Mia Bennett: Social and Economic Impacts of Arctic Transportation Infrastructure - 14 April 2017
Presentations
Climate change is destabilizing the Arctic environment and rendering its communities vulnerable. Yet new infrastructure projects are springing up on top of the shifting landscape, from ports along Russia’s northern coast to highways in Canada. This presentation will examine how certain northern communities have managed to benefit from and occasionally spearhead major new transportation infrastructure projects while others remain sidelined as their resources are extracted and exported, often for consumption in the world’s urban core. Addressing this topic requires first determining patterns of economic development in the Arctic at a regional scale, which are shown for the past two decades using night light satellite imagery. Fieldwork conducted in Canada and Russia helps explain how certain infrastructure projects are negotiated and brought into being at a local scale while drawing attention to both the benefits and risks of industrial development. Taken together, this presentation aims to identify the mechanisms which are selectively connecting certain northern communities to regional and global transportation networks.
