Jasmine Zhang

I am interested in topics on 'nature' and 'communication', seeing both as ongoing processes that are co-constructed by various human and non-human actors. I'm often drawn to place-based and practices-based questions as they offer links between theory and practice, as well as connecting points to other disciplines and fields.

My main task and interests at Swedish Center for Nature Interpretation lie in working with nature interpreters and researchers from various disciplines, to contritube to the knowledge and method development of nature interpretation in Sweden. 

I have taught courses on tourism geographies, destination development, qualitative methods, as well as theories and methods of nature interpretation. 

Currently I am working on several projects that are trans/interdisciplinary:

Mistra Environmental Communication

In the second phase of Mistra Environmental Communication program I contribute with my knowledge on nature/heritage interpretation to the questions of processes of meaning-making, constitutions of knowledge, and co-creating transformations. Importantly research here is developed through Nature Interpretation Lab, a platform that links practices and theories of interpretation through encouraging collaborations across different professions. 

SVALUR 

In this project (led by Prof. René van der Wal) we try to find out how co-creation of knowledge on environmental change of Svalbard might look like and what effects such co-created knowledge might have to different groups on Svalbard. In particular I’m looking at how to understand more qualitative and narrative forms of knowledge and understanding in relation to the current environnemental monitoring systems on Svalbard, and together how to offer a platform for generating some kind of long term environmental memory of the changes in the past, present and future.

Adaptive Forest Management - Continuous Cover Forestry 

This is a project lead by Forestry Research Institute of Sweden, with collaboration with SLU through the research platform Future Forests. Here I am working in a sub-project focusing on dialogue processes between forest actors and societal stakeholders where they together experiment with various forest management methods that are included in the package of Continuous Cover Forestry. It is a highly innovative project, aiming to explore new ways to have constructive communications through practicing alternative forest methods than the conventional forestry methods (such as clear cutting). I look into how CCF methods are defined, negotiated, and communicated by various actors. I also examine motivations, ways of identification and self-identification of actors in relation to their forestr management goals and visions, conditions for initiating and maining constructive dialgoues and knowledge gaps for future research. 

Interdisciplinary Academy (IDA) - Multifunctional Landscape Transformations 

This is a project funded by a newly established programmed at SLU, IDA, to promote and explore cross-disciplinary research. I am part of a team exploring the theme Multifunctional Landscape Transformations where we test creative methods to find new angles to consider landscape management issues, ideally compementing the evalutations of trade-offs. In this project we meet regularly, and take the interdisciplinary collaboration (and its challenges) honestly and seriously. The process of working interdisciplinarily is as important as the theoretical researching process. In fact it has shown that the two go hand in hand.

During 2012-2016 I was a recipient of the Otago International Doctoral Scholarship and based at the Department of Tourism, University of Otago, New Zealand. My PhD thesis Political Ecology of Shangri-La: A study of environmental discourse, tourism development and environmental subjects (2016) examines the relationship between tourism development and environmental discourse in Shangri-la from a political ecology perspective. Drawn on my multi-visits to Shangri-La throughout 2007-2015 and my main ethnographic fieldwork there in 2013, I was looking at how individuals who have experienced changes in livelihood perceive and translate the social and environmental changes into their own beings and becomings. The key concepts that I work with include, hybrid natures, environmental subject and subjectivities, Green Tibetan, and worldmaking.

During 2016-2019 I was employed as a postdoc at the Department of Gegography, Umeå University. I worked within the Formas founded project "Mobilising the Rural" (led by Associate Professor Linda Lundmark) which aims to understand the new economic landscape and entrepreneurship in sparsely populated areas in North Sweden. In my research I looked at how the changing rural landscape is viewed by entreprenuers who live and work there, and how they relate their business operations in the context of global environmental changes. I was in particular interested in how the myth of win-win situation of economonizing the ecology/commodifying 'nature' might look like in reality, and if 'ecopreneurship' is a good concept to work with for understanding the complexity of these entrepreneurs' everyday realities. 

During 2019-2020 I worked as a senior research assitant within the Future Forest platform for the Swedish Government mandate "Multi-use Forestry", where I conducted interviews with various actors working in and alongside the forest-related sectors. 

I have supervised master thesis in tourism and spatial planning, and I am co-supervising a PhD dissertation with prof. Hazel Tucker (University of Otago).

See below for publication list.