Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how tourism and transport infrastructures are entangled in the town of Churchill in Northern Manitoba, Canada, and what this means for the community’s sustainability.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how tourism and transport infrastructures are entangled in the town of Churchill in Northern Manitoba, Canada. Situated at the junction of the boreal forest, the Arctic tundra, and the Hudson Bay, the community of 870 people has become known as the “Polar Bear Capital of the World”. While early bear watching projects in Churchill already started in the 1970s, tourism really exploded when polar bears became worldwide symbols of global warming and climate change at the end of the 20th century.

This tremendous growth in tourism was mainly enabled by the transport infrastructure of a town which has no road connection. The Hudson Bay Railway, which was originally built to ship grain from Canada’s prairie provinces to the seaport of Churchill, now also brings tourists and their supplies. The same goes for Churchill’s airport, which was constructed for military purposes during the Second World War and now serves as transportation hub for tourists, tour operators, and their cargo.

By discussing ethnographic findings, this paper focuses on the role of tourism, as a key economic driver, and its connection to transport infrastructures in sustaining and transforming the town of Churchill. In doing so, it also critically reflects upon the very notion of sustainability (transformation). This study is one of several case studies in the ERC project InfraNorth, which looks into the affordances of transport infrastructures on a pan-Arctic scale.

Paper short abstract:

Research in a community next to one of Germany's last nuclear power plants analyzes local negotiations of uncertainty, risk, and safety. Where and how does the dispositive of nuclear power emerge in the everyday life in the community?

Paper long abstract:

As of today (December 2022), the nuclear power plant in Neckarwestheim in southwestern Germany will finally be shut down at the end of April 2023. This phase-out had initially been set for December 2022 by the German government after the disaster in Fukushima in 2011. But what had been considered for sure for a decade was shaken by the energy crisis. The operating lives of the last three nuclear power plants remaining on the grid in Germany were extended by four months in September 2022. The paper provides insights into how this extension of the power plant's operating life was negotiated, perceived and organized locally. This is because the operating life and dismantling of the nuclear power plant have a direct impact not only on the lives of the local employees, but also on the economic income of the community, right down to the role of the steam cloud in the everyday lives of local people. How did the dispositive of nuclear power with its infrastructure, architecture and the discourses around clean energy and risk inscribed itself into the place and how are these controversial issues part of the everyday life of diverse groups in the community? The presentation draws on field research I am conducting with seven master's students during a three-semester teaching research project (October 2022 - February 2024).

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the dynamics of locals’ attitudes towards natural sites and resources in times of uncertainty caused by political, economic and social changes over time. Searching for lifestyle sustainability, people transform various cultural and economic practices related to these sites.

Paper long abstract:

The establishment of institutional control (i.g. conservational) over a given landscape is always accompanied by changes in land use rights and resource use patterns. This leads to important transformations in everyday economic and cultural practices of the local population, and therefore causes uncertainty. Inevitably, however, humans impact the landscape through their activities and practices of using (and protecting) natural resources. At the same time, the environment sets certain conditions which shape the possible ways locals can secure their livelihoods. People’s attitudes towards natural resources, however, change over time, including under the influence of global environmental concepts and movements. Therefore, local practices in search of lifestyle sustainability also transform.

The proposed paper addresses these issues through the case of the village of Ezerets, Bulgaria, at 3 km from the Shabla lake and 2 km from the Black sea coast. The focus is on the role of these two natural sites in locals’ cultural and economic practices. In the last eight decades, their meaning has been (trans)forming by diverse factors: political (the change of regimes; the acceptance of Bulgaria in the EU), conservational (the inclusion of the lake and coast within protected areas), socio-ecological (undeveloped coastline; well preserved environment), etc.

The research was conducted within the scope of the project “Life in Protected Zones and Areas: Challenges, Conflicts, Benefits” (Contract No. КП-06-Н40/12), supported by the National Science Fund of Bulgaria.

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the negotiation of visions for public infrastructures between social movements, political actors and entrepreneurs based on ethnographic research in Venice. During the pandemic, local actors developed post-touristic and post-pandemic future strategies which are now under review.

Paper long abstract:

The lagoon city of Venice is currently facing major challenges in contemporary society. On the one hand, in the context of climate change, solutions must be found for rising sea levels. On the other hand, the city is in danger of sinking in the maelstrom of mass tourism, accompanied by a crisis of gainful employment and migration of the population, which is leading to rapid demographic transformation. Not only Venice is facing these challenges, but the crisis of labour and commodification of municipal infrastructures and neoliberal policies caused by touristification are virulent phenomena of our time that a multitude of municipalities are currently confronted with. Venice, however, as a spatially confined city, is particularly affected by mass tourism by day tourists from cruise ships. During the pandemic, certain initiatives popped up to prevent Venice after the covid19 crisis from mass tourism and the rising sea level. Since reentering of mass tourism in the city political actors and social movements developing controversial strategies to cope with the floating of the city by mass tourism. The aims, strategies and logics of local actors, administration and politics are the subjects of the study. Based on my ethnographic research I am investigating since 2019 which visions for a liveable city and for the future of Venice the residents have and how they demand the "right to the city" which visions political decision-makers develop and how these divergent approaches are negotiated.

Paper short abstract:

We present research with people impacted by industrial decarbonisation plans in south Wales in the context of global and local uncertainties. Providing a reparative framing that elucidates how affect shapes the contingent, and uncertain ways people develop and respond to visions of future change.

Paper long abstract:

Our research aims to understand the views of people locally impacted by industrial decarbonisation (ID) plans, situated within the context of global and local uncertainty. We address questions posed by interpretive, cultural and relational risk theorists constituting “pedagogies of uncertainty” through researching local responses to industrial stakeholders’ visions for decarbonizing the future. There is a new generation of industries and research centres based on utilisation of renewal energies as well as integration of fossil fuel with cleaner processes involving (blue)hydrogen and carbon capture reuse and storage. We explore how affect shapes and invokes experiences about industrial townscapes opening up the possibility of a reparative space attending to the ambiguous, contingent, and uncertain ways people develop and respond to visions of future change. We draw on data from ID research at two industrial places on the south Wales coast interpreted through a nuanced visual practice, articulated through a framework of liveliness of objects relevant to participants’ lives, drawing out the affective forces that flow through or inhabit localised experiences of global and local uncertainties. Our research makes apparent both gaps and alignments between what can loosely be termed industrialist vision makers and local digestors of such plans. Gathering responses to expert portrayals of industrial solutions to solving problems of climate change through a reparative framework, creates a coherent space enabling local responses to such portrayals to become articulated as reparative and multiple without binary reductivity bleaching out potential problems as well as unifying possibilities.

Paper short abstract:

The paper examines a case of the Krk Island where a group of people tries to strengthen the island self-sustainability in order to forestall possible future uncertainties. This initiative started some 20 years ago and developed from the local marginal to the local mainstream initiative.

Paper long abstract:

Raising awareness about the uncertainty of our glocal futures has been present in public discourse, governmental strategies and academic researches as well. Environmental degradation and its various consequences (environmental, social and economic), wars, pandemic, shortages and/or high prices of food and energy and all other relevant markers of uncertain futures have, hopefully, managed to frighten the decision makers as well as the growing global population. Is this fear strong enough to foster real change it is yet to be seen. The number of wannabe moderate "doomsday preppers" is on the rise, at least rhetorically. However there is a growing number of people actively seeking the solution for diminishing the impact global uncertainties have on their local futures. The research carried out on the island of Krk started as an exploration of an, in Croatian context novel, emerging local energy sovereignty initiative - energy cooperative. However, obtaining energy sovereignty appeared to be just a part of the agenda of the local NGO and its main actor(s). Raising island self-sustainability turned out to be the main goal and this self-sustainability has many various, sometimes even conflicting facets. The number of people engaged with quite important local NGO actor started setting the course for a new type of development of local community some 20 years ago. The paper aims to reveal not only how the change was implemented locally, but also what kind of motivation and attitudes triggered that change.

Paper short abstract:

The purpose of the paper is to investigate how the crisis caused by the wildfires activated rural networks and mobilization of resources in local communities affected by the wildfires, and how this can be interpreted in terms of rural community resilience.

Paper long abstract:

In our project Mobilized villages: local community agency during the Swedish wildfires in 2018 and the process of re-orientation towards the future we’ve investigated local mobilization in small rural communities during the large and numerous wildfires in Swedish forests in 2018. The main contribution of this paper is that it brings forth empirical knowledge about the importance of timing, local networks and skills in disaster response in a rural context. Our project shows strong evidence of social cohesion, closely tied to place, but also important areas of conflict. A key factor for success in extinction of the fires were lack of prestige and close cooperation with people with local knowledge and networks. Emergent and autonomous groups, based in local networks, is of special importance, as they are central from a local perspective, yet not formally recognized as a resource – rather, if they are mentioned it is as a security risk – in evaluations and reports from authorities and formal rescue organizations. The purpose of the paper is to investigate how the crisis caused by the wildfires activated rural networks and mobilization of resources in local communities affected by the wildfires, and how this can be interpreted in terms of rural community resilience. Embedded in this lies the methodological question of what happens with established categories such as volunteers and professionals, formal and informal organization when we choose to take local communities as a starting point? Finally, we discuss the question whether the official response to the wildfires can be seen as consequences related to an urban norm and state withdrawal from rural Sweden in general and how this affect senses of trust, democracy and justice among inhabitants there.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation discusses ticks and nature from the perspective of solastalgia. In what way is solastalgia and the sense of losing control bringing about affective responses? Dimensions of solastalgia and it´s affective responses will be discussed as available in ethnographic material.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 1990s, an increased knowledge of ticks and the danger to our health they may possess have changed many daily habits and routines for people living in Finland - especially in the archipelago and along the coastline, where ticks are numerous. With the climate change, the number of ticks has increased, along with other species that serve as vectors for ticks. Daily tick related habits and routines are emerging and re-emerging during the tick season, lasting from early Spring until late Autumn, including daily inspections of the body and the usage of tick repellents of various kinds, primarily on pets. Also protective clothing is of importance while spending time outdoors.

In my presentation, I want to address questions of how ticks bring about senses of solastalgia. Solastalgia (see e.g. Albrecht et al. 2007) is a concept developed to give greater meaning and clarity to environmentally induced distress. As opposed to nostalgia, solastalgia is the distress produced by environmental change impacting on people and their home environment. Changes in the environment, as considered to have been brought along by ticks, have negative effects exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness and lack of control. In what way is solastalgia and the sense of losing control bringing about affective responses and of what kind? The dimensions of solastalgia and it´s affective responses will be discussed as available in questionnaires, newspaper articles and online discussions.

Paper short abstract:

This paper traces animism as exemplary model in environmental discourse. Focusing on the role of genres in the translation from “old” to “new” animism, I discuss how anthropological knowledge, through the notion of non-human actors, produce models for future sustainability based on the familiarity of a stable past.

Paper long abstract:

Facing the global environmental changes, several proposals have been made to change our perception of, and relationship to, our environment. Common among them is to find ways to bridge the nature/culture divide by bridging the so-called Cartesian gap between mind and body. In recent years, a reinterpretation of the old anthropological category of animism has been utilized for this purpose, drawing concepts from the debates around “new animism” in anthropology into fields as diverse as business research, educational science and sustainability science. However, while these models readily translate animistic practices as exemplary models for human relationships to the environment, the mind/body dichotomy which is at the heart of Tylor’s notion of animism, the mental projection of spirits on inanimate bodies and souls on human bodies, is sought overcome by reframing animism as a relation between human and non-human actors.

In this paper, I seek to trace the translation of the concept of animism within anthropology, from E.B. Tylor’s concept (1871), through Nurit Bird-David’s revisiting of animism (1999), and her use of Irving Hallowell’s study of the Ojibwa “personhood” category (1960). I will focus on the often-overlooked role of textual and oral genres in these translations from “old” to “new” animism. How is the, in Tylor’s view erroneous, notion of spirits, or indeed animation, translated into the agency of non-human beings in contemporary environmental discourse? And how does the everyday knowledge of animism blend with the anthropological knowledge to make models for a sustainable future?

Paper short abstract:

There is an ongoing housing crisis in major European urban centers. The inquiry of my PhD research focuses on the resistance among activists and locals against platform-based touristic housing with an urban anthropological approach.

Paper long abstract:

The phenomenon of mass tourism accompanies the development of modern society. Platform-based home sharing applications brought change to the field of tourism since the 2010's. In the first instance, related to urban mass tourism the distance between tourists – who used to stay in hotels and other types of official accommodations – and local residents of the city radically reduced. The apartments that were previously available on the long-term rental market for the urban population in many cases have been transferred to the short-term touristic housing market. These changes on the cultural and social fabric of certain neighborhoods caused the rise of the social movements which are in the focus of my research inquiry.

My study summarizes the latest results of the research, during which I analyse this social struggle thinking together with those who are involved and affected by the phenomena. While it is a global phenomena and there are several similarities with my previous research from Barcelona this case study of a specific residential community of Budapest shows local cultural practices and peculiarities of the social context. Why does the anti-capitalistic left wing activists embrace this issue typically? What are the characteristics of effective resistance in this specific field? How did the COVID19 pandemic affected this social drama and the members of the local community? In my presentation, I will try to find answers to these questions among others.