Abstract

Usually, vulnerability is equated to weakness and resistance to strength. Drawing on a feminist critique of this conceptualisation, this article aims to discuss how vulnerability to forest fires and local action are mutually and contradictorily related. I analyse the ways in which people in two rural communities surrounded by tree monocultures in Sweden and Spain think, feel and act after being exposed to acute forest fires in 2018 and 2017, respectively. Attentively listening to the experiences of vulnerability during and after the fire in the two cases helps to explain vulnerability to forest fires as an emotional, care-related process that opens up contradictory and transformative interconnections between peoples, nature and the state. Also, looking at the two cases together, this article shows how vulnerability to fire is mediated through unequal expectations across Europe's North-South divide. By re-signifying the implications of vulnerability, disasters such as those analysed here can be seen as facilitators of radical transformations towards new rural futures in Europe's forests.

Keywords

conflict; disaster; forest fire; tree plantations; vulnerability

Published in

Sociologia Ruralis
2023, Volume: 63, number: 3, pages: 729-750
Publisher: WILEY

SLU Authors

• González Hidalgo, Marien

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Associated SLU-program

SLU Forest Damage Center
Nature experiences and health


Sustainable Development Goals

Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls


UKÄ Subject classification

Gender Studies
Human Geography


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/soru.12432

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/122019