The effects of environmental uncertainty on farmers' sense of locality and futurity: a Swedish case study

The aim of this paper is to explore local reactions to the environmental problems derived from the building of a train tunnel through the largest ground water reservoir in southern Sweden. The present and the future of the community have been put into question through an intensified local discourse on issues of ‘risk’, ‘identity’, ‘nature’ and ‘social continuity’. In this discourse meanings, values and traditional knowledge relating to the landscape and the place where people have lived for generations play a prominent role. Questions that are addressed in the present paper are: How does toxic contamination and falling ground water levels affect single-family households, small-scale family agricultural producers and large-scale farms in terms of changed perspectives and concerns for their environment, livelihoods and the local community? What are the effects for a farming community from uncertainty about how the natural environment will respond to a technological impact on the landscape? This paper is based on field observations and in-depth interviews conducted in two local communities on the Hallandsås ridge in the province of Skåne in south-west Sweden.