Social representations of the wolf

Abstract

Restoring species to their former range has become a major goal in official environmental policy. Under strict protection, the expansion of a new wolf population has been taking place on the Scandinavian Peninsula since the late 1980s, leading to much controvery in rural areas. Most research on conflicts concerning wolves has taken antagonistic attitudes as a point of departure. In this article we question such an approach. Taking social representations as our framework for analysis, our aim has been to find out how wolves are perceived and whether an analysis of such cultural meanings could contribute to a better understanding of the conflicts accompanying wolf recovery. Focus group interviews in two areas in Eastern Norway suggest that it is not antagonistic interpretations of the carnivores’ nature that fuel the conflicts over wolves, but different views as to whether they belong in the areas where they are now found. Yet, at the same time, it is against the undisputed background of the wolf’s perceived character that the negotiations over their belonging to Norwegian nature make sense. We so argue that the theory of social representations provides a comprehensive framework for studying the complex relationship between consensus and diverging opinions, and between culturally embedded representations and conflict, that appears to lie at the heart of such issues.