De förbjudna äggen : en fallstudie om miljö, makt och agens i 1700-talets Sverige genom 1762 års äggningsförbud
(2025) HISS33 20251History
- Abstract
- This thesis examines the causes and effects of the 1762 prohibition introduced by the Swedish diet against the collection of seabird eggs. The study lies at the intersection of environmental, political, animal, and hunting history, focusing on environmental regulations concerning huntable species imposed by political authorities. Previous research has largely accepted the prohibition as a given, without exploring its causes. Moreover, the acts of the deputation of fishery (fiskerideputationen) have not been previously studied, making this thesis a novel contribution to our understanding of the 18th-century Swedish diet. It also aims to investigate the interactions between the state, humans, and nature in mid-18th-century Sweden.
To... (More) - This thesis examines the causes and effects of the 1762 prohibition introduced by the Swedish diet against the collection of seabird eggs. The study lies at the intersection of environmental, political, animal, and hunting history, focusing on environmental regulations concerning huntable species imposed by political authorities. Previous research has largely accepted the prohibition as a given, without exploring its causes. Moreover, the acts of the deputation of fishery (fiskerideputationen) have not been previously studied, making this thesis a novel contribution to our understanding of the 18th-century Swedish diet. It also aims to investigate the interactions between the state, humans, and nature in mid-18th-century Sweden.
To assess the effects of the prohibition, court records from Östra Härad in Blekinge and Morlanda parish in Bohuslän were analyzed to determine the extent of legal violations concerning seabird egg collection. The study builds on both Swedish and international scholarship on human-animal and human-nature relations. It aims to advance the field using a dual theoretical approach: Frank Zelko’s concept of the state as an “environmental-management state,” and Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory (ANT). These frameworks were combined to explore the prohibition’s rationale and to uncover previously overlooked actors in the historical process and their interactions with each other. ANT also functioned as a method, alongside a basic discourse analysis.
Using parliamentary protocols, the thesis reconstructs how the environmental-management state conceptualized and enacted the ban. It reveals that all four estates of the diet agreed on the need to regulate egg collection, fearing it could lead to the birds’ extinction. The proposal, likely initiated by the burghers using mainly economic arguments, was quickly passed into law. The arguments that were used both in the diet and in the final text, drew legitimacy from discourses on religion, mercantilism, housekeeping, and resource sustainability; discourses typical of Enlightenment thinking. By combining diet reports with ANT, the study identifies new actors, such as peasants’ dogs, inhabitants in the north of Sweden, and specific individuals within the diet, while also exploring the agency of non-human actors.
The absence of convictions in Östra Härad and Morlanda suggests weak enforcement of the ban and reveals the structural limitations of the environmental-management state in peripheral areas. The thesis concludes by questioning whether there was truly a seabird shortage, or whether the prohibition was an overreaction by the state. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9198895
- author
- Törnkvist, Joen LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- HISS33 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- environmental history, hunting, 18th century, sea birds, Swedish archipelagos, Actor-Network-Theory, environmental-management state, eider
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 9198895
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-18 16:24:00
- date last changed
- 2025-06-18 16:24:00
@misc{9198895,
abstract = {{This thesis examines the causes and effects of the 1762 prohibition introduced by the Swedish diet against the collection of seabird eggs. The study lies at the intersection of environmental, political, animal, and hunting history, focusing on environmental regulations concerning huntable species imposed by political authorities. Previous research has largely accepted the prohibition as a given, without exploring its causes. Moreover, the acts of the deputation of fishery (fiskerideputationen) have not been previously studied, making this thesis a novel contribution to our understanding of the 18th-century Swedish diet. It also aims to investigate the interactions between the state, humans, and nature in mid-18th-century Sweden.
To assess the effects of the prohibition, court records from Östra Härad in Blekinge and Morlanda parish in Bohuslän were analyzed to determine the extent of legal violations concerning seabird egg collection. The study builds on both Swedish and international scholarship on human-animal and human-nature relations. It aims to advance the field using a dual theoretical approach: Frank Zelko’s concept of the state as an “environmental-management state,” and Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network-Theory (ANT). These frameworks were combined to explore the prohibition’s rationale and to uncover previously overlooked actors in the historical process and their interactions with each other. ANT also functioned as a method, alongside a basic discourse analysis.
Using parliamentary protocols, the thesis reconstructs how the environmental-management state conceptualized and enacted the ban. It reveals that all four estates of the diet agreed on the need to regulate egg collection, fearing it could lead to the birds’ extinction. The proposal, likely initiated by the burghers using mainly economic arguments, was quickly passed into law. The arguments that were used both in the diet and in the final text, drew legitimacy from discourses on religion, mercantilism, housekeeping, and resource sustainability; discourses typical of Enlightenment thinking. By combining diet reports with ANT, the study identifies new actors, such as peasants’ dogs, inhabitants in the north of Sweden, and specific individuals within the diet, while also exploring the agency of non-human actors.
The absence of convictions in Östra Härad and Morlanda suggests weak enforcement of the ban and reveals the structural limitations of the environmental-management state in peripheral areas. The thesis concludes by questioning whether there was truly a seabird shortage, or whether the prohibition was an overreaction by the state.}},
author = {{Törnkvist, Joen}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{De förbjudna äggen : en fallstudie om miljö, makt och agens i 1700-talets Sverige genom 1762 års äggningsförbud}},
year = {{2025}},
}