“Landscaping transition and (geo)politics” by Cecilie Gro Vindal Ødegaard, published by Artica Svalbard

In 2017, when the then-Minister of Trade and Industry Monica Mæland announced the decisions about Svea, she stressed that continued operations could no longer be justified due to low coal prices. The activities related to the clean-up and “returning to nature” would also give society time to adapt to the “changeover” – that is, the transition from coal mining to other energy sources and economic activities. In 2019, the clean-up of the mining area in Svea was well underway, and when I arrived in Svalbard that spring to do some short-term anthropological fieldwork, I was first struck by the archipelago’s spectacular landscape – then by how astonishing Svea’s restoration truly is. What does it actually mean to remove an entire community in order to go “back to nature?” And which narratives about our time can such a project be considered a part of?

Read the full translation on Artica Svalbard’s website.