Abstract
This thesis is a qualitative study that discusses the intersections between nationalist agendas, nature politics, and contemporary rural transformations in Pallars Sobirà, a region in the Catalan Pyrenees. Applying perspectives from the environmental humanities, it shows how biophysical landscapes and nonhuman nature are used to reinforce both discourses on nationhood and development policies. By means of ethnographic methods and interviews, the case of the brown bear reintroduction to the Pyrenees is used as a lens to examine a diversity of biopolitical relations between various political actors both at the local and national level: from livestock farmers to the green tourism industry. In a time of territorial political tension in Catalonia (Spain) the thesis argues that the connection between different nationalist discourses on nonhuman nature and change in landscape values are reflected in the reintroduction of the brown bear, an animal that has become a symbol of local conflict. The thesis also describes the implications of the Catalan Government project of using the shepherd as a tool to create consensus within an area of growing local conflicts. The shepherd’s role within different historical and contemporary nationalist discourses on nonhuman nature is also part of this story. The social and biopolitical dimensions of various ecological restoration policies adopted by the government are analysed, as are the ways in which they are influenced by a concept of authenticity that identifies the genuineness of nonhuman nature with that of the Catalan nation.