[with Ulrike Spring] The Useless Arctic: Exploiting Nature in the Arctic in the 1870s (original) (raw)
Related papers
This book and its comprehensive Introduction offer a diverse and groundbreaking account of the intersections between modernities and environments in the circumpolar global North, foregrounding the Arctic as a critical space of modernity, where the past, present, and future of the planet’s environmental and political systems are projected and imagined. Investigating the Arctic region as a privileged site of modernity, this book articulates the globally significant, but often overlooked, junctures between environmentalism and sustainability, indigenous epistemologies and scientific rhetoric, and decolonization strategies and governmentality. With international expertise made easily accessible, readers can observe and understand the rise and conflicted status of Arctic modernities, from the nineteenth century polar explorer era to the present day of anthropogenic climate change.
Scandinavian-Canadian Studies
This edited anthology showcases many of the major contributions from the three-year international interdisciplinary Arctic Modernities research project, led by Anka Ryall and based at The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) with major funding support by the Research Council of Norway. The striking image on the book cover-a woman in bright red Sámi attire standing on a trampoline in a seemingly desolate field of snow-provides a fitting invitation to explore this series of fourteen articles, which both challenge traditional and dominant discourses surrounding the Arctic, and provide valuable new perspectives related to gender and indigeneity. The articles challenge both long-held and more recently constructed stereotypes and oversimplified representations of this complex and dynamic region by drawing on historical, literary, cultural, and aesthetic perspectives. In their engaging introduction, editors Heidi Hansson and Anka Ryall, both well-known literary scholars who work extensively with Arctic texts, unpack the cover image to frame their discussion of the ways in which the Arctic and modernity have been conceptualized and defined in various times, places, and spaces, focusing on the intersection of these notions and some of the seeming paradoxes and contradictions that result. Hansson and Ryall position the articles in this anthology within the following Arctic discourse framework, which is reflected in the book's subtitle: "the Arctic understood as threatened environment, the Arctic perceived as the exotic opposite of modernity and the Arctic described as the everyday, lived reality of its inhabitants" (4, italics mine). The editors also note that a hypothesis common to many of these contributions is "the Arctic may be seen as a stark embodiment of the paradoxes of modernity" (8). The geographic and thematic foci of the articles span the circumpolar north-from Russia and the former Soviet Union to northern Canada to the northern reaches of the Nordic region, including Sápmi, Greenland, and Svalbard-with Canadian and Norwegian content being particularly well represented. The areas of expertise of the contributors, all of whom are connected to European and North American universities, range from literature and culture (comparative, Nordic, English, Russian, and Slavic) to art history, Arctic history, and cross-cultural, gender, film, and media studies. By presenting such a wide range of perspectives, Hansson and Ryall effectively highlight the broad and timely range of work related to the Arctic and modernity taking place in the field of humanities. Arctic Modernities also demonstrates the importance of paying attention to often understudied perspectives and areas such as "the impact of … air travel, industry, tourism, urgent environmental concerns and changing gender
Science, environment, and the New Arctic [proof copy; final published version vol. 44, pages 2-14].
This essay underlines the timely importance of research into historical geographies of science and technology as a basis for better understanding the emerging 'New' Arctic, where climate change has heightened international interest in northern navigation routes and mineral exploitation. It introduces five studies from two international collaborative research projects: 'Colony, Empire, Environment' (funded by the BOREAS Program, European Science Foundation) and 'Large-Scale Industrial Exploitation of Polar Areas' (LASHIPA, funded by the Dutch and Swedish Research Councils), situating them in terms of changing interpretations of the Arctic and its environment primarily since the late nineteenth century. With emphasis on the role of science and technology in the production of knowledge about the environment of the far north, these five studies highlight significant shifts in the conception and utilization of the Arctic -- from heroic representations of Arctic exploration through the International Polar Year (1932-1933), the post-1945 militarization of the Arctic, the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958), and the subsequent recasting of the Arctic as a fragile environmental bellwether -- using comparative and transnational approaches to reconsider Arctic historical geographies of science and technology within the larger frameworks of recent regional, colonial, and postcolonial studies.
Arctic Adventurous Discourse Extends to the East
2016
One may have found the key word of “Arctic adventures” is associated frequently with “travelers”, “rescue”, “dangers”, “survival”, “heroism”, “northern lights”, “ice” and “coldness” in the catalog of popular but traditional Arctic literature or visual text in the west and Russia. However, improvement in transport technologies provides immediate travel to the Arctic, particularly China which has been admitted as an observer-member in the Arctic Council and has openly expressed keen interest in the Arctic resources and global warming in both real works and declarations. Study on the discourse of the Arctic literature in the east is therefore should be encouraged to understand the Eastern perspective concerning the Arctic to facilitate policies-making.