Om naturupplevelser hos Elin Wägner och Hagar Olsson. Lästa i eko- och vithetskritisk belysning

Abstract

The starting point of our article is that Western thought is based on hierarchical dichotomies which are difficult to deconstruct, such as for example male-female, whiteness-blackness, culture-nature. The article combines feminist ecocriticism with critical whiteness studies in a wish to highlight the ways in which questions concerning the environment, gender and race have been present in feminist discussion since, at least, the 1920s. We discuss the theoretical points in relation to texts from the early twentieth century by Hagar Olsson (1893–1978) and Elin Wägner (1882–1949). Through close readings we anchor contemporary theory in a historical context, and thus rearticulate the importance of theory as well as literature and history. Throughout the article, texts are read for their ways of articulation humanity in its complex relationships to the more-thanhuman. We examine, more specifically, how the relationship between human situatedness and the more-than-human is conveyed, and the discursive and theoretical possibilities that spring from this relationship.