The Local Lives of Global Infrastructures: Maritime Transport and the Futures of Arctic Coastal Communities

Keywords: Arctic, Transport Infrastructure, Resource Extraction, Future, Community Wellbeing
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 59

Abstract

The combined forces of climate change and economic globalization have remade the Arctic Ocean from a frozen backwater of history ripe for environmental protection into a dynamic resource frontier and a potential transport corridor between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This new significance has prompted the planning and construction of new coastal infrastructures, from port facilities to LNG plants, from research stations to seawalls protecting coastal areas from erosion. As we ask ourselves who is planning, building and paying for these structures, we also focus on whether local arctic residents will be able to make use of them. Maritime transport, which makes the shipping of bulk goods significantly cheaper than land or air transport, has become central in remaking the frontier known as the New Arctic. While resource extraction sites rarely provide added value locally, maritime transport infrastructures hold the potential for doing so. Still, contemporary forms of maritime transport are not necessarily addressing local needs of moving goods and people, as typically neither LNG tankers nor container ships take passengers or transport parcels to the next community. This presentation will provide an overview over a few case studies from arctic Russia and arctic North America, as well as the conceptual framework of a large-scale comparative project – about the role of transport infrastructures in shaping the futures of arctic communities – which got under way in early 2021.