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Urban Adventures and Autopsies - Experience and Exploration in Recent Ruins

Åryd, Paulina LU (2026) SANM05 20261
Social Anthropology
Abstract
This ethnographic study takes a phenomenological approach to examining the experiences of urban explorers in Sweden. Data collection took place in Skåne and Stockholm between October 2025 and February 2026, using the qualitative methods of semistructured interviews and participant observation. Urban exploration encompasses a wide range of practices; this thesis centers around its core aspect of visiting abandoned places. The hobby’s practitioners, called urban explorers, are a loosely connected group of diverse individuals, typically organized through online spaces around a common interest for places, photography, and abandonment. This study attempts to productively engage with the concept of experience by examining the social, historical,... (More)
This ethnographic study takes a phenomenological approach to examining the experiences of urban explorers in Sweden. Data collection took place in Skåne and Stockholm between October 2025 and February 2026, using the qualitative methods of semistructured interviews and participant observation. Urban exploration encompasses a wide range of practices; this thesis centers around its core aspect of visiting abandoned places. The hobby’s practitioners, called urban explorers, are a loosely connected group of diverse individuals, typically organized through online spaces around a common interest for places, photography, and abandonment. This study attempts to productively engage with the concept of experience by examining the social, historical, and material processes that inform the reflective and pre-reflective experiences of urban explorers. It finds that urban exploration affords experiences that are emotional, evocative, transformative, and unique to everyday Swedish life. These experiences are constituted by environments that have distinctive qualities in terms of materiality, affordances, aesthetics, temporality, legality, and sociality, in interaction with the evolving movements, perception, physicality, feelings, and presuppositions of urban explorers. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Åryd, Paulina LU
supervisor
organization
course
SANM05 20261
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
urban exploration, social anthropology, phenomenology, experience, abandonment, temporality, embodiment
language
English
id
9231352
date added to LUP
2026-06-04 17:39:30
date last changed
2026-06-04 17:39:30
@misc{9231352,
  abstract     = {{This ethnographic study takes a phenomenological approach to examining the experiences of urban explorers in Sweden. Data collection took place in Skåne and Stockholm between October 2025 and February 2026, using the qualitative methods of semistructured interviews and participant observation. Urban exploration encompasses a wide range of practices; this thesis centers around its core aspect of visiting abandoned places. The hobby’s practitioners, called urban explorers, are a loosely connected group of diverse individuals, typically organized through online spaces around a common interest for places, photography, and abandonment. This study attempts to productively engage with the concept of experience by examining the social, historical, and material processes that inform the reflective and pre-reflective experiences of urban explorers. It finds that urban exploration affords experiences that are emotional, evocative, transformative, and unique to everyday Swedish life. These experiences are constituted by environments that have distinctive qualities in terms of materiality, affordances, aesthetics, temporality, legality, and sociality, in interaction with the evolving movements, perception, physicality, feelings, and presuppositions of urban explorers.}},
  author       = {{Åryd, Paulina}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Urban Adventures and Autopsies - Experience and Exploration in Recent Ruins}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}