The crowded and empty Arctic

Examining research practices, spatial imaginaries, and infrastructures in Kiruna, Sweden

Abstract

We, as four foreign researchers with research commitments in Kiruna, Sweden, reflexively examine the imaginaries of Kiruna as either empty or crowded while problematizing the Arctic as a homogenous region. While our scholarly interests (mining, space, education, transport infrastructure) and disciplines are distinct, we reflect on how their convergence in the city indicates broader historical shifts in Arctic imaginaries and the political economies of research, which follow and shape climate geopolitics, development, and cultural practices. In the interstices of these currents, the Arctic – imagined as empty and remote from global metropoles – becomes crowded and connected through mobility to and from as well as within the Arctic, which shapes processes of knowledge production.