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The paper discusses sounding bodies and more-than-human relations within tourism practices. It joins emerging attempts to challenge the anthropocentric tourism paradigm and to recognise more-than-human entanglements by engaging with sound through a relational approach. Rather than thinking of the soundscape as the aural equivalent to the visual panorama, which one visits and listens to passively from a distance, we explore the idea of intra-active ‘sounding bodies’ which share the atmosphere with other sounding bodies as they move, and are, in Tim Ingold’s words, ‘ensounded’ during the practice of hiking. The study is grounded in a longer-term engagement by the researcher-practitioners along the UKK hiking trail in Finland and draws upon empirical listening encounters as part of multispecies ethnography in the summer months of 2024. Through the use of the Merlin Bird ID app and an AudioMoth remote sensing device, the paper explores how various listening and sounding practices can stretch our anthropocentric ears and lead to new, more-than-human ethical considerations for tourism practices and infrastructures amidst the ongoing ecological crisis.

In this article, I examine the relevance of outdoor adventures in the troubled times of climate catastrophe, mass extinction, and ecological breakdown by attending to human relationship with fire. Informed by post-anthropocentric perspectives found in feminist new materialism and indigenous wisdom, the article reveals how more-than-human agency, care, and reciprocity are manifested in the ancestral skill of making fire by friction. Three relational stories are crafted from my personal experiences with learning the bow drill method of friction fire during a year-long course on ancestral skills. These stories of making fire-with trees, plants, tools, weather, and other human and non-human bodies connect situated experiences from the forest with broader contemporary concerns related to outdoor ethics, technological dependencies of modern outdoor practice, and the conflicting meanings of survival and good life in the Anthropocene. The article contributes with a unique situated account of more-than-human entanglements involved in fire making, along with the ontological and ethico-political possibilities that learning this ancestral skill may present for imagining deep ecological transformations through outdoor adventures. Instead of an archaic reminder of human mastery over nature or an outdated guilty pleasure, fire emerges as a non-human teacher, companion, and a caring host who provides spaces to come together and experiment with more relational ways of living as well as possible in multispecies worlds.

The article bridges the gap between ecology and mind in organization theory by exploring the role of psychological suffering for sustainable organizing. In particular, it shows how burn-out, experiential deprivation, and ecological anxiety prompt ecopreneurs within the Swedish back-to-the-land movement to become ecologically embedded. Three counter-practices illustrate how this suffering represents an inner revolt against the exploitative structures of modern society and growth capitalism, and a catalyst for alternative ecopreneurship. The article takes the first steps toward critical ecopsychology of organizations, which offers an ecocentric ontology and a moral-political framework for degrowth transition.

Research on meaning-making has recently enriched our understanding of sustainable entrepreneurship by providing a window into the moral space and the complex reality of entrepreneurs who engage with sustainability issues. This article focuses on meaning-making of one such entrepreneur to explore the role of nature as enabler of sustainable entrepreneurship nexus. It is based on the ethnographic study of the entrepreneur who makes a living out of his pioneering work with forest gardening in Sweden. The transition in meanings that guide the relationship of the entrepreneur with nature, which comes out of the intimate, recursive, and informative exchanges with the ecosystem, makes it possible for nature to come in as a partner and progressively enable the creation of the regenerative venture over time. The emerging regenerative narrative of entrepreneurship stretches beyond the current theories and sets the agenda for ecocentric theorizing about this creative human activity.

This thesis starts with the premise that to address ecological and climate crises, we need to understand their psychological and cultural roots found in the separation of modern societies from the natural world. This separation permeates mainstream approaches to sustainability that either sustain business-as-usual of the unbridled economic growth, or reform it with greener markets and technologies. At the same time, there is an emerging interest in alternative transitional ecopreneurs who have a different relationship with the natural environment and an agency with potentially more radical consequences for societal change. I look at ecopreneurs within the contemporary back-to-the-land movement, asking the following question: How do ecopreneurs reconnect with the land, and what does this mean for degrowth?

My exploration was grounded in a dialogue between the literature on degrowth, ecopreneurship, critical organisational studies, and ecological embeddedness; and the ethnographic study of eleven back-to-the-landers who started small-scale ecological farms and permaculture enterprises in Sweden. I adopted a critical, narrative, and ethnographic research approach. The empirical research consisted of two studies that relied on narrative interviews and deep observations. The result was four essays that together, with the help of stories of back-to-the-land ecopreneurs, develop a process theory of ecological embedding.

Ecological embedding is a process by which an ecopreneur is becoming more rooted in the land that provides the ecological conditions for life and economic activity. This process may be catalysed by psychological suffering in modern societies – an inner revolt – with examples of burn-out from the “rat race”, experiential deprivation of the office work, and ecological anxiety. The way back-to-the-land ecopreneurs develop, nurture, and negotiate their physical, emotional and spiritual ties with the land shapes the ongoing sensemaking and organising that is central to the formation of their alternative livelihoods and enterprises. It is also established that ecological embedding requires physical and psychological work on behalf of the back-to-the-land ecopreneur who navigates the contested terrain between the mainstream economy and alternative degrowth futures.

The overall contribution consists in using the voices of back-to-the-landers in order to present their everyday experiences and critical knowledges about ecological embedding and transitions to a society that lives within planetary boundaries. Back-to-the-landers practice alternative forms of ecopreneurship that depart from the discursive and material conditions of the modern growth economy, and that revolve around a different set of values and objectives such as a more grounded life, non-materialist conceptions of well-being, regenerative ethos, post-capitalist relations, conviviality, resilience, alternative food economies and forms of local development. It is important to recognise the critical role of this new generation of individuals and families who enter alternative agriculture based on environmental and lifestyle aspirations, and who work hard to realise these aspirations on a daily basis, in spite of immense personal challenges and systemic hurdles that come from lacking institutional and political support.

If we take seriously the ecopsychological crises of the modern civilisation and growth capitalism, to reconnect with local ecologies and to creatively downscale our economies becomes crucial. And this is not going to be an easy task.  

Denna avhandling börjar med premissen att vi för att möta de ekologiska kriserna, inklusive klimathotet, behöver förstå krisernas psykologiska och kulturella rötter som återfinns i separationen mellan moderna samhällen och naturen. Denna separation genomsyrar de konventionella hållbarhetsstrategierna som antingen upprätthåller den eviga ekonomiska tillväxten eller reformerar den med grönare marknader och teknik. Samtidigt växer det fram ett intresse för alternativ omställning genom ekoprenörer som har en annorlunda relation till naturen och ett agentskap med potentiellt mer radikala konsekvenser för samhällsförändring. Jag betraktar ekoprenörer inom den nya gröna vågen genom följande fråga: Hur återanknyter ekoprenörer till jorden, och vad betyder detta för nedväxt?   

Mitt utforskande grundade sig i en dialog mellan, å ena sidan, litteraturen inom nedväxt, ekoprenörskap, kritiska organisationsstudier och ekologisk inbäddning, och, å andra sidan, en etnografisk studie av elva ”gröna vågare” som startat småskaliga ekologiska jordbruk och företag inom permakultur i Sverige. Min forskningsansats var kritisk, narrativ och etnografisk. Den empiriska forskningen bestod av två studier som baserades på narrativa intervjuer och djupa observationer. Resultatet blev fyra essäer som tillsammans, med hjälp av berättelser av ekoprenörer inom den nya gröna vågen, utvecklar en processteori av ekologisk inbäddning.

Ekologisk inbäddning är en process genom vilken en ekoprenör förstärker sin relation, och återanknyter till jorden och platsen som ger de ekologiska förutsättningarna för liv och ekonomisk verksamhet. Denna process kan katalyseras av psykologiskt lidande i moderna samhällen – ett inre uppror – med exempel som utbrändhet genom ekorrhjulets krav, kontorsarbetets alienering och klimatångest. Hur ekoprenörer i den gröna vågen utvecklar, vårdar och förhandlar sina fysiska, emotionella och andliga band med jorden formar deras pågående meningsskapande och organisering som är centrala för alternativa livsstilar och verksamheter. Det visar sig även att ekologisk inbäddning kräver fysiskt och psykologiskt arbete av gröna våg-ekoprenören som navigerar i den omstridda terrängen mellan tillväxtekonomin och alternativa framtider bortom tillväxt.

Huvudbidraget är att använda röster av gröna vågare för att presentera vardagliga erfarenheter och kritisk kunskap om ekologisk inbäddning och övergång till ett samhälle som lever inom planetens gränser. De utövar alternativa former av ekoprenörskap som avviker från den moderna tillväxtekonomins diskursiva och materiella förhållanden, och som kretsar kring en annan uppsättning av värden och mål, som ett jordat liv, icke-materialistiska uppfattningar om välbefinnande, regenerativt etos, post-kapitalistiska relationer, resiliens, alternativa matekonomier och former av lokal utveckling. Det är viktigt att erkänna den kritiska roll som en ny generation individer och familjer kan spela; de som kommer in i alternativt jordbruk utifrån sina miljö- och livsstilsambitioner, och som dagligen arbetar hårt för att förverkliga dessa ambitioner trots enorma personliga utmaningar och systemhinder på grund av avsaknat institutionellt och politiskt stöd.

Om vi tar den moderna civilisationens och tillväxtkapitalismens ekopsykologiska kriser på allvar kommer det vara avgörande att återanknyta till lokala ekologiska förhållanden och att skala ner våra ekonomier på kreativa sätt. Och det kommer inte att vara lätt.

This paper contributes to the conference and to the literature on sustainable entrepreneurship by developing a theory of ecological embedding. Ecological embedding is a process of transition towards a more intimate understanding of local biophysical environment, and towards practices that are more attuned to this environment. It is illustrated through the ongoing ethnographic study of several regenerative agriculture initiatives in Sweden, a highly affluent and industrialized country. Regenerative agriculture is a concept, which unites more natural agricultural practices that offer alternative to unsustainable agri-food systems. Entrepreneurs, and their enterprises, get more ecologically embedded as they learn to trust their senses; develop ethic of care for natural and built environment; commit themselves and their enterprises to places;  and as they regenerate ecological fabric of places. As such, ecological embedding entails transition both on the individual level of entrepreneur and on the level of an enterprise, which are inseparable from each other. The notion of ecological embedding opens up for several challenges and tensions that characterise both entrepreneurship practice and research. This and other implications for sustainable entrepreneurship are presented.

Purpose: This paper aims to contribute to the emerging entrepreneurship research that deals with resilience by examining how embeddedness in place and in trans-local grassroots networks influences proactive entrepreneurship for local resilience.

Design/methodology/approach: Three theoretical propositions are developed on the basis of the existing literature. These propositions are assisted with brief empirical illustrations of grassroots innovations from the context of agri-food systems.

Findings: Embeddedness in place and in trans-local grassroots networks enables proactive entrepreneurship for local resilience. Social-cultural embeddedness in place facilitates access to local resources and legitimacy, and creation of social value in the community. Ecological embeddedness in place facilitates spotting and leveraging of environmental feedbacks and creation of ecological value. Embeddedness in trans-local grassroots networks provides entrepreneurs with unique resources, including globally transferable knowledge about sustainability challenges and practical solutions to these challenges. As result, entrepreneurship for resilience is explained as an embedding process. Embedding means attuning of practices to local places, as well as making global resources, including knowledge obtained in grassroots networks, work in local settings.

Research limitations/implications: Researchers should continue developing the emerging domain of entrepreneurship for resilience.

Practical implications: The objective of resilience and due respect to local environment may entail a need to consider appropriate resourcing practices and organisational models.

Social implications: The critical roles of place-based practices for resilience deserve more recognition in today’s globalised world.

Originality/value: The specific importance of the ecological dimension of embeddedness in place is emphasised. Moreover, by combining entrepreneurship and grassroots innovation literatures, which have talked past each other to date, this paper shows how local and global resources are leveraged throughout the embedding process. Thereby, it opens unexplored research avenues within the emerging domain of entrepreneurship for resilience.

It is often claimed that humanity needs more innovation in order to depart from unsustainable practices that degrade ecosystems, although opinions as to what may constitute such innovation diverge. The starting argument of this chapter is that sustainable value of innovation essentially depends on the knowledge, on which this innovation is based. Inspired by Permaculture, an ecological design framework and a trans-local grassroots movement, several moves from Weak to Strong Sustainability Innovation are suggested. The first move is re-learning – from the universal knowledge of global markets, science and technology towards place-based and alternative knowledges that are found, for example, in many indigenous cultures or grassroots movements for sustainability. Other moves include mindful recombining of these different knowledges, embedding of human activities in local places, regenerating ecosystems, and frugalising – making do with less resources. As long as Strong Sustainability can be considered as a viable objective for humanity to strive for, we can conclude that innovation is necessary in its pursuit. Such innovation would involve reinvention of age-old methods and technologies that were used "before oil", and importantly, social innovation that enables transition to less resource-intensive and less technological-dependent practices.

Objectives: As we are crossing new planetary boundaries (Steffen et al., 2015), changing human behavior is becoming the central focus of sustainable development work. However, social marketers have not yet reached the potential required for shaping pro-environmental lifestyles (McKenzie-Mohr & Schultz, 2014), which are embedded in complex systems where both individual factors and surrounding environment play a defining role in their adoption.

We all live in communities be that our neighbourhood or entire town, and community is a great example of a system where constant interactions between individuals and their environment shape daily practices. This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework based on Social Practice Theory (Shove et al, 2012) and test its applicability for understanding and aiding behavior change campaigns for entire communities. Consequently, the paper’s objective is to contribute to the debate between the advocates for upstream and downstream social marketing interventions.

Method: This paper has flexible design, and builds on literature review and in-depth case study.

First, to construct a “tight and evolving” framework (Dubois & Gadde, 2002), a set of multidisciplinary literature is reviewed. Based on peer-reviewed articles in social marketing and psychology, the review has four key themes: the current debate about upstream and downstream social marketing (e.g. Cherrier & Gurrieri, 2014); promotion of pro-environmental behaviours (van Vugt et al., 2014) including role of norms (Rettie et al., 2012) and values (Schwartz, 1992); community-based social marketing (McKenzie-Mohr, 2000); and Social Practice Theory (SPT) (e.g. Shove et al., 2012).

The review is followed by in-depth study of a campaign that promotes sorting of organic waste for biogas production in Malmö (Sweden). The campaign has been running for more than 4 years and successfully reached its ambitious goals. Primary unit of analysis is practice of sorting organic waste, and perspectives from both social marketers and residents, as well as observations of the environment, are taken into consideration. Data is collected using semi-structured personal and phone interviews with 4 key individuals behind the campaign and 14 residents of Malmö of various age, gender and accommodation type. All interviews are recorded and validated. Newspapers and campaign material are used to support the primary data. All relevant technologies proposed by Riege (2003) are applied to establish trustworthiness of this study.

Finally, narrative analysis is applied, which is aided by various techniques, such as matching and organizing data in tables and graphs, to facilitate coding and categorization.

Results: SPT suggests that behavior may be understood better through routinized activities, i.e. practices, which consist of interconnected elements, such as materials, competences and meanings (Shove et al., 2012). This paper puts forward a conceptual framework that incorporates multidisciplinary ideas, as well as different concepts and tools suggested by social marketing research into the model, and shows how they can function together and affect various elements of practice. The framework proves useful in analyzing the campaign in Malmö. The campaign stretched over several years and targeted the entire city, touching upon all elements of practice: materials, e.g. providing infrastructure and convenient holders, nudging; competences, e.g. extensive information campaigns on “how” and “why” of sorting; and meanings, e.g. renewable fuel for city busses, easiness, norms.

Both practices and practitioners have careers (Shove et al., 2012). The narratives of residents show how their engagement in recycling developed over time, and how their attention shifted from one element of practice to another. This knowledge can assist social marketers in choosing tools that are particularly relevant for a certain stage of practice adoption: (1) providing infrastructure and convenience (materials) for an easy start, (2) apply effective communication and educate (competences) for increased engagement­ and (3) create strong images (meanings) for maintenance of behavior and its uptake by latecomers.

Finally, behavior change campaigns in communities cannot be perfectly engineered due to a diversity of contextual factors that also affect the process. The adoption of organic waste sorting in Malmö was affected by residents’ families, neighborhoods, work places, coincidences and other practices. Besides, target audience took an active role in the behavior change process in their community, and thus they can be potentially “employed” as ambassadors in such campaigns.

Conclusions: By analysing behaviour in terms of social practices and developing a toolbox based on SPT, this paper contributes to the appearing research that strives to develop community-based social marketing approach. Working with behaviour interventions in big and diverse communities is not an easy task. Compared to controlled experiments and short-term campaigns, it requires incessant application of a wide array of tools. Furthermore, behaviour change is a continuous process with different transition stages. Upstream and downstream social marketing approaches can then effectively complement each other, thus the border between them can be reconsidered. Practitioners need to understand behaviours as everyday practices, to apply extensive and transparent research before acting and to engage constantly in open dialogue with the community.

Appreciation of the community complexity and of a great variety of intervention approaches can enrich social marketing work and produce campaigns that enable behaviour change to ensure a more sustainable future.