Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses ruination of coal-mining objects as a process of more-than-human relations, shaping the ways of engaging with the past, present and futures. It draws upon ethnography of human-environment relations on Svalbard, an archipelago where coal-mining is aging.

Paper long abstract:

After many years of (political) discussions, the environmental arguments against coal mining in Spitsbergen were supported by an ageing power station that, although operational, was more expensive than desirable. As of 2017, some of the last remaining mining infrastructure is being dismantled, while others are still in operation until a non-coal energy solution is in place. The underlying policy behind this decision is to protect the environment, manage the "wilderness" and transform Svalbard into a nature-based tourist destination. This paper explores how this transformation from coal mining to a nature-based tourism industry is co-produced with and through the process of 'ruining' coal mining sites. Drawing on a relational (more-than-human) ethnography of guided tours, this article explores the process of ruination not only as a result of institutional politics and industrial closure but as a result of more-than-human relationships and engagement with the environment emerging during guided tours. Ruination in Svalbard can be part of a process of reconfiguring the past, present and future in the enactment of wilderness, protecting environment and cultural heritage, as well as shaping “garbage”. Ruination is then a process inseparable from more-than-human relations and engagement with the environment, situationally shaped during guided tours by the guides, tourists and various constituents of the environment; with and through different temporalities and contextual biographies of coal mining objects and their emergent character. o And while ruination can be understood as a (political) attempt to purify the present and future from the past, it is also an essential process in creating continuity and shaping the futures.