Renewable energy technologies are expanding in rural landscapes, where they are changing the character and meaning of place. This study explores the experience of living and recreating in proximity to landscapes undergoing this development, namely in a Swedish municipality where a major wind park is located. Using place attachment, it addresses how people construct meaning around places of everyday life through stories of their experience of place. Results show that individuals form coherent narratives of the past, present and future of places undergoing transformation. Stories of experiences of renewable energy technology and their impact on landscape relate to persisting feelings of rootedness, changing land-use activities and hope for a sustainable future. Place attachments are a form of social action as their formulation enables people to deal with change and embrace discourses of sustainability. Results highlight the discourses and practices that rural dwellers adopt in the wake of renewable energy transitions.
The dwelling perspective outlines that landscapes are the product ofembodied actions and practices. Landscape scholars studying tourismand tourism scholars studying landscapes have neglected to apply thisperspective to local realities. Tourism most often represents an activity tointegrate to the landscape, rather than a complex socio-spatial phenomenon.When embodiments are studied, it is generally to speak of thetourist experience. I propose using the dwelling perspective to infusetourist landscapes with the non-representational ethos of materiality andembodiment. My proposition acknowledges the socio-cultural complexitiesthat the tourist system imposes on local people, and addresseslandscape as a material realm where there is constant interplay betweenlocalised practices and tourism dynamics. This perspective centres scientificconversations on the complex, yet mundane, experience of inhabitingtourist landscapes. Scholars should consider the impacts of tourismon living spaces as they contribute to the formation of language influencingplanners and politicians.