Test-grounds of Modernity: A Swedish Landscape in Transformation during the early 20th century

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate some examples of how landscape changes in a rural setting in Sweden during the 19th and early 20th century could be understood as processes of modernity, and how the landscape could be understood as a medium for these changes. One purpose is to to come to a closer understanding of landscape changes during a period that is not so much studied within Swedish historical or cultural geography, and also to develop some theoretical and methodological aspects concerning landscape research. Concerning the latter questions the paper tries to establish a dialogue between, on the one hand, research concentrating on the landscape’s material side – the morphological approach – and, on the other hand, its symbolic sides – the ideological approach.