Chapter 10
In: Landscapes of Affect and Emotion
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Abstract
In Norway, industrialisation resulted in a new form of outdoor recreation, friluftsliv [literally ‘free air life’]. There has been a debate about the nature of friluftsliv, and while some stress the intrinsic value of nature or nature experience, the currently dominating trend is to understand friluftsliv in terms of use value or functionality for health, education, and tourism. This article sees this debate in a new light and distinguishes between immediate functionality such as health benefits on the one hand and a higher functionality creating social coherence and a shared sense of sacrality (a sacre quotidien) on the other, found in traditional friluftsliv. This traditional sense of friluftsliv is marked by interpassive and playful relations between humans and between humans and nature. Friluftsliv practitioners play a role and take part in a ritual that creates a sense of togetherness, including national identity. The collective role-play in nature in Norway, staging a symbolic rurality, preserves the social and urban 19th century ideal of the flâneur in nature. Nature in friluftsliv is not primarily a recreational resource but an interventional space.