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dc.contributor.authorSokolickova, Zdenka
dc.contributor.authorRamirez Hincapié, Esteban
dc.contributor.authorZhang, Jasmine
dc.contributor.authorLennert, Ann Eileen
dc.contributor.authorLöf, Annette
dc.contributor.authorvan der Wal, René
dc.date.accessioned2023-03-29T06:36:08Z
dc.date.available2023-03-29T06:36:08Z
dc.date.issued2022-12-20
dc.description.abstractThere is scientific consensus that the archipelago of Svalbard is warming up faster than other parts of the planet. People who live in or regularly visit this part of the European high Arctic observe and experience these changes in a subjective and relational manner. This article illustrates how perceptions of environmental change are enmeshed with our ways of interacting with water(s) and dwelling in the landscape. What kind of water-related change do people talk about? How do changes in the different water worlds matter? How does water help us portray what environmental change means? We show that “what” and “how” we know about water(s) amidst change are in many ways inseparable. Our contribution offers a benchmark for discussing water-related environmental change in Svalbard from a perspective that goes beyond “what long-term monitoring tells us” towards “what bodies experience.” Through accounts shared mostly by scientists, technicians, and tour guides, we explore notions of water in its various forms, such as sea ice, glaciers, rivers, the wetness of the tundra, snow, and weather phenomena including rain. We focus on processes such as disappearing, melting, freezing, swelling, saturating, drying up, eroding, appearing, and threatening, and discuss what the observed and experienced changes mean for human-environment relations. Our interlocutors emphasize many facets of their relationship with the landscape, including identity, expectations, emotions, knowledge, and practices. Our study demonstrates how the experiential perspective is largely ordered and filtered through activities and practices, among which mobility and reading, or predicting, the landscape stand out as particularly important. Through a relational approach to water(s) permeation, we apply Tim Ingold’s concept of taskscapes and his perspectives on dwelling to show how time scales and connection to place matter. We juxtapose scientific knowledge produced through long-term monitoring with experiential knowledge, and demonstrate their entanglement in the Svalbard context, dominated by scientific ways of knowing.en_US
dc.identifier.citationSokolickova, Ramirez Hincapié, Zhang, Lennert, Löf, van der Wal. Waters that matter: How human-environment relations are changing in high-Arctic Svalbard. Anthropological Notebooks. 2022;28(3):74-109en_US
dc.identifier.cristinIDFRIDAID 2113275
dc.identifier.doi10.5281/zenodo.7463504
dc.identifier.issn1408-032X
dc.identifier.issn2232-3716
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10037/28875
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisherSlovene Anthropological Societyen_US
dc.relation.journalAnthropological Notebooks
dc.rights.accessRightsopenAccessen_US
dc.rights.holderCopyright 2022 Slovene Anthropological Societyen_US
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0en_US
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)en_US
dc.titleWaters that matter: How human-environment relations are changing in high-Arctic Svalbarden_US
dc.type.versionpublishedVersionen_US
dc.typeJournal articleen_US
dc.typeTidsskriftartikkelen_US
dc.typePeer revieweden_US


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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)