Description
Book SynopsisClimate change has meant that the future of the Arctic is important to the future of the world. This book is a glimpse into the changes affecting a community within the Arctic circle.
Trade Review'In a rich and deeply textured account of the human communities that call Svalbard “home”, Zdenka Sokolíčková demonstrates how the logic of extraction intersects awkwardly with community, environment, geopolitics and sustainability. If Svalbard is a paradox then it will demand explicit recognition of the competing interests, pressures and wishes that make the archipelago and its communities such intriguing places to live, work and study.'
-- Klaus Dodds, Professor of Geopolitics Royal Holloway University of London
'Lucidly captures the dilemmas of maintaining community in the world’s northernmost settlement, where climate change is particularly evident. Through fine-grained ethnography, this weaves together questions of belonging, labor, and inequality with the paradoxes of ‘green growth’- initiatives and geopolitics. Highly recommended!'
-- Cecilie Vindal Ødegaard, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen
'Sokolíčková profoundly and poetically reveals Svalbard as a site of concentrated uncertainty: simultaneously microcosm and periphery, container for a range of peculiarly 21st century meanings, and home to a community unique in the world.'
-- Adam Grydehøj, Editor-in-Chief of 'Island Studies Journal'
'More than a tourist destination, Svalbard is a hotspot of geopolitics, climate change, transient migration and social inequalities. Engaging, rich and nuanced, this book gives voice to people whose stories are rarely told, and exposes the deep dilemmas facing this Arctic archipelago. This book is a must for anyone with an interest in Svalbard, and the challenges of a melting world. Ethnography at its best.'
-- Marianne E. Lien. Professor, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo
'A rich introduction to Svalbard across temporalities, where the past is as present as the future. While located on the rim of the world, Sokolickova makes a strong case for why Svalbard offers insight into many and entangled ‘burning’ issues of modernity. A skilled storyteller, she tells us something important about our world ... balancing on paradoxes that are perhaps not as unique to Svalbard, as Svalbard makes them apparent.'
-- Annette Löf, Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute
‘Makes the convincing case that Svalbard, despite being a sparsely populated area in the extreme north … offers crucial lessons to the world’
-- ‘Jacobin’
Table of ContentsFigures
Abbreviations
Series Preface
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Introducing the Fieldwalk: Field, Companions and Path
Part I: Fluid Environments
1. Fairy Tales of Change
2. Once Upon a Time - So What? Why and How Changing Environments Matter
3. The Viscosity of the Climate Change Discourse
Part II: Extractive Economies
4. The Art of Taking Out: From Extracting Coal to Extracting Knowledge and Memories
5. Big Powers and Little People: Scaling Economic Change
6. Sustainability with a Footnote: Leaving out Justice
Part III: Disempowered Communities
7. The Trouble with Local Community
8. In the Neighbourhood
9. 'Make Longyearbyen Norwegian again': Denying Superdiversity
Conclusion: The Paradox of Svalbard
Afterword by Hilde Henningsen
References
Index
