Landscapes come down to us thick with the sediments of culture. In other words: Landscapes and territories are cultural products. Our conception of them is formed by image building, values, rhetorics, and politics. All of these have contributed strongly to conceptions of the Arctic through time, from ancient myths of Thule, through myths of exploration, to present days arguments for exploitation and preservation. This seminar invites local and international researchers and experts to explore the agency of imagery in a changing Arctic.
As large areas in the Arctic and Sub Arctic are being turned over into extraction territories, energy spaces and landscapes for tourism activities, stories and mythologies about the north continue to build. The new industries that are gaining foothold in Arctic territories are working within a certain framework of conceptualized understanding of the north as a new commodified landscape. On the other hand, social research brings forth knowledge from local practices as well as the human scale and social aspects of a region in rapid change. Mapping techniques contribute at the same time to render a more diverse and valid image of traditional landscapes, allowing for an extended and novel understanding of them.
This 2014 side-event to the Arctic Frontiers conference, arranged by the Tromsø Academy of Landscape and Territorial Studies, discusses the construction of landscapes, social conditions and imagery in the Arctic. Different construction strategies will be discussed by a wide range of scholars:
Janike Kampevold Larsen, William L. Fox, Johan Schimanski, Stepa Mitaki, Kathleen John-Alder, Aileen A. Espiritu, Stine Barlindhaug, Silje Figenschou Thoresen, Arvid Viken, Larissa Riabova, Vladimir Didyk and Andrew Morrison.
Program as pdf.
For info on the main conference and to register please see
www.arcticfrontiers.com/
