kth.sePublications
Change search
Link to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Alternative names
Publications (10 of 38) Show all publications
Svensson, D., Backman, E., Hedenborg, S. & Sörlin, S. (2023). Introduction: Balancing performance and environmental sustainability. In: Daniel Svensson, Erik Backman, Susanna Hedenborg & Sverker Sörlin (Ed.), Sport, Performance and Sustainability: (pp. 1-18). Abingdon, Oxon & New York: Routledge
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Introduction: Balancing performance and environmental sustainability
2023 (English)In: Sport, Performance and Sustainability / [ed] Daniel Svensson, Erik Backman, Susanna Hedenborg & Sverker Sörlin, Abingdon, Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2023, p. 1-18Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The growth of sports and the increasing levels of participation, performance, and international competition are undeniable. This development has undoubtedly contributed to the tremendous growth of the sports economy during the last 100 years, as well as an impressive increase in results and performance levels in most sports. It is in turn linked to the comprehensive competition logic that drives sportification of performance and practice in predominantly Western sport, rooted in the cultivation of able bodies, and maximum performance. However, as sports have developed in tandem with the global industrial economy it is also facing similar problems. Over the last decade, sport organisations, supporters, athletes, scholars, and others have begun to problematise the consequences of an ever-growing sports economy and the constant strive for increasing performance levels, growing events, and intensified travel. This introduction will present an overview of how the logics of practice guided by performance, and the sportification model, are linked to potentially problematic aspects of sports in relation to the environment. We pose questions about whether sportification and a strong focus on increasing performance can go hand in hand with a sustainable development.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Abingdon, Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2023
Series
Routledge Research in Sport, Culture and Society
Keywords
Environment and Sustainability, Sports and Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality and Events
National Category
History Sport and Fitness Sciences Pedagogy
Research subject
History of Science, Technology and Environment
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-325167 (URN)10.4324/9781003283324-2 (DOI)
Note

QC 20230404

Available from: 2023-04-01 Created: 2023-04-01 Last updated: 2025-02-11Bibliographically approved
Svensson, D., Saltzman, K. & Sörlin, S. (2023). Stigarna leder oss till dem vi en gång var. Forskning och framsteg, 58(4), 58-61
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Stigarna leder oss till dem vi en gång var
2023 (Swedish)In: Forskning och framsteg, ISSN 0015-7937, Vol. 58, no 4, p. 58-61Article in journal (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.)) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Stiftelsen Forskning & Framsteg, 2023
Keywords
Heritage, Walking, Mobility heritage, Paths
National Category
History Human Geography Ethnology
Research subject
History of Science, Technology and Environment
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-328177 (URN)
Note

QC 20230615

Available from: 2023-06-03 Created: 2023-06-03 Last updated: 2023-06-15Bibliographically approved
Svensson, D., Saltzman, K. & Sörlin, S. (2022). Movement Heritage and Path Dependence: Layering the Past. In: Daniel Svensson, Katarina Saltzman, and Sverker Sörlin (Ed.), Pathways: Exploring the Routes of a Movement Heritage (pp. 1-30). Winwick, Cambridgeshire, UK: White Horse Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Movement Heritage and Path Dependence: Layering the Past
2022 (English)In: Pathways: Exploring the Routes of a Movement Heritage / [ed] Daniel Svensson, Katarina Saltzman, and Sverker Sörlin, Winwick, Cambridgeshire, UK: White Horse Press, 2022, p. 1-30Chapter in book (Refereed)
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Winwick, Cambridgeshire, UK: White Horse Press, 2022
National Category
History Human Geography General Literature Studies
Research subject
History of Science, Technology and Environment
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-315043 (URN)
Note

QC 20220629

Part of book: ISBN 978-1-912186-55-6, 978-1-912186-60-0

Available from: 2022-06-29 Created: 2022-06-29 Last updated: 2024-03-18Bibliographically approved
Svensson, D., Saltzman, K. & Sörlin, S. (Eds.). (2022). Pathways: Exploring the Routes of a Movement Heritage. Winwick, Cambridgeshire, UK: White Horse Press
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Pathways: Exploring the Routes of a Movement Heritage
2022 (English)Collection (editor) (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This anthology explores possibilities to acknowledge human motion, and traces thereof, as heritage. Today, with the increasing interest in local and sustainable connections, and in bodily and spiritual enhancement, we see a growing use of walking tracks both in landscapes within reach from urban centres and in more remotely located or ‘wild’ areas. The corona pandemic has further propelled these trends. Of course, landscapes that are commonly understood as wilderness or ‘nature’ are in most cases clearly influenced by human actions and movements. While walking trails tend to be regarded as pathways to experience nature and as tools to promote public health, they could also be seen and used as routes to culture and history, indeed as pathways to the past. Based on a Swedish research project with the aim to explore the multiple dimensions of walking, paths and movement, this volume engages and discusses the potential effects of such an expansion of the heritage register.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Winwick, Cambridgeshire, UK: White Horse Press, 2022. p. xxvi+341
Keywords
History, Cultural Studies, Population Studies
National Category
History General Literature Studies Human Geography
Research subject
History of Science, Technology and Environment
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-315042 (URN)978-1-912186-55-6 (ISBN)978-1-912186-60-0 (ISBN)
Note

QC 20221003

Available from: 2022-06-29 Created: 2022-06-29 Last updated: 2024-03-18Bibliographically approved
Svensson, D., Sörlin, S. & Saltzman, K. (2021). Pathways to the trail – landscape, walking and heritage in a Scandinavian border region. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift, 75(5), 243-255
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Pathways to the trail – landscape, walking and heritage in a Scandinavian border region
2021 (English)In: Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift, ISSN 0029-1951, E-ISSN 1502-5292, Vol. 75, no 5, p. 243-255Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Can walking trails be understood not only as routes to history and heritage, but also as heritage in and of themselves? The paper explores the articulation of trails as a distinct landscape and mobility heritage, bridging the nature-culture divide and building on physical and intellectual movements over time. The authors aim to contribute to a better understanding of the geography of trails and trailscapes by analysing the emergence of the Swedish-Norwegian trail Finnskogleden. The trail is situated in the border region spanning the former county of Hedmark in present-day Innlandet County, south-eastern Norway, and Värmland County in mid-western Sweden, a forested area where Finnish-speaking immigrants settled from the 16th century to the early 20th century. Archives, literature, interviews, and field visits were used to analyse the emergence and governance of the trail. The main finding is the importance of continuous articulation work by local and regional stakeholders, through texts, maps, maintenance, and mobility. In conclusion, the Finn forest trailscape and its mobility heritage can be seen as an articulation of territory over time, a multilayered process drawing on various environing technologies, making the trail a transformative part of a trans-border political geography. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Informa UK Limited, 2021
Keywords
General Earth and Planetary Sciences, Geography, Planning and Development
National Category
History Human Geography
Research subject
History of Science, Technology and Environment
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-305038 (URN)10.1080/00291951.2021.1998216 (DOI)000720174700001 ()2-s2.0-85119494854 (Scopus ID)
Note

QC 20220308

Available from: 2021-11-18 Created: 2021-11-18 Last updated: 2024-03-18Bibliographically approved
Müller, D. K., Byström, J., Stjernström, O. & Svensson, D. (2019). Making "wilderness" in a northern natural resource periphery: On restructuring and the production of a pleasure periphery in northern Sweden. In: The Politics of Arctic Resources: Change and Continuity in the "Old North" of Northern Europe (pp. 99-118). Informa UK Limited
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Making "wilderness" in a northern natural resource periphery: On restructuring and the production of a pleasure periphery in northern Sweden
2019 (English)In: The Politics of Arctic Resources: Change and Continuity in the "Old North" of Northern Europe, Informa UK Limited , 2019, p. 99-118Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Chapter 6 takes up the more recently developed sector of tourism, problematizing the assumptions inherent in conceptions such as “resource periphery” and “pleasure periphery”. Instead, the chapter shows that resource use and tourism may well interact, and that tourism even largely relates to mining or mining infrastructure: the extensive existence of infrastructure related to resource uses and industrial as well as post-industrial development at large can even be seen as the basis for tourists being able to access the “wilderness”.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Informa UK Limited, 2019
National Category
Human Geography
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-281346 (URN)10.4324/9781315174969-6 (DOI)2-s2.0-85065875294 (Scopus ID)
Note

Part of ISBN 9781351705349

QC 20200918

Available from: 2020-09-18 Created: 2020-09-18 Last updated: 2024-03-11Bibliographically approved
Pargman, D. & Svensson, D. (2019). Play as work: On the Sportification of Computer Games. Digital Culture & Society, 5(2), 15-40
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Play as work: On the Sportification of Computer Games
2019 (English)In: Digital Culture & Society, ISSN 2364-2114, E-ISSN 2364-2122, Vol. 5, no 2, p. 15-40Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Contemporary images of desirable work (for example at gaming companies or at one of the tech giants) foregrounds creativity and incorporates and idealises elements of play. Simultaneously, becoming one of the best in some particular leisure activity can require many long hours of hard, demanding work. Between on the one hand work and on the other hand leisure and play, we enter the domain of games and sports. Most classical sports originally developed from physical practices of moving the human body and these practices were, through standardization, organization and rationalization, turned into sports. Many sport researchers, (sport) historians and (sport) sociologists have pointed out that sports have gone through a process of “sportification”. Cross-country skiing is an example of an activity that has gone through a historical process of sportification, over time becoming progressively more managed and regulated. Computer games are today following a similar trajectory and have gone from being a leisure activity to becoming a competitive activity, “e-sports”, with professional players, international competitions, and live streams that are watched by tens of millions of viewers. In this paper we look at similarities between the sportification of cross-country skiing and e-sports. While there are many similarities, one important difference is that where classical sports (e.g. cross-country skiing) often originated in work-related practices (in this case forestry), the formation of new and emerging sports (for example e-sports) instead often originates in playful leisure activities. We will in this text show how sports and sportification processes can function as a lens with which to better understand the intersection of work and play, and well as their overlapping and hybrid albeit non-mutually exclusive combinations; laborious play and playful work.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Bielefeld: , 2019
Keywords
Sports, computer games, e-sports, sportification, training, cross-country skiing
National Category
Other Engineering and Technologies Media and Communications Technology and Environmental History
Research subject
Media Technology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-281704 (URN)
Note

QC 20200922

Available from: 2020-09-21 Created: 2020-09-21 Last updated: 2025-02-18Bibliographically approved
Svensson, D. & Sörlin, S. (2019). The ‘Physiologization’ of Skiing: The Lab as an Obligatory Passage Point for Elite Athletes?. Sport in Society: Cultures, Media, Politics, Commerce, 22(9), 1574-1588
Open this publication in new window or tab >>The ‘Physiologization’ of Skiing: The Lab as an Obligatory Passage Point for Elite Athletes?
2019 (English)In: Sport in Society: Cultures, Media, Politics, Commerce, ISSN 1743-0437, E-ISSN 1743-0445, Vol. 22, no 9, p. 1574-1588Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

In The Pasteurization of France, Bruno Latour argued that the rise of hygiene was dependent on collaboration between Pasteur, the hygiene movement, scientists and others. He also pointed at the importance of obligatory passage points such as the Pasteurian laboratory, to ensure the scientization and rationalization of hygiene. This article argues that there has been a similar process in elite sports, a ‘physiologization’ where scientists, sport organizations and specialized coaches have transformed training from a deeply personal and experiential matter to something universal and scientific. Physiologists made the test lab an obligatory passage point for athletes who wanted to compete on the highest level. Through theories of sportification and science and technology studies this paper analyses the scientization of endurance sports.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis Group, 2019
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Research subject
History of Science, Technology and Environment
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-232987 (URN)10.1080/17430437.2018.1435031 (DOI)000472564700007 ()2-s2.0-85042237328 (Scopus ID)
Note

QC 20180809

Available from: 2018-08-08 Created: 2018-08-08 Last updated: 2022-06-26Bibliographically approved
Svensson, D. (2017). Review of Identities, Ethnicities, Histories and Sports in Northern Norway [Review]. Idrottsforum.org/Nordic sport science forum
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Review of Identities, Ethnicities, Histories and Sports in Northern Norway
2017 (English)In: Idrottsforum.org/Nordic sport science forum, ISSN 1652-7224Article, book review (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö: Idrottsforum.org, 2017
Keywords
regionalism, identity, ethnicity, skiing, football, sportification
National Category
History
Research subject
History of Science, Technology and Environment
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-201211 (URN)
Note

QC 20170209

Available from: 2017-02-09 Created: 2017-02-09 Last updated: 2024-03-18Bibliographically approved
Svensson, D., Sörlin, S., Wall-Reinius, S., Fredman, P. & Dahlberg, A. (2017). Walking on the Shoulders of Giants: Historical Mountain Trails as Management Tools?. In: C. M. Hall, Y. Ram, N. Shoval (Ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Walking Studies: (pp. 330-339). New York: Routledge
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Walking on the Shoulders of Giants: Historical Mountain Trails as Management Tools?
Show others...
2017 (English)In: The Routledge International Handbook of Walking Studies / [ed] C. M. Hall, Y. Ram, N. Shoval, New York: Routledge, 2017, p. 330-339Chapter in book (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Walking in mountains is a way of transport in varied terrain and a means to enhance nature experiences and deepen landscape relations. It is also one of the most popular activities in Swedish outdoor life as well as among international tourists. Mobility has over time and for multiple reasons resulted in a network of trails and pathways – a ‘mobility heritage’. However, this heritage is not static but continuously transformed through new needs and uses, and as such it is a vital component in any reform towards a more sustainable landscape management by and for governing bodies, NGOs, and other interest groups.

 

Despite multiple users and uses, trails are often discrete, small-scale and with marginal direct effects on local ecology and landscape, although exceptions also exist. However, the long history of multiple actor use of trails and landscapes alongside them, and the reasons and interests behind their location and maintenance, has profoundly affected landscape perceptions over time.

 

We argue that trails can be used as a tool to engage different interests and to minimize conflicts between different users, while aiming to enhance landscape values for all users. This is highly relevant to various forms of nature conservation, Sami reindeer herding, recreation and tourism. We aim to provide deeper knowledge about trails, conceptually and about their roles, functions, and how this may relate to future management. Against a background of theoretical, historical and empirical approaches to pathways and walking we present our topic through the lens of Swedish mountain trails, with a special focus on Jämtland County. Can the interests of visiting hikers and multiple local and regional interests come to co-exist in a sustainable way by using trails as one main tool? 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
New York: Routledge, 2017
Keywords
Trails paths, history, tourism, mobility heritage, mobility landscape, landscape governance
National Category
History Human Geography
Research subject
History of Science, Technology and Environment
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-215249 (URN)10.4324/9781315638461-31 (DOI)2-s2.0-85041037354 (Scopus ID)
Projects
Negotiating Pathways to Multifunctional Landscapes: A Pilot Model in the Jämtland Mountains
Funder
Swedish Environmental Protection AgencyMistra - The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research
Note

QC 20241120

Part of ISBN 9781138195349

Available from: 2017-10-05 Created: 2017-10-05 Last updated: 2024-11-20Bibliographically approved
Projects
Learning to exercise: the role of upper-secondary schools for elite athletes in the development of training for cross-country skiing; Malmö University
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-2914-4476

Search in DiVA

Show all publications