This Article Was Published In: Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism, Poznan/Poland, Vol.7 (2000) 141-160

This article was published in: Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism, Poznan/Poland, vol.7 (2000) 141-160. Movement Landscape – Scenarios and Grassroots Conflict. Green Revitalization in a Danish Rural Area by Henning Eichberg Abstract In many places of the Western world, the agricultural landscape is in economic, ecological and cultural crisis. Sports and tourism are discussed as ways of solution. This causes, however, problems, even in the form of green sport and green tourism. In a valley of Southwest Zealand, Denmark, a project called Brugsnatur (nature for use) was developed in order to overcome the crisis. By cooperative self-organization of the local people, the landscape should be transformed for the sportive and cultural use of coming generations and to the advantage of the urban population. The project was, however, hampered by the opposition of local landowners. These conflicts illustrate the connections between space, nature and social identity. They show a trialectical relation between the public regulation of common affairs on the one hand, the strategies of private property on the other, and the more complex interests and contradictions inside civil society as a third. This results in tensions between the right of individual property, the democratic freedom of self-determination and the freedom of movement. In several Western countries, agriculture is going through a serious structural crisis. The crisis is characterized by (over-)mechanization, (over-)chemicalization and political price regulation, by the bankruptcy of numerous farming existences and the socio-cultural marginalization of farmers. The established discourse describes the problem as overproduction, and the aut- horities treat it by giving subventions to farmers who leave a part of their land fallow and thus reduce production. This is especially dramatic for Denmark which historically has been based on industrialized agriculture. The crisis has several paradoxical, self-conflicting implications. For the landscape it means that the ecological devastations which once had been effected in the interest of agricultural subsistence and profit, do not pay any longer - but they continue nevertheless. And for the farmers it means that their images of work and production are breaking down. Having got accustomed to the (protestant-capitalist) ethics of productivity, to an optimation or even maximation of their work, they can now be paid for reducing their production, for leaving their ground un-cultivated. The modern work ethics is crumbling and has turned to absurdity. The economic crisis is, thus, showing as a cultural crisis, a crisis of identity. How can it be tackled, which role can green tourism, sport and movement culture play in this context? And which conflicts can be expected? Different ways are opening to escape from the economic dilemma. One is to continue the strict privatization of the land and the individualization of the economic activity on a new level. The establishment of golf courses for instance can serve this aim, the shift from farmer to entrepreneur. The results, however - including the golfization of the landscape - are not convincing (Barreau 1996, see also Bale 1994). Another way is that the farmer takes upon him- or herself a new professional identity: as administrator of the common nature. Beyond the main contradiction between productivity (i.e. agrarian high-tech production on the expenses of the environment) and non- productivity (i.e. laying fallow as a negative measure), a third way is opening, a new under- standing of work and identity. The crisis can be taken as a chance. In Southwest Zealand local people have developed a project called Brugsnatur in order to utilize the crisis in a creative and imaginative way; the meaning of the name brugsnatur (nature for use) is near to what in Norway is discussed as "cultural landscape" (Jones 1991), but the social strategy is specific. By cooperative self-organization in the valley of the river Vårby Å, the landscape should be transformed after the cultural needs of coming genera- 1 tions. The project was, however, hampered by the opposition of local landowners; these conflicts are illustrative of the relations of space, nature and social identity in the actual phase of late modernity. Vårby Å - the situation in a Danish valley Vårby Å is a small river in Southwest Zealand between the towns of Slagelse and Korsør, meandering through the glacial valley and flowing into the Great Belt. Fig. 1: Map of Vårby Å valley. The ground of the valley was formed in the glacial epoch and is therefore fertile and suitable for agricultural use. The river has, however, shaped a belt of marshy ground along its banks, and in spite of recent regulations, the water sometimes inundates the environment in winter times. This may give a beautiful picture - with a rich world of birds in particular - but it hampers intensive cultivation especially in the epoch of heavy machines. The valley has been inhabited since archaic times, indeed it is said to be one of the earliest places of Denmark to be inhabited permanently, and the fields are rich of archeologi- cal finds. Several Stone Age graves in different forms - both chamber graves (jættestue) and ship-formed stone settings (langdysse) - can be found in this area. The northwestern edge of the valley is marked by the Trelleborg, a famous Viking castle from the 10th century. Its cir- cular walls and one of its archaical ship-formed houses have been reconstructed. During the last years, a museum and a coffeeshop have been opened here as parts in a larger project to attract tourism. There are also plans to develop experimental archeology and possibilities "to live in Viking Age"; in this connection, local "Viking groups" are engaged in the recon- struction of technologies and handicrafts from Viking times. The southeast edge of the valley - at a distance of six kilometres - is marked by the Gerlev Sports Folk Academy (højskole) which is both a part of the particular Danish tradition of people's education (folkelig oplysning) and of popular sport and gymnastics (folkelig idræt). Under tourist aspects it is worth mentioning that the valley can be reached in one hour by train or by car from the urban conglomeration of Copenhagen. Modernity: Liberation, alienation, self-organization The situation of the valley results from the socio-economic and ecological history in Denmark and witnesses of characteristical changes in agriculture and rural life. In premodern times, the farmers had lived in villages under the juridical and economic rule of the aristocratic land- lords - who also "owned" the church, the visible, spiritual and cultural centre of the village. In Vårby Å valley, there is one of these old villages left, Gammel Forlev, which is planned to be set under preservation; other villages nearby - like Slots Bjergby and Gerlev with their Me- dieval churches on the top of the slope towards the inner-island - are culturally protected too. Fig. 2: Typical Danish landscape in 1750. From Natur og Miljø, Danish Society of Nature Conservancy, no.3/1995. From 1788 on, the established aristocratic rule was reformed in the spirit of Enlight- enment, and the relations between space, economy, power and nature changed fundamentally. The farmers were liberated from feudal-military bonds, acquired freedom of movement - and were free to become wage earners. On the one hand, the reform opened the way towards the realization of agrarian capitalism, and on the other it furnished the urban manufactures with the needed manpower. The reform of the local power structure was linked to a redistribution of the farmers' 2 land (udskiftning, enclosure). Up to this time, every farmer had owned several small plots, distributed over different parts of the municipal area - while other parts of the land, mostly marshy areas, marginal grounds and woods, were in common use (fælled). Now the individual fields were united to larger units, and the common land was distributed to the privates. In order to keep the direct connection with their land, most of the farmers now settled outside the villages where they built new farm houses. That is why the Vårby Å valley today - like most other parts of Denmark - consists mainly of single farms sprinkled over the landscape; a denser population can be found at the periphery towards the village Slots Bjergby, where during the reforms 40 smallholders had been relocated with their small plots. By the agricultural reforms, the way was paved for the farmers to rationalize their production in accordance with the rising capitalist market, to produce and compete on their own account and as their own masters. On the other hand, however, it was not only the repres- sive mechanism of the noble lords and their local power which disappeared, but so did the traditional solidarity of village life and the rural collective self-organization, too. Thus, social alienation was the price, farmers had to pay for their liberation. In reaction against this alienation, new forms of self-organization arose during the nineteenth century. This started with a wave of spiritual revivals in the 1820s, opposing in pietistic, sometimes ecstatic forms against the alliance between the protestant-rationalist state church and the absolutist-aristocratic regime. The "divine revivals" were the first in a series of popular (folkelig) movements which became important for the building of Danish identity. The spiritual revolt against the power of the social and religious rulers paved the way towards the revolution of 1848. This revolution resulted in a constitutional compromise, but real democracy was not effected before 1901, when the democratic farmers' party Venstre (The Left) took over the government. The political change towards democracy was, during the late nineteenth century, en- forced by other folkelig movements among the rural population, especially the cultural-educa- tional movement of the folk academies (folkehøjskoler), gymnastic and rifle movements, the cooperative associations of production and consumption (andelsbevægelse) and the construc- tion of assembly halls (forsamlingshus) in the villages (Eichberg 1996).

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