Skip to main content
SLU publication database (SLUpub)

Research article2018Peer reviewed

Discourses on illegal hunting in Sweden: the meaning of silence and resistance

Von Essen, Erica; Hansen, Hans Peter; Peterson, M. Nils; Peterson, Tarla R.

Abstract

The first rule to poaching is that you do not talk about poaching. If you do, you do so behind a veil of anonymity, using hypotheticals or indirect reported speech that protect you from moral, cultural or legal self-incrimination. In this study of Swedish hunters talking about a phenomenon of illegal killing of protected wolves, we situate such talk in the debate between crime talk as reflecting resistance, reality or everyday venting. We identify four discourses: the discourse of silence; the complicit discourse of protecting poachers; the 'proxy' discourse of talking about peers; and the 'empty' discourse of exaggerating wolf kills as means of political resistance. Our hunters materialize these discourses both by sharing stories that we sort into respective discourses and by providing their meta-level perceptions on what they mean. Specifically we examine whether Swedish hunters' discourses on illegal killing are (1) a means of letting off steam; (2) a reflection of reality; (3) part of a political counter-narrative against wolf conservation; or (4) a way of radicalizing peers exposed to the discourse. We conclude that illegal killing discourses simultaneously reflect reality and constitute it and that hunters' meta-talk reveals most endorse a path-goal folk model of talk and action.

Keywords

Discourse; wolves; hunting; everyday resistance; poaching; illegal hunting

Published in

Environmental Sociology
2018, Volume: 4, number: 3, pages: 370-380

      SLU Authors

      Sustainable Development Goals

      SDG16 Peace, justice and strong institutions

      UKÄ Subject classification

      Sociology (excluding Social work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)
      Communication Studies

      Publication identifier

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2017.1408446

      Permanent link to this page (URI)

      https://res.slu.se/id/publ/98594