the reflections of the informants, and was cate-gorised according to how tourists consume landscapes.

6.1.3. Participant observation and photographing

Participant observation and photographing were important when collecting material for Article IV. The primary motivation for these methods came from the research question, which required highlight-ing of the co-production of researcher and informants, as well as tri-angulating the gathering of material. Participant observation is de-scribed by Kearns (2010) as the research practice of immersing one-self in the mundane and everyday flows, patterns and routines of the people one wishes to understand. The method is inspired by visceral approaches and non-representational theory, which highlight the significance of the body to experiences and, to an extent, the legitimacy of the researcher’s body as a tool for research (Crang, 2003; Longhurst, 2001; Probyn, 2003; Simpson, 2011). This means that my role as co-creator of the empirical material became explicit. The use of participant observation was to capture the spontaneity and motivations of tourists and their interactions with tourism stakeholders, the landscape and other tour-ists. Kearns (2010) underscored that there is a great reliance on the researcher’s recollections and note-taking in participant observation. The participant observation for Article IV involved hiking, drinking coffee, taking guided tours with informants, walking and talking in nature, going on excursions, and partaking in tourism-related discus-

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sions at tourism businesses. The participant observation for Article III was not in the fashion of what Gold (1958) described as a complete observer – that is, an objective researcher investigating rituals on animals in enclosures. Instead, the participant observation for Article IV was the kind of complete participation discussed by Waitt (2007) as being essential to the creation of the shared experience and the co-created space of researcher and informant. Participant observation in the field is not an easy task. Some inform-ants, tourists and bystanders (initially) thought that I worked in the BR or for the BR, a notion that probably affected some actions and reflections that I observed. In order to remedy this situation, I tried being open about my intentions and ambitions in order to make sure that the informants, tourists and bystanders did not alter their behav-iours according to what they thought a BR official wanted to see and hear. One important aspect of the participant observation for Article IV was talking and walking, or ‘talking whilst walking’, as discussed by Anderson (2004 ) – that is, being a part of the informant’s everyday tourism practices. My approach was influenced by Jensen, Sheller, and Wind’s (2015) conceptualisation of mobile methods, in which, for instance, walking is understood to be an active corporeal engagement with the sensed world, and interviewing during walks, while observing the participant, is an attempt to capture the complex dynamic pro-cesses of negotiating in motion. This provided an opportunity to make better sense of the chance encounters with, and improvisation, regu-larity and motivations of, the tourists used in Article IV. The casual and informal setting of this kind of participant observation allowed for that which assisted Crouch (2001) in situating informant narra-tives with place-specific and contextual knowledge. The work of Evans and Jones (2011) raised important criticisms of walking and talking as a method, however. They found that walking interviews are less pro-ductive than traditional interviews, when it comes to capturing narra-tives of an autobiographical nature. In Article IV, walking interviews proved to be less intrusive to the participants, and therefore the method allowed for more clarity regarding lived experiences than would a formal interview setting that would have made the partici-

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pants feel insecure about their knowledgeability of, for example, envi-ronmental issues and sustainability. Participant observation was broadened with photographing in order to capture and understand the experiences of the informants. The type of photography used was influenced by the theory of participant photography (Brandin, 2003). Here, the aspect of doing things to-gether proved useful in gathering meaningful empirical material. Steen Jacobsen (2007) described participant photography as being useful for showing the perceptions of on-site visitors. The usual approach is to let participants take pictures and later use those pictures in the analysis. This approach was the initial plan, but it did not work to plan during the fieldwork for Article IV, and I had to improvise. In the beginning, a hashtag was created for Article IV on Instagram, and the informants were asked to use that hashtag for the images they took while thinking about landscape, tourism and sus-tainability. No one uploaded any photos. The likely reason was that the photos felt too personal for the participants, and uploading the photos to be analysed as part of my research felt intrusive. Most peo-ple, however, were very polite and said that they would try to upload some later, if they remembered. To address this problem, I began taking photos in the exact spots where the respondents were taking them, to try capture their experiences so we could later talk about what these images meant to them. The use of visual methods can greatly enhance traditional textual and interview-based approaches because they provide an opportunity to capture, for example, the complex interrelation between people and nature (Lorimer, 2010). The photographing captured the gaze of the informants, with a focus on the ordinary and the extraordinary, and the affective and emotive aspects of tourism consumption in a BR. The images and the act of photographing were discussed with the informants. Images and photographing, in addition to interviewing, generate enriched empirical findings, and assist in filling the gaps often associated with qualitative, single-method approaches (Clark-Ibanez, 2004; Harper, 2002; Schwartz, 1989).

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All of the images found in Article IV were taken by me; however, the photography of my informants guided my photographing. When my informants took pictures, I tried to take the exact same photograph. The motifs of photography were discussed with the informants so as to capture perceptions and preferences that might otherwise have gone unnoticed or unspoken, through that which Hagedorn (1994) described as story-telling that arises spontaneously. After taking the photographs together with the informants, I talked about why I was doing that, and how I wanted to use the images – I was doing that in order to do something together with my informants that I could later use as material for my article and dissertation. We then proceeded to discuss what the choice of motifs meant to the informants, and how this connected to various aspects of tourism in BR landscapes. A total of 37 images were taken, in the way described above, during the fieldwork period. The three images included in the final draft of Arti-cle IV were used to illustrate different representations of BR tourism landscapes connected to the analysis of the interviews: 1) the role of BR landscapes in increasing environmental awareness and responsi-bility; 2) aesthetics and value creation connected to the BR landscape; and 3) the functionality and everydayness of the BR landscape.

6.1.4. Secondary data

Analysing secondary data is a useful way for the qualitative researcher to complement, further explore and interpret themes in the findings connected to their research focus (Bowen, 2009). The analysis of sec-ondary data includes the investigation of the social world through embodied, physical text in its many forms, such as written, visual, electronic and audio. Analysis of secondary data and documents can support a complete research project by itself (as in Article I), or pro-vide sources of information for larger case studies, such as supple-mentary empirical material to interviews (as in Articles II, III and IV). Such analysis relies on secondary data, and therefore provides flexi-bility for the researcher who does not have to rely on finding inform-ants and travelling far and wide to gather information (Botterill & Platenkamp, 2002).

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Secondary data was used in this study for the analysis of BR docu-ments and empirical material connected to the research questions of the articles and the dissertation. The secondary data behind Article I is based on nine published peer-reviewed articles that focus on BR ecotourism. The peer-reviewed articles were found in Scopus and One Search using the search terms ‘ecotourism’ AND ‘biosphere reserve’ AND ‘sustainable development’ for articles published between 2001 and 2014. In Article II, the secondary data consists of BR project reports, guide-lines, vision and practices, all connected to sustainable tourism man-agement planning in the BR, as well as the municipal development plans of Mariestad, Götene and Lidköping. In Articles III and IV, the secondary data consists of UNESCO project reports that helped situ-ate the research. In addition, secondary data consisting of UNESCO documents was used to generate the historical background of BRs and their development. A surprisingly low number of tourism research papers seem to utilise secondary data analysis of documents. Towner and Page (1996) re-searched the history of tourism and recreation using the method, and Walton (2000) studied British seaside resorts using document analy-sis. There has, however, been a recent increase in the utilisation of this type of method. Hannam and Knox (2005) highlighted this as they concluded that analysing documents is often uncredited, but widely used as a component of multiple method approaches to re-search problems. The research of Strange and Kempa (2003) showed a broad inclusion of the types of text that can be used when analysing secondary data. They analysed policy documents, on-site observa-tions, interviews and tourist surveys in their investigation of heritage prison tourism. Their approach helped guide my use of secondary data as a research method for Articles II, III and IV. Rapley (2007) opined that one of the most difficult criteria to manage in the analysis of documents is ‘meaning’. One way to get around this dilemma is to read both with and against the grain of the text. In oth-er words, meaning in text is about what is said, but also that which is not said, or that is hidden or obscured. The most common analysis of

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documents relies on content classification analysis, from a qualitative or quantitative perspective. Criticisms of document analysis include failure of the researcher to present their ontological and epistemological standpoint (Bowen, 2009). Failing to do so can be seen as trying to mislead the reader.

6.1.5. Thematic analysis

Thematic analysis was used in the articles. This is an independent qualitative approach described as “a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 79). The approach is flexible and adjustable in order to provide answers for different kinds of qualitative research questions that are content-specific and delimited. The researcher transcribes the inter-views and other empirical material (such as secondary data, emails or written responses from participants), and attempts to obtain a sense of the whole context by reading the transcripts several times. Through this process, the researcher tries to find both open and hidden con-tent. During this phase, the researcher generates initial codes, out-lines and names themes, assesses the themes found, and searches for further themes (Vaismoradi, Turunen, & Bondas, 2013). DeSantis and Ugarriza (2000) argued that thematic analysis be used to efficiently search for and identify common threads or themes that range across an entire set of empirical material. The themes in thematic analysis are an expression of the hidden or latent content in the material (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004). In addition, thematic analysis pro-vides the researcher with an opportunity to analyse the meaning of the empirical material, given its particular context (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The aim of thematic analysis is to analyse the narrative material of life stories (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Floersch, 2010; Vaismoradi et al., 2013) via description and interpretation, by both deductive and in-ductive processes. The understanding of narratives becomes crucial to the analysis process. Riessman (2008) argued that narratives are ways for informants to make sense of complex happenings and events. The open-ended approach to interviewing and analysing assists in attributing meaning to experiences and opinions, but it also opens up

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the risk of misinterpretation. Narratives help the researcher interpret personal stories that uncover the place-specific occurrences embed-ded within informant responses (Fraser, 2004; Wiles, Rosenberg, & Kearns, 2005). The thematic analysis of narratives assists in exploring informant renderings of subjectivities in relation to practices, experiences, moti-vations and anticipation (Floersch, 2010). Riessman (2008) stated that different fields of social science tend to view narratives in differ-ent ways; in anthropology and geography, narratives can come to include life stories, while a recent focus in social work has centred on narratives in terms of how informants structure their responses (ibid.). The thematic analysis of narratives employed in this study focused on narratives as lived experiences, placing emphasis on three things: 1) how the informants structured their responses (Riessman, 2008); 2) how themes in the narratives (Fraser, 2004) showed place-specific attributes (Wiles et al., 2005); and 3) how the analysis could illumi-nate motivations and experiences (Floersch, 2010). Braun and Clarke (2006, p. 87) summarised the stages of thematic analysis as “familiar-ising with data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, review-ing the themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the re-port” (see Table 6).

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Table 6. Processes of empirical analysis in thematic analysis Analysis phase Description Familiarising self with data

Transcribing the material, reading and rereading the transcriptions, writing down initial ideas

Generating initial codes

Coding interesting features of the material systematically across the entire set of empirical material, assembling material relevant to each code

Searching for themes

Arranging codes into potential themes, gathering all mate-rial relevant to each potential theme

Reviewing themes

Checking whether the themes work in relation to the coded extracts and the entire set of empirical material, generating a thematic map

Defining and naming themes

Ongoing analysis for refining the particulars of each theme and the overall story that the analysis generates, writing clear definitions and names for each theme

Producing the report

The final opportunity for analysis. Selection of rich, com-pelling extract examples, final analysis of selected quota-tions, linking back of the analysis to the research question and literature, writing a report of the analysis

These stages of thematic analysis were used to analyse the empirical material for the articles. The analysis of Article I consisted of becom-ing familiar with the secondary data, generating codes, and searching for themes related to the research questions of the article. In the anal-ysis of the nine published articles, we looked for explicit and implicit connections via descriptions of various processes connected to sus-tainable development. Sustainability processes are based on themes found in sustainability transitions, knowledge and learning theory and BR research, including consumption, production, shifts in eco-nomic development, alternative development paths, the political di-mensions of transition towards sustainable development, interaction, exchange, participation and knowledge. In Article II, the thematic analysis consisted of analysing interviews, secondary data and observations, with a focus on the arguments relat-

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ed to sustainability and tourism in different stages of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR’s development (see Table 7). Table 7. Thematic analysis of Article II

Time-based stage Main themes connected to the time stage (1) Emergence of the BR from 2004–2010

Opportunities for environmentally-sustainable travel, increased accessibility to the landscape, ecotourism generating economic development, ‘territorial’ approach to sustainability

(2) Establishment of the ecotourism network from 2009–2012

Increased economic development, territorial ap-proach to sustainability, sustainable tourism

(3) Development towards an export-ready destination in 2013–2014

Export, international tourists, market-oriented approach, ‘functional’ approach to sustainability

(4) Increasing tourism sustainability in the BR from 2014–2017

Territorial approach to sustainable development, opportunities for environmentally-sustainable travel, sustainable tourism

The objective was to explore the implicit or explicit development strategies used. We began by investigating how sustainable develop-ment was understood in different settings, and how this affected the development of the BR. Four time-based stages were identified in the empirical material and the projects in the BR (see Table 6). Analysis of the time-based stages, and the main themes connected to the stages, was used to show how sustainable development is inter-preted in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, which roles tourism plays in sustainability efforts in the BR, and the kind of sustainable develop-ment that was practised in the BR between 2004 and 2017. Analysis of the material collected for Articles III and IV started during the fieldwork in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR. Field notes were pro-duced parallel to conducting interviews. These notes contain observa-tions and thoughts that came into existence by trying to take in the general impressions and ambience of the visits. They also include

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material from the interviews, written down to try and capture the essence of the conversations. By doing this, the process in which the study was undertaken could be accounted for. The next step in the analysis was to transcribe all the interviews. Transcription was not done in a word-for-word manner; instead, fo-cus was placed on the meaning of the responses, not on how they were spoken (Riessman, 2008). This resulted in a transcript record that includes some paraphrasing. The handling and editing of the collected data was the most tiresome part during the early stages of the analy-sis, but a lot of the preliminary thought was founded during the tran-scription. A thorough review of the interviews led to the discovery of new and interesting aspects. Going through the material unveiled the narratives and stories of the informants and the main points they were trying to convey. For Article III, the thematic analysis consisted of interview material, and the themes were arranged according to a framework developed in the pilot study. We generated four main themes after initial reading of the codes. Each of the four themes of the framework has several sub-themes that were inductively drawn from the material (Figure 4), helping us to understand that the place-specific learning for sustaina-bility among our informants consisted of different ways of relating to their surroundings.

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For Article IV, the thematic analysis consisted of transcribed inter-views, notes of participant observations, and discussions connected to the photographing that was conducted. The themes were arranged according to the three main categories of the informants’ tourism consumption in the landscape (see Table 8). Table 8. Themes connected to the categories of tourist consumption of landscape used in Article IV Category Symbolism Aesthetics Functionality Theme connected to each category

History Activities in nature Responsibility Sentimental value Environmental impact Temporality

Creating memories Interactions in the landscape Aesthetic value of the landscape The role of tourism in environmental preser-vation

Physical activities Shopping Everydayness Mundane activities Tourism and changing landscapes

The three analytical categories used in Article IV were inspired by the work of Terkenli (2002), who categorised tourism consumption of

Learning through encounters in tourism establishments • Responsibility • Meetings • Mutual exchange and learning

Learning as interaction with local and regional stakeholders in the BR • Networks • Other entrepreneurs • Institutions and organisations • Municipalities • Other entities

Local learning in the BR • Resources • Local/regional conditions • Entrepreneurial culture

Learning in relation to everyday life • Work • Family • Home • Household • Private/public

Learning for sustainabillity - tourism entrepreneurs relate to their

surroundings

Figure 4. Thematic map of Article III. The themes represent how the informants approached and understood learning under different place-specific conditions, whilst the sub-themes represent place-specific expressions and tensions within each theme

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landscape as symbolic, aesthetic and functional; these categories pro-vided a context for how the Article IV informants reflected on the environmental aspects of sustainability in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR.

6.2. Methodological limitations

The empirical material generated from the 28 interviews was limited, but the enlistment of tourism for sustainable development has been researched using multiple methods, allowing for findings with a broad array of perspectives and implications. The research conducted for the articles was broadened by using secondary data, participant observa-tion and photography, but the size of these studies was still rather limited in scope. The methods used affected the findings in this study. Using a qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews resulted in findings that are based on the personal experiences of the inform-ants and myself. This is something I have had to bear in mind when analysing the findings. The findings might have been different if the same questions were posed to other informants in a different setting. Furthermore, the use of participant observation places the researcher in the middle of the research. The observations made by me were influenced by my own subjective experience, education and objectives during the fieldwork. The dilemma was that I tend to find exactly what I was looking for. In order to combat these method limitations, I put a lot of effort into talking with the informants, asking if I had un-derstood them correctly, and whether there were any other aspects of, for instance, tourism development and sustainable development that I had not asked them about, but that they wished to convey. In addi-tion, steps taken during participant observation included keeping an open mind and trying to experience the BR as my informants did. The meaning of the experiences and interests of the informants often pro-vided new aspects of sustainable tourism to include in my analysis. Beyond the limitations in the methods, such as interviewing, partici-pant observation, document analysis and thematic analysis, the main methodological limitations of this study came from the results of

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qualitative research not being beneficial for generalising, and the scope of the individual studies undertaken. The limitations can be exemplified by the inclusion of a relatively small set of in-depth interviews and other empirical material. This means that there is no room for large-scale generalisation. Another limitation is that all of the analysis was qualitative, aimed at identify-ing and exploring the processes of sustainable development in depth, using tourism as the focal point. Such analysis makes comparisons problematic. In addition, the use of case study research, in which theoretical conclusions are both time-specific and highly contextual-ised, also limits the extent of the general claims that can be drawn from the findings. The weaknesses in such case studies involve the lack of links to general perspectives; however, the strength in con-ducting case studies such as those included in this dissertation is an emphasis on place-specific context and conditions, offering an oppor-tunity for creative insights. Most of the research underpinning this dissertation focused on indi-vidual participants who reflected on their part in the societal struc-tures, such as collective lifestyle choices regarding consumption and production or sustainable development approaches, found in tourism. This means that the findings do not provide facts concerning sustain-able development or measures of sustainability. Rather, the majority of the findings provide a snapshot of highly subjective information connected to the experiences of my informants. This is the empirical material that I analysed in an attempt to highlight the connections between the informants and sustainable development, sustainable tourism, BRs and place and landscape; that is, the central concepts of this study. Another limitation was self-reflexivity. My own assumptions and pre-conceptions on sustainable development and sustainable tourism are views that I bring with me into my research, and therefore they shape the outcome of the research. I am not a detached, objective observer. Our understanding of the world comes from our behaviour, our per-sonal values, culture, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, political leanings and the work that we do.

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I recently turned 34 years old. I am a man, and my political leanings and personal values centre on sustainability and equality. My interest in the environment, sustainable development issues and tourism be-gan long before I started my academic career. I grew up in Lapland in northern Sweden. As a child, I spent my winters in the mountains and my summers in the forest. There were always more trees than people around, and I loved it. When I started high school, my parents told me that an education with an environmental focus would be useful in the future, so I chose to study environmental science. Later, my curiosity for the world set me on the path of inquisitive exploration through international tourism. This trajectory ended up leading me back to Sweden, and to the bachelor programme in human geography, with a specialisation in tourism, at Umeå University. Eleven years have passed since I first set foot in a university, and now I have written this dissertation in human geography. My background, who I am and what I do influences the research I undertake. By acknowledging my assumptions, and reflecting on how they might influence my findings, I try to feed the reflexive input back into my research, but this is admittedly difficult.

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7. Article summaries

Article I – Place-specific and relational aspects of sustainable development in BR tourism

The first article included in this dissertation was also the first article, chronologically, from my research as a PhD candidate. In the article, we discuss how processes in BR ecotourism could contribute to sus-tainable development. Ecotourism was chosen as a type of tourism that would assist us in our analysis of place-specific and relational conditions of sustainable development in BR tourism. Later in my research, ecotourism came to hold less significance for my specific case study of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, becoming re-placed by sustainable tourism as the main touristic expression. In this article, however, ecotourism is central, and the findings generated in the article greatly affected and influenced the three following articles, and the overall research direction of the study. Ecotourism is a type of tourism that aims to generate sustainable development by promoting socioeconomic development whilst pre-serving the environment. The analysis of ecotourism in BRs provides insights into relational co-production and interactions among tour-ists, hosts and communities. We concluded that understanding the process of transition towards sustainable development in BR ecotour-ism can provide important information on the transition to sustaina-ble development. The article was produced as part of an article circle arranged by the Graduate School of Regional Studies at Karlstad University in 2014, and was presented at the International Pro-Mountains Conference – Tourism, Environment, Sustainable Development in September 2014 at Bucharest University in Romania. After the presentation, the article was finalised and submitted to the Journal of Environmental and Tourism Analyses, an open-source journal that was initiated in 2013. The journal was connected to the international conference. The article was accepted, and published online in May 2015.

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The purpose of the article was to explore whether ecotourism research in a BR context is useful for exploring the processes of sustainable development and transition to sustainable development. The theoretical departure points and framework of the article were sustainable development and the connecting theories of sustainability transistions and learning for sustainable development. We conducted an analysis on nine peer-reviewed journal articles, published between 2001 and 2014 that were found in Scopus and One Search via the search terms ‘ecotourism’ AND ‘biosphere reserve’ AND ‘sustainable development’. In the analysis, we looked for connec-tions via descriptions of various processes connected to sustainable development. The processes were based on themes found in sustaina-bility transitions, knowledge and learning theory and BR research. We found that the relational and place-specific conditions of sustainable development in BR ecotourism benefitted from being analysed through sustainability transitions and learning processes. The journal articles we analysed tended to focus on specific dimensions of ecotourism and sustainable development, such as consumption and production, striving for alternative development paths, shifts in economic development, political obstacles, learning, knowledge and participation. Moreover, we found that research on the processes of sustainable development among ecotourism entrepreneurs in BRs could highlight place-specific interactions with tourists and the surrounding region, their motivations and political implications in sustainability transition. The findings in Article I illustrate that the learning processes of sus-tainable development in BR tourism are widely promoted by BRs, and thus are actively pursued and refined by tourism stakeholders and planners. In addition, place and place-specific conditions proved to be central factors to consider, due to the fact that local and regional vari-ations change processes in the striving for sustainability that is em-bedded in BR tourism. Conducting research on sustainable development and the goals of sustainability is quite difficult, owing to constantly changing condi-

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tions and ever increasing complexities, as discussed by Spaargaren (2011) and Ciegis et al. (2015); however, Article I exemplifies that significant variations in place-specific sustainability processes of BR tourism illustrate the fluid and changing nature of sustainable devel-opment. Furthermore, Article I shows that there is much to learn from empirical studies on sustainable development processes in BR tourism, as it shifts the sustainable development discussion from general definitions towards place-specific variations and examples, just as Harlow, Golub, and Allenby (2013) proposed, with respect to sustainable development in general. Variations in place-specific processes of sustainable development show how changeable BR tourism processes and processes of sustain-able development are. Moreover, the article shows that empirical studies break down the larger processes of how BR tourism is mobi-lised for sustainable development, and highlight how this can gener-ate new knowledge, as such research shifts the focus from the general to place-specific examples.

Article II – Tourism and shifts in the interpretation of sustainable development

The second article in this dissertation focuses on the case of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, exploring shifts in the interpretation of the concept of sustainable development among local actors. The article investigated the interplay between sustainable development and tour-ism development in the BR, in order to examine the role of tourism, and show how sustainable development is interpreted among local actors, and what kind of understanding and interpretation of sustain-able development is practiced in the BR. The UNESCO MAB Reserves, in contrast to traditional nature protec-tion strategies, can be viewed as a more pronounced landscape per-spective that includes nature, culture and sustainable development. Generally, tourism is supported in BRs that also are meant to function as “learning sites of excellence to explore and demonstrate approach-es to conservation and sustainable development” (UNESCO, 1996, p. 16).

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The way that sustainable development is interpreted among local actors in BRs is filtered over time through local, regional and national conditions. A multitude of development strategies are also in place when the concept (the BR) is applied in practice. Thus, it becomes vital to gain a better understanding of how sustainable development is interpreted and understood, and how BR stakeholders see the role of tourism over time. The study’s overall question was: how is the biosphere concept ap-plied in a local and place-specific context that is regarded as a site for exploration and a demonstration of sustainable development? The sub-questions were: how is sustainable development interpreted; what kind of role does tourism play; and what kind of sustainable development is practised in the studied BR? The studied case was the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR in Sweden, which includes the three municipalities of Mariestad, Götene and Lidköping. The case was studied using secondary data, semi-structured interviews and document analysis, and the theoretical foundation rested on the evolution of environmental commitments, and research on tourism and BR tourism. The empirical material con-sists of interviews with eight tourism entrepreneurs active in the BR, 11 tourists visiting the BR in the summer of 2016, two interviews with people working in the BR office in Mariestad, key people in local na-ture and heritage organisations, local journalists active in the BR, municipal decision-makers, and information gathered during five rounds of field work in 2014, 2015 and 2016. We began by examining how sustainable development was under-stood by local actors in different contexts, and how this affected the development of the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR. Four stages of sus-tainable thought could be identified in the material: 1) the emergence of the BR, from 2006–2010; (2) the establishment of the ecotourism network, from 2009–2012; (3) the development towards it becoming an export-ready destination, from 2013–2014; and (4) increasing tourism sustainably in the BR, from 2014–2017.

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These four stages illustrate the development of the BR, highlighting different interpretations of sustainable development, and the role of tourism in the gradual progression of different developmental stages. The findings indicated that studying BRs is a suitable way of bringing forth official and unofficial interpretations of sustainable develop-ment. We also found that there is inbuilt tension in the concept of sustainable development. This tension can be exemplified by initial BR ideas, highlighting environmentally-friendly transport and provid-ing a focus for local and small-scale approaches to sustainable devel-opment, while increasing growth and export potential became the main driver during later stages of the BR development. There are parallels between the evolution of environmental commit-ments during the last century and the much more rapidly changing BR objectives. Furthermore, shifts in BR objectives are accompanied by shifts in the interpretation of what sustainable development is intended to aim for; the case study BR actors proved to be ambivalent towards the preferred approach to sustainable development. It is worth noting that the focus on small-scale and local approaches to sustainability became the prominent interpretation of sustainable development following the brief focus on export. A major finding of Article II is that the implementation of strategic tourism development and growth in the BR appeared to be an exam-ple of the hijacking of sustainability, but the BR concept seemed to re-orient the focus of sustainable development by re-establishing inclu-sive decision-making when hijacking appeared to be happening.

Article III – Social and place-specific processes of learning for sustainable development among tourism entrepreneurs

This empirical article aimed to explore place-specific and social learn-ing processes for sustainability among small-scale tourism entrepre-neurs in a BR. The empirical findings were discussed using an analyti-cal framework, based on themes of place-specific learning. The article provides examples of how place, social processes and spatial process-es of learning for sustainability illustrate how Swedish tourism busi-

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nesses have adapted to the changing environmental preferences of BR tourists, but also how they gain new knowledge about sustainability. A research plan was presented in October 2014 at the 23rd Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research in Copenhagen. After the presentation, the article was further developed, and empirical work was initiated in November 2014. Preliminary findings were presented in May 2015 at the Regional Studies Association conference in Piacenza, Italy. Further fieldwork was carried out in the summer of 2015, and the writing and analysis of the paper took place during the autumn of 2015 and spring of 2016. The case study covers small-scale tourism entrepreneurs committed to an ecotourism network project at the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR in Sweden. We argued that there was a need to consider small-scale tourism entrepreneurs in the learning processes for sustainable de-velopment, especially as they become role models through the ambi-tion of BR’s to be test-sites for sustainable development. We explored social and place-specific processes of learning as a way of providing knowledge on how learning for sustainable development takes place in BR tourism. Previous research had highlighted learning for sustainable development as social processes, aimed at creating new knowledge through information sharing, interactions and joint sense-making (Leal-Rodríguez, Roldán, Leal, & Ortega-Gutiérrez, 2013). In our analysis, we understood place-specifics of learning to include spatial processes, influenced by Massey’s (2005) understanding of place as relational, and paying attention to place-specific characteris-tics of the BRs. The pursuit for sustainable development in BR tour-ism entails the need not merely for tourism businesses to adapt to the changing environmental preferences of tourists, but also for entre-preneurs to gain new knowledge about sustainable development. Our study shows how place is central to grasping the processes of learning for sustainable development. The findings were discussed using an analytical framework, based on the themes of place-specific

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learning that emerged from the interviews. Our findings illustrated how small-scale tourism entrepreneurs engage in learning through their interactions with tourists at their tourism establishments, through networking with other tourism businesses and regional stakeholders, through engaging with local resources and cultural norms of the BR, and through their experiences and practices con-nected to their everyday lives and the private sphere. One of our main findings was that place is central to the understand-ing of the interaction driving learning processes for sustainable devel-opment among the tourism entrepreneurs in Lake Vänern Archipela-go BR.

Article IV – Tourist reflections on sustainability in a biosphere reserve landscape

The aim of this article was to gain an understanding of in what regard sustainable development gave meaning to the tourism landscape of a BR. The aim was operationalised using this research question: how do tourists reflect on sustainable development in the Lake Vänern Archi-pelago BR in Sweden? There is a research gap relating to tourist reflections on sustainable development in BRs, in part due to previous research on tourists in BRs mainly focusing on travel decisions or descriptions, and because there has been a focus in sustainable tourism on practical solutions and local approaches to sustainable development, as well as there being a lack of critical reflection in sustainable tourism. These re-search gaps were addressed using tourist reflections on sustainable development in BR landscapes, and embedding the analysis of the empirical material in broader discourses of culture and nature, as suggested by Vinge and Flø (2015). The empirical material consisted of 11 in-depth interviews, two weeks of participant observation, and discussions on photographic motifs of the BR. The material was thematically analysed using theories on substantive landscape to provide meaning for tourism consumption, and theories on tourist consumption, connected to environmental convictions and

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consumption habits, provided explanations for the informant re-sponses. A substantive landscape is lived, material and connected to various identity-creating processes. Here, the landscape comes to signify more than just the scenery; the landscape represents the lived world and our ambitions in it. The findings indicated that the ways in which BR tourists reflect on environmental aspects of sustainable development have the potential to illustrate how different features of tourism in BR landscapes can underline themes found in sustainable development. In addition, the reflections provided by the informants demonstrated the ways in which substantive landscapes and tourism are interrelated with sus-tainable development via the potential of BR landscapes to expand environmental awareness via value creation through aestheticism in the BR landscape, and through the functionality of the BR landscape. There was a significant focus on the environmental aspects of sustain-able development among the informants in Article IV. My limited material (11 extensive in-depth interviews and two weeks of partici-pant observation) did not allow me to take great leaps, and did not enable generalisation. Having said that, the findings suggest that: 1) tourism in BR landscapes has the symbolic potential to influence im-pending behavioural changes in favour of sustainable development among tourists; 2) tourists in the BR use the aesthetics of the land-scape to create value that inspires them to achieve personal pathways to environmentally-sustainable development; and 3) the functionality of the BR landscape can promote how people understand environ-mental issues.

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8. Discussion

The overarching aim of this study was to contribute to a more com-prehensive understanding of sustainable development by researching tourism in a BR. Studying how different actors use tourism in relation to sustainable development in BRs does exactly this, by providing insights into how sustainable development works at the meeting point between tourism and BRs. Understanding how tourism is mobilised by different actors to attain and promote sustainable development in BRs is important for un-packing the complexities of sustainable development (see Acott et al., 1998; Bramwell et al., 2017; Buckley, 2012; Fernandez & Sanchez Rivero, 2009), and for generating sustainability-centred research on sustainable tourism (Bramwell, 2015; Saarinen, 2013). The empirical work, and the four sub-questions of the main study, have been discussed, together with the theoretical approaches pre-sented in earlier chapters.

I. How does research on BR tourism contribute to an in-creased understanding of sustainable development?

II. How does tourism development affect local interpretations of sustainable development by different actors in a BR?

III. How does a relational understanding of place provide in-sights into learning for sustainable development among tourism producers in a BR?

IV. How can a substantive understanding of landscape provide insights into sustainable development and tourism con-sumers in a BR?

The importance of the case of the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR has assisted my research by allowing for a focus on place-specific condi-tions, that is, extensive actor involvement and taking into account local conditions and geographical variations (see Borsdorf et al., 2014). Findings originating from the case showcase an empirical study on how sustainable development is interpreted and utilised by local tourism actors. The environmental aspects of sustainable devel-opment were a focal point for both tourism entrepreneurs in the BR

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(Article III) and tourists visiting the BR (Article IV); however, one cannot underestimate the influence of the researcher and conducting research in a BR, especially as BRs have a long tradition of conserva-tion and nature protection (Ishwaran et al., 2008). When I asked the informants about sustainable development, they tended to centre on environmental dimensions. The discussion was organised according to the research questions mentioned. Each section covers discussions relating to each specific sub-question of the research conducted. The four sections open with a major finding relating to the research question, and are then followed by a discussion, with reflections on the theoretical perspectives of the study. The major focus on the complexities of sustainable develop-ment in BR tourism is connected to the empirical work for Articles I and II. The specific application of relational place and learning for sustainability was explored in Article III, and the role of tourism con-sumption and substantive landscape in Article IV. There are, however, some overlaps in the empirical material that ultimately only show the interconnectedness of the four different empirical studies.

8.1. Breaking down larger processes of sustainable development in BRs

How does research on BR tourism contribute to an increased under-standing of sustainable development? A major finding in Article I was that empirical studies that break down the larger processes of sus-tainable development in BR tourism can generate new knowledge, as such research shifts the focus from the general to place-specific ex-amples. The findings of Article I show that smaller processes, relating to current discussions around unpacking the complexities of sustain-able development and local changes to production and consumption, can be seen to be part of larger processes of change connected to both the BR concept and sustainable development. In other words, small sustainability processes in BRs (e.g., place-specific social learning among tourism entrepreneurs) are significant, and often connect with larger processes (e.g., tourism development objectives or approaches to sustainability via UNESCO) that generate change, both in the BRs

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and in how sustainable development is comprehended, showing how tourism, on a destinational level, is connected to sustainability transi-tion and learning for sustainability. Variations in place-specific pro-cesses of sustainability show how changeable BR tourism processes and processes of sustainable development are. Sustainable tourism in BRs is undoubtedly part of sustainability pro-cesses that change the focus on economic development, and influence, and sometimes act as, media for implementing alternative develop-ment courses. There is potential to explore processes of sustainable development through the way in which different actors use tourism via the importance of local participation (Borsdorf et al., 2014; Kala & Maikhuri, 2011), and through increased cooperation among stake-holders (Habibah et al., 2013). Furthermore, BRs represent local ap-proaches connected to supranational conceptualisations on sustaina-ble development (Ishwaran et al., 2008; While et al., 2010). An exam-ple of this is the local adaptations of the SDGs (UNESCO, 2015b). Different places around the world are affected by, and predisposed to, sustainable development in very different ways. This means that the outcomes of sustainable development in BRs depend on the local reading of global objectives by different actors. Over time, place-specific conditions are continuously reconstructed in the back and forth of local motivations and meaning connected to sustainable de-velopment. In Article I, there are additions to the existing literature on sustaina-bility through the analytical focus on the processes of sustainability transition and learning for sustainable development in BR tourism. For example, the processes of transition in BR tourism consist of changes in production and consumption of tourism, as well as more open dialogues on political agendas among locals, decision-makers and tourism stakeholders. Conducting research on sustainable development involves taking into account that sustainability itself has come to mean very different things to different people, companies, organisations and nations, ever since its inception (Dzemydienë, 2008). Redclift (2005) argued that sustainable development is broad and includes the balance between

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humanity and nature, but that this broad understanding makes the concept less manageable. The concept of sustainable development is best tackled by viewing it as consisting of smaller processes (Harlow et al., 2013). Sustainability being made up of smaller processes highlights the significance of place-specific processes in regard to which spatial relation is some-thing we collectively make together with other people. Here, place is understood to be relational, as proposed by Massey (2005). Sustaina-ble development is connected to place, and gives meaning to our un-derstanding of the world in the form of interconnected collected sto-ries and our relationships with other people and places. In BRs, at least in a post-Seville context (i.e., BRs established after 1996), emphasis has been placed on the sustainability processes of learning as a tool for generating sustainable development in learning laboratories (Ishwaran et al., 2008). Thus, from a BR perspective, tourism can be used to explore place-specific sustainability processes, such as transitions and learning, and hence can be analysed as an example of such a laboratory. In Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, small-scale tourism entrepreneurs and visiting tourists thrived before the large-scale tourism plans of 2012–2013, and this study has shown that both the tourism entrepreneurs and the tourists contribute to, and co-create, learning processes for sustainability in very subtle, place-specific and local ways. The success of the small-scale, bottom-up post-Seville strategies for sustainable development in the BR brought an expansion in tourism strategies favoured by some of the larger tourism companies in the BR, and by the three municipalities that together make up the geographical area of the BR. Sustainable tourism development in BRs is spatial, and is anchored to the core values of sustainable development found in the agendas, strategies and plans of UNESCO (UNESCO, 2015a, b, 2016). In Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, these core values can be found in the ambi-tions to contribute to SDGs 8 (economic growth), 9 (innovative indus-tries and infrastructure), 11 (developing sustainable communities and cities), 12 (promoting sustainable production and consumption) and 13 (combatting climate change).

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In a sense, BRs are archetypes of absolute and enclosed space, and tourism research in this setting has the potential to problematise, and provide new knowledge on, the interaction between local applications and global directives. The work of Azcárate (2010), one of the peer-reviewed articles analysed in Article I, highlighted that place-specific approaches to tourism in BRs are useful tools for unmasking power hierarchies in the shaping of global, regional and local resources by emphasising the voices and participation of locals in global issues. Sustainability-centred tourism research in BRs provides an angle for problematising the mobilisation of tourism for sustainability by high-lighting local processes of meaning in planning, production and con-sumption. Tourism development and the promotion of tourism entre-preneurship have become increasingly embedded in the sustainability ambitions of BRs following the 1984 UNESCO Action Plan for BRs. Research on BR tourism can contribute to an increased understand-ing of sustainable development by breaking down larger processes and shifting focus to place-specific examples. In addition, this under-scores the sustainability processes that change the emphasis on eco-nomic development, and influences, and sometimes acts as, a medium for implementing alternative courses of development. The approach used in Article I proved to be a beneficial first step in the research presented in this dissertation. The tactic of breaking down large processes of sustainable development opened up a focus on place-specifics, which was then further elaborated on, in different ways, in Articles II, III and IV.

8.2. The interpretation of sustainable development in a BR is affected by tourism development

How does tourism development affect local interpretations of sustain-able development by different actors in a BR? This study focused on how different actors use tourism for sustainable development in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, and helped frame the research for this disser-tation by highlighting how susceptible sustainable development is to

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hijacking. A major finding of Article II is that the implementation of strategic tourism development and growth in the BR appears to be an example of the hijacking of sustainability, but the BR concept seems to help BR actors re-orient the focus of sustainable development by re-establishing inclusive decision-making when hijacking appears to be happening. The shift in focus from the traditional protection of nature to the in-clusion of learning themes, cultural themes and development themes is demonstrated in Article II via a temporary shift back from a broad-er understanding of sustainability to traditional nature protection. The retrograde shift was brought about by an increased focus on large-scale tourism plans that were accompanied by touristic market-ing of nature and its attractions to international tourists. The sustain-ability objectives that permeated earlier stages of the BR were put under pressure by tourism strategies linked to unsustainable practic-es, and the use of fossil fuels connected to global travel. The re-orientation and renewed focus on sustainable development was brought about by the incorporation of inclusive decision-making when the external pressure diminished, showing that a relational understanding of place can put emphasis on how certain precondi-tions affect development, as proposed by Ek and Hultman (2007) and Massey (1991b, 1995), and also the spatial relationships that make up processes of sustainable development. In this study, sustainable development was understood to be some-thing more than a striving for balance, and it was also understood that the actual concept itself has been hijacked, as proposed by Parr (2012). This means that sustainable development is being used in ways that obscures struggles with balancing the economy, social de-velopment and environmentally-friendly development. The hijacking of sustainability can be seen in the struggles of the tourism producers, in the difference of supply and demand expressed through the reflec-tions of the tourists, and ultimately in how tourism development ap-proaches sustainability in BRs. The term ‘hijacking of sustainability’ describes the process of green-washing and environmental initiatives motivated by economic reasons, such as ecological modernisation and economic growth-centred strategies.

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BRs are intended to operate as learning laboratories for sustainable development (UNESCO, 1996), and focus on the concept (the BR) has shifted from the protection of select areas of nature to a wider and deeper view of sustainability, in which culture and nature are inte-grated. In Sweden, this intentional shift away from traditional nature protection can be exemplified by the fact that the Swedish name for the concept is ‘biosphere areas’ (biosfärsområden), and not ‘BRs’ (bi-osfärreservat). Links can be drawn between the dichotomies of domi-nation and adaptation in sustainability (Sandell, 2005), and the con-ceptual use of ‘territorial’ and ‘functional’ regional development by Friedmann and Weaver (1979). This means that the tension between biosphere area development – closely linked to alternative demands, such as local initiatives, bottom-up approaches and democratisation – and BR development – connected to modernisation, ecological mod-ernisation and globalisation – is useful in the discussion of sustaina-ble development in initiatives such as BRs. Tourism has been included as a strategy for supporting learning pro-cesses for sustainable development in many BRs, although tourism itself is often criticised from a sustainability viewpoint; for example, the implementation of sustainability in tourism is frequently very complex, and a consensus on how tourism can be sustainable is rarely agreed upon (Simão & Partidário, 2012). This means that various globally-constructed development strategies, such as the SDGs of Agenda 2030, are contextualised in ways that go beyond evaluations of sustainable development outcomes, and instead shift focus to the meaning and processes of the strategies. In Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, the global objectives and understanding of sustainable develop-ment are manifested through the ambition to contribute to the SDGs with the development of sustainable tourism. The findings of Article II show that successful bottom-up initiatives, connected to sustainable development of the BR, paved the way for boosted learning processes for sustainability in BR tourism. The focus of the biosphere area strategies on sustainability – for example, envi-ronmentally-friendly local transport, inclusion and interaction be-tween stakeholders, and tourism products based on local knowledge –

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was put under pressure by attempts to increase tourist numbers and attract international guests. Tourism development affects the local interpretation of sustainable development in a BR in different and opposing ways. The implementation of tourism development that focuses on growth appears to be an example of hijacking sustainabil-ity, while bottom-up and locally-anchored tourism development brings about an interpretation of sustainable development that cen-tres on the environmental and social dimensions of sustainability. The approach of investigating the interpretation of sustainable devel-opment via tourism in a BR generated new knowledge on how local actors understand sustainable development and their role in it, and showed how actors in BRs have the opportunity to counter possible sustainability hijackings. It would be interesting to conduct follow-up interviews a few years down the road in order to analyse, in more detail, how the interpretation of sustainable development changes over time.

8.3. A relational understanding of place influences learning for sustainable development in a biosphere reserve

How does a relational understanding of place provide insights into learning for sustainable development among tourism producers in a BR? This question focuses on the social and place-specific learning processes of tourism producers in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, and helped frame the research for this study by highlighting how learning for sustainable development has meaning and provides an under-standing of the interconnected and complex world in which we exist. A major finding of Article III is that place is central to the understand-ing of the interaction driving learning processes for sustainable devel-opment among tourism entrepreneurs in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR. The learning processes related to environmental sustainability in BR tourism are manifested through interactions, participation and ex-change of knowledge connected to the simultaneous production and consumption found in tourism. The importance of learning processes of sustainability in BR tourism was an important finding in Article I,

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and was further explored in Article III (tourism entrepreneurs). In Article I, the learning processes of sustainability are a way of breaking down sustainable development into smaller processes with practical applications. Previous research on learning for sustainability in a BR context have shown that BRs, in line with the evolution of the BR concept (Ishwaran et al., 2008), can increase learning for sustainabil-ity through community-based development (Stoll-Kleemann, De la Vega-Leinert, & Schultz, 2010), through bottom-up and inclusive decision-making (Angelstam & Axelson, 2013), and through the expe-riences connected to sustainability among tourists in the BRs (Hearne & Santos, 2005). Relational place, as influenced by Doreen Massey, allows for an un-derstanding of place as having meaning and providing an understand-ing of the interconnected learning processes of tourism producers in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR. This relational understanding of place goes beyond the notion that place is closed, divided up and put into categories, instead shifting focus to the specificities of place that com-prise our relations and connections to places and people, and the meaning of connections and exclusions in the wider setting of our lives. In relation to sustainable development, the notion of both that which is possible and that which is not possible in certain places shows how a relational understanding of place provided this study with a useful way of unpacking complex global objectives. In determining place-specific and social learning, in relation to sus-tainability, the findings of Article III generated insights into the im-portance of place in the learning for sustainability of small-scale tour-ism entrepreneurs in a BR. The social relations, the practices and the institutional structures in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR all contribute to the place-specific conditions that affect learning processes for envi-ronmental sustainability. Paasi (2002) suggested that such interlink-ing is how places come into being. This means that the importance of place in critical sustainability-centred research on tourism in BRs lies in conceptualising place as the opportunities, conditions and founda-tion by which BRs are imbued with meaning.

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Massey (2005) noted that the relational nature of place depends on subjective realisations connected to both our surrounding and our-selves. In this study, place was constantly being created through nego-tiations on sustainable development in the actual BR, but also simul-taneously in the subjective minds of tourism producers, tourism con-sumers and other tourism stakeholders. The findings somewhat cor-related with Stagl’s (2007) discussions on the embeddedness of learn-ing processes in different local contexts, and their importance in put-ting sustainable development into use on different levels, ranging from the local to the global. The findings in Article III, however, stress how central place is to learning processes for sustainability. Here, we can see that place is emerging as a premise for understanding the sustainability potential of tourism in BRs. The relational places of business have provided tourism entrepre-neurs with opportunities to participate in social learning via mutual exchange with tourists, and through a sense of responsibility. The add-on to social learning, as discussed by Keen, Brown, and Dyball (2005), is that beyond what occurs in interactions and being driven by a motivation to generate change; place-specific and social learning for environmental sustainability in BR tourism is influenced by the place in which the learning is occurring, that is, in a tourism establishment located in a BR. The BR serves two main functions for tourism producers in Lake Vä-nern Archipelago BR in their attempts to increase their sustainability. These relational places provide: 1) a foundation from which tourism entrepreneurs can interact and network with other tourism and non-tourism actors; and 2) the BR itself, which functions as a loose organi-sation in which knowledge and learning for environmental sustaina-bility has the potential to be collected, distributed and shared, accord-ing to the objectives of UNESCO (1996, 2015a, 2016). The systemic dimension, via interactions with other tourism and non-tourism actors, generates individual learning, as discussed by Stagl (2007), with the addition of a BR context that shapes the learning. The BR concept, as discussed by Schultz and Lundholm (2010), also means that tourism entrepreneurs have access to research on envi-

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ronmental sustainability through a loosely knit organisation. The organisational learning connected to sustainable development creates an environment for learning in accordance with the discussions of Akgün, Lynn, and Byrne (2003), but does not fulfil the learning crite-ria of making tacit knowledge explicit, as stipulated by Crossan, Lane, and White (1999). In other words, there seems to be great potential for organisational learning for sustainable development among tour-ism entrepreneurs in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR, but these objec-tives are not always met. The specific places where learning for sustainability occurs impacts interactions and consequences (Koutsouris, 2009; Mesquita, Anand, & Brush, 2008). Inspired by the work of Massey (2005), and her un-derstanding of place as relational, it becomes apparent that the place-specific conditions of the BR are formed by that which is present and doable in a place – that is, the BR itself, and the places emphasised by the informants, for example, the businesses, places of networking and home – as well as that which is not present or possible in a place – for example, lack of knowledge, lack of funds, lack of interaction, lack of interest. Both things that work (interactions) and things that do not (making tacit knowledge explicit) make up the foundation and condi-tions of place, highlighting both the limitations and sustainability potential of learning for sustainability among tourism entrepreneurs. The notion of time is important to consider in sustainability-centred tourism research. Here, time sets limits to different kinds of learning for sustainable development for different stakeholders. The temporal aspects of learning for the tourism entrepreneurs featured in this dissertation consist of learning that is influenced by long periods of interactions with the local BR, and thus their learning for sustainable development takes on the characteristics of UNESCO’s ways of con-ceptualising sustainability. Tourists, on the other hand, have very short temporal interactions with UNESCO’s ideals of sustainability, and thus their take on sustainable development is, to a greater degree, influenced by previous life experiences. The ways in which people use what they learn about sustainability, and the results of learning in the normative supranational context of a

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BR, do not give indications of the potentially positive outcomes of said learning, but instead, the outcomes of learning highlight the processes connected to learning. These processes include: the inspiration to engage more in sustainable development; an increased connection to the surrounding environment; an anchoring of the importance of cooperation, interaction and the embracing of new ideas; and that learning for sustainable development requires active engagement and participation, rather than reacting to a prefabricated universal solu-tion. A relational understanding of place provides insights into learning for sustainable development among tourism producers in a BR by high-lighting the importance of place in the interaction-driven learning processes of tourism entrepreneurs in a BR. This approach, of semi-structured interviews, worked fine, but I believe that including partic-ipant observations on the everyday workings of the informants could have generated additional information regarding place and learning for sustainable development among the tourism producers.

8.4. A substantive understanding of landscape provides insights into the role of tourists in BRs

How can a substantive understanding of landscape provide insights into sustainable development and tourism consumers in a BR? This question focuses on tourists reflections on sustainability in Lake Vä-nern Archipelago BR, and helped frame the research presented in this dissertation by highlighting how the use of the concept of substantive landscape indicates that landscapes epitomise the meeting point of local nature, sustainability initiatives and identity creation with global sustainability directives. Here, development strategies linked to inter-national objectives, such as the SDGs, were placed in a local context that enabled an emphasis to be placed on processes connected to the strategies, rather than on evaluating the effects and intended out-comes of the strategies. Major findings of Article IV were that BR landscapes seem to have the potential to increase environmental awareness, that aesthetics were

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important to how the interviewed tourists made sense of environmen-tal aspects of sustainability, and that the functionality of the BR land-scape showed how the participants perceived environmental con-cerns, and how they saw their own roles in affecting the landscape. BR landscapes seem to be positive influences for people trying to be-come more environmentally conscious, generating inspiration to be-come more sustainable, and the general functionalities of the land-scape, for example, access, information and activities, provide indica-tions of how people understand sustainable development. The impli-cation of the environmental convictions of tourists, as discussed by Gupta and Chopra (2014), means that tourists are increasingly aware of their touristic impact, and their consumption habits are better un-derstood by looking at the activities and experiences of tourists, as proposed by Acott et al. (1998). In this study, the different perfor-mances and embodied processes in tourism enabled a focus on the mundane and everyday practices of BR tourists that aided in de-exotifying the tourism experience, as proposed by Larsen (2008). This approach allowed for my informants to be immersed as subjects en-gaged in the BR, in a similar way to that argued by Wylie (2007) re-garding embodiment in landscape. The geographical implications of the dimensions of scale embedded in sustainable development can, in addition to theories on place, be problematised using theories on landscape. Johnston and Braden (2008) opined that improvement of environment, for example, sus-tainable development, can be understood by looking at the meaning and production of landscape. BRs are envisioned to be test sites for sustainability. Learning how tourists in a BR make sense of the land-scape they visit generates knowledge on the meaning of the landscape, and implants the tourists’ reflections in larger discussions of nature and culture, including, but not limited to, sustainable development (Vinge & Flø, 2015). One critical aspect of exploring tourist consumption of BR landscapes is that such research highlights different aspects of tourism consump-tion, which, in different ways, contributes to an understanding of sustainability-centred approaches to tourism knowledge. One exam-

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ple is how tourism in the BR landscape has the symbolic potential to influence behavioural changes in favour of sustainable development. This symbolic potential comes from the way in which tourists make sense of their experiences, and how these experiences fit with their objectives of increasing their sustainability. Another example is the analytical use of substantive landscape to understand how tourists conceptualise their visits through imagined identities, and by generat-ing their own ways of increasing their sustainability. In addition, the functionality of the BR shows that not all sustainability attempts launched by BRs result in increased sustainability. Some tourists do not care about environmental issues and, by utilising the three di-mensions of tourism consumption in landscapes proposed by Terkenli (2002), this generated new insights into how tourists subjectively comprehend environmental issues. The use of substantive landscape, influenced by Olwig (1996, 2013), allowed for issues of environment, culture and economics to be un-derstood as interconnected via interpretations of the local conditions by the informants and changes at Lake Vänern Archipelago BR. The substantive understanding of landscape highlights the BR landscape as part of the life realm, subsequently showing how the meaning of landscape in BR tourism influences environmental concerns. Sustain-ability-centred research on the enlistment of tourism for sustainable development in BRs, which incorporated substantive landscapes, had the potential to show the fluid, vivid and changing representations that, through embeddedness and performance, bestow the landscape with meaning connected to sustainable development. In addition, the touristic experiences that give meaning to tourists that make an effort to travel in more sustainable ways are made up of knowledge on environmental issues and an active ‘doing’ dimension of the trip. The tourists see their responsible actions (consumption habits), and to an extent sustainability, as a means of protecting the environment, keeping nature and the landscape beautiful for the fu-ture, whilst at the same time enabling the lives of local people in the BR. Tourists generally focus on the ordinary aspects of tourism, but give the mundane experiences value through romance, sentimentality or by setting a good example.

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Article IV showed that tourists that visit BRs mainly come for the beautiful landscape and certain nostalgic or ideological reasons. The tourists consume the BR landscape and give the consumption mean-ing via symbolic, aesthetic and functional dimensions. There was little to no talk about going on package-tours, about ecotourism or about the BR. These are interesting and important findings for future stud-ies of tourism for sustainable development in BRs, as they indicate that there is a discrepancy between the type of tourism products that municipalities in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR want to develop and what the participants in Article IV wanted to experience. It seems that these consumers of tourism were more interested in showing that they were environmentally conscious than in simply enjoying their tourism. The informants used tourism as a way of positioning them-selves in sustainability, and anchoring their environmental convic-tions. A substantive understanding of landscape provides insights into sus-tainable development and tourism consumers in a BR by indicating the potential of BR tourism to enable increased environmental awareness by highlighting that aesthetics are important to how tour-ists make sense of environmental aspects of sustainability, and that the functionality of the BR landscape can show how the informants perceive environmental concerns, and how they see their own roles in affecting the landscape. The approach of combining semi-structured interviews, participant observation and photographing allowed for my informants to be immersed subjects, engaged in the BR, and assisted me in exploring and de-exotifying the meaning of the tourism experi-ence.

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9. Conclusions

The overarching aim of this study was to contribute to a more com-prehensive understanding of sustainable development by researching tourism in a BR. I identified some of the processes that show the plu-rality of ways that different actors utilise tourism in relation to sus-tainable development in BRs. This aim influenced my work in this study, and the chapters and articles in this dissertation all address different angles of my response to it – combining theoretical aspects of sustainable development, sustainable tourism, BRs and spatial theories, using in-depth qualitative methods, gathering empirical material from different perspectives and tying it all together. Research on how different actors mobilise tourism to attain and pro-mote sustainable development in BRs can generate new knowledge on how sustainable development works by showing how sustainable development is made up of smaller place-specific processes. New knowledge on these place-specific processes aids in shifting the focus from more growth-oriented strategies, whereby sustainable develop-ment is used to develop tourism, towards an understanding of how tourism can be used as a tool that, on a destinational level, is connect-ed to a wide range of sustainability processes that relate to learning and a transition towards sustainability. These processes are connected to larger systemic issues concerning the actions needed to increase sustainability, and provide indications of whether treating unsustain-able symptoms in contemporary society require smaller readjust-ments, or more extensive shifts in priorities, when it comes to devel-opment. In addition, knowing that smaller processes make up sus-tainable development highlights the significance of place-specific conditions. This means that sustainable development is a spatial rela-tion, and something that we make together with other people. The findings indicate that tourism, as also noted by Packer et al. (2010), has the potential to contribute to sustainable development by, among other things, altering environmental awareness, promoting a way of life that lessens environmental impacts, and by endorsing en-vironmentally-sustainable lifestyle changes. Tourism cannot be the only avenue for development, but this thesis has demonstrated that

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how different actors mobilise tourism to attain and promote sustaina-ble development in BRs could have an important role to play in en-hancing our understanding of sustainable development. The conclu-sions reached in this dissertation may be applicable to BRs in other places, or in other areas with different levels of nature protection and tourism development. Based on the four studies in this dissertation, the following conclu-sions have been reached:

i. Empirical studies that break down the larger processes of sustainable de-velopment in BR tourism can generate new knowledge, as such research shifts the focus from the general to place-specific examples;

ii. The implementation of strategic tourism development focusing on eco-nomic growth in the Lake Vänern Archipelago BR appears to be an exam-ple of the hijacking of sustainability;

iii. The BR concept seems to help local actors re-orient the focus of sustaina-

ble development by re-establishing inclusive decision-making when hi-jacking appears to be happening;

iv. Place appears to be central to the understanding of the interaction driving

learning processes for sustainable development among tourism entrepre-neurs in Lake Vänern Archipelago BR;

v. Reflections on sustainable development among the interviewed tourists in

Lake Vänern Archipelago BR suggest that tourism consumption and the

connection to sustainable development is given meaning via symbolism,

aesthetics and functionality in the landscape; and

vi. The sustainability approaches of Lake Vänern Archipelago BR are affected

by tourism development, and small-scale, bottom-up tactics are more in line with BR objectives than commercial large-scale tourism development.

Research on the mobilisation of tourism for sustainability in BRs in general, and Lake Vänern Archipelago BR in particular, has highlight-ed several theoretical and empirical findings in this dissertation that contribute to our increased understanding of how sustainable devel-opment works.

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9.1. Future research

This dissertation contains a number of leitmotifs that prompt con-cluding suggestions meriting future research. A major finding of in this dissertation is that the implementation of strategic tourism de-velopment and growth in the case study BR appear to be an example of the hijacking of sustainability, but that the BR concept seems to help local actors re-orient the focus of sustainable development by re-establishing inclusive decision-making when hijacking appears to be happening. This feels like the beginning of something very interesting. If this anti-hijacking is a recurring theme in other BRs, then we have a very im-portant key to understanding the role BRs play in advancing sustain-able development. First, the anti-hijacking needs to be established by additional research. Second, the re-orientation towards sustainable development needs to be studied in order to determine whether such a process is a response to the hijacking of sustainability. Third, future research could investigate whether these anti-hijacking processes are present in other BRs. The relational processes for learning have, in this dissertation, indict-ed that learning is a complex and place-specific activity that influ-ences tourism producers in intricate ways. One dimension of this is that place and interactions are paramount, but also that place-specific and social learning for sustainability are influenced by private and public contexts. Research with a gender focus could capture the nu-ances and subtle distinctions among small-scale tourism entrepre-neurs, as they relate to the balance of home and work. In addition, a different focus of the learning, other than sustainability, could gener-ate new knowledge on the role of learning in the production of tour-ism.

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Appendix 1

Concepts used in the study (in alphabetical order) Concept Brief explanation of prevalent definitions used in the

study Biosphere reserve

BRs consist of coastal, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The reserves attempt to find solutions that reconcile sustainable de-velopment with conservation of biodiversity. BR are ‘Science for Sustainability support sites’ – designated locations for testing approaches to managing and understanding interactions between ecological and social systems (UNESCO, 2013a).

Consumption of tourism

Tourists consume tourism through myriad ways, including, but not limited to, place (i.e., the ‘tourist gaze’: Urry, 2002), as partic-ipation and performance (Edensor, 2007; Larsen & Urry, 2011), and as experience (Chronis, 2015; Ek et al., 2008).

Ecotourism Blamey (2001) defined ecotourism as mostly nature-based, aimed at generating learning opportunities, and functioning in a manner that promotes gains in local communities through environmental and sociocultural development.

Environmental sustainability

Environmental sustainability entails “… meeting the resource and services needs of current and future generations without com-promising the health of the ecosystems that provide them, ... and more specifically, as a condition of balance, resilience, and inter-connectedness that allows human society to satisfy its needs while neither exceeding the capacity of its supporting ecosystems to continue to regenerate the services necessary to meet those needs nor by our actions diminishing biological diversity” (Morelli, 2011, p. 6).

Landscape Landscape includes the physical landscape and how physical, social and biological components in our surroundings intermingle in the interrelationship between humans and their surroundings through activities, sentimentality, functionality and aesthetics (Gkoltsiou & Terkenli, 2012).

Learning for sustainability

Learning for sustainability occurs as result of the social processes of: 1) exchanging knowledge in social networks (Stagl, 2007); 2) the interaction-driven will to implement change (Keen et al., 2005; Sol, Beers, & Wals, 2013); and 3) transferring tacit and explicit knowledge (Crossan et al., 1999).

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Place Place is socially operated and constructed, influences economic and political decisions, includes interactions between groups and individuals, and gives value to the language of representation and identity creation (Agnew, 1987; Martin, 2003; Massey, 1994).

Production of tourism

The production of tourism involves planning and managerial processes, with the addition of times of hospitality, service and personal involvement of the consumer (tourists). Ultimately, the tourism process and product are inseparable ( Smith, 1994).

Processes Processes are the practices through which society changes be-tween conditions, and include the goals of the practices (Sharpley, 2000).

Sustainabil-ity

Sustainability is the ability to maintain natural resources and the ecological balance, the primary objective being to save the envi-ronment from destruction or depletion (Diesendorf, 2000).

Sustainable development

Development “... that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987). Sustainable development is the bal-ance between nature and humanity via environmental protection, and sociocultural and economic development (Redclift, 2005).

Sustainable tourism

“Tourism that takes full account of its current and future econom-ic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities” (UNEP & UNWTO, 2005, pp. 11-12). In other words, tourism that tries to promote sustainable development (Saarinen, 2006).

Tourism “Tourism is a study of … [tourists] away from … [their] usual habitat, of the industry which responds to … [their] needs, and of the impacts that both … [tourists] and the industry have on the host sociocultural, economic, and physical environments” (Jafari, 1977, p. 8).

Tourist Someone travelling outside their usual environment – one-day visitors are excursionists and overnight-stay visitors are tourists. The purpose of the trip should be tourism, such as visiting friends and relatives, leisure, recreation, education, etc. (UNWTO, 2010). Tourists, however, seem not to make a distinction between one-day visits and overnight stays, indicating that a broader definition of tourists, to include day visitors, might be more accurate (Yu, Kim, Chen, & Schwartz, 2012).

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Doktorsavhandlingar från Forskarskolan i Regionalt Samhällsbyggande Hagsmo, Leena En mötesplats fylld av mening. En studie om gemenskap och samarbete i skapandet av Arvikafesti-valen. Kulturgeografi. Karlstad University Studies 2014:1 Säll, Line Regionalpolitikens diskursiva grunder och gränser. Om politik, makt och kunskap i det regionala samhällsbyggandet. Statsvetenskap. Karlstad University Studies 2014:24 Forsell, Anders Kommunala ideal och politisk verklighet. En jämförande fallstudie av frisinnad politisk organisering i Filipstad och Skövde, ca 1880-1920. Historia. Karlstad University Studies 2014:48. Grundel, Ida Jakten på den attraktiva regionen. En studie om samtida regionaliseringsprocesser. Kulturgeografi. Karlstad University Studies 2014:58. Berglund, Camilla Närheter och avstånd i ett nordvärmländskt skogslandskap. Praktiker och betydelser i nya tidsrums-liga sammanhang. Kulturgeografi. Karlstad University Studies 2015:4. Mitander, Tomas Regio Ex Machina. Om det regionala medborgarskapets villkor. Statsvetenskap. Karlstad University Studies 2015:16. Öjehag-Pettersson, Andreas Space Craft. Globalization and Governmentality in Regional Development. Political Science. Karlstad University Studies 2015:23. Olsson, David Conditions of ‘Sustainability’. The Case of Climate Change Adaptation in Sweden. Political Science. Karlstad University Studies 2018:16. Licentiatuppsatser från Forskarskolan i Regionalt Samhällsbyggande Säll, Line Kluster som teori och politik. Om den regionala tillväxtpolitikens diskursiva praktiker. Statsvetenskap. Karlstad University Studies 2011:56. Ovanstående publikationer går bra att beställas via Karlstads University Press, [email protected] Ytterligare information www.kau.se/crs. Kontakt [email protected]


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Fredrik Hoppstadius | Sustainable developm

ent and tourism in a biosphere reserve | 2018:34

Sustainable development and tourism in a biosphere reserve





Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Human Geography


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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM IN A BIOSPHERE RESERVE

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM IN A BIOSPHERE RESERVE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND TOURISM IN A BIOSPHERE RESERVE

FREDRIK HOPPSTADIUS

FREDRIK HOPPSTADIUS

A CASE STUDY OF LAKE VÄNERN ARCHIPELAGO BIOSPHERE RESERVE, SWEDEN

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ISSN 1403-8099

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