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Paper short abstract:

In the ethnography of guided tours on Svalbard, the Arctic landscape revives both as a tour site and as a subject of research. In the paper, I discuss those two (overlapping) forms of "doing landscape" and the relations which emerges during the guided trip and the ethnographical fieldwork.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on an ethnography of a guided trips to the ice cave on Svalbard Archipelago. Being simultaneously an ethnographer and a tour guide, I discuss the process of generating data and the practices of "doing landscape" as both a tour site and as an ethnographic field site. I argue, that the multiplicity in ethnographer-guide role is not only producing tensions but also allows to see, voice and silence different things, practices and relations and as such allows to make two different but also overlapping forms of the Svalbard landscape. Firstly, I show how is the landscape done on a guided trip: as the group is moving through, observing surroundings, the guide is telling stories and the landscape is brought alive as both humans and non-humans interact together and relate to each other. Secondly, I show how is the landscape done within the process of ethnographical construction of the field of research, and how is the guide´s attention to the world of non-humans and their agency used in the ethnographical "doing landscape".