Abstract
Abstract This article provides an historical account and analysis of the repurposing of Ny-Ålesund from Arctic coalmining settlement to Norwegian-administered international research base in Svalbard. Three levels of analysis are employed to explain the settlement’s transformation and its rising geopolitical significance, focusing primarily on the period of rapid internationalisation and expansion of scientific activities starting in the late 1980s. The local level examines Norway’s efforts to maintain effective occupation of greater Kongsfjorden by promoting research, underpinned by the economisation of the area’s near-pristine natural environment as a non-extractive resource for science; the global level applies the concept of telecoupling to consider the role of events and processes at larger spatial scales that facilitated Ny-Ålesund’s transformation; and the “glocal” level explains how the interaction of Norwegian and global actors in the locality of Ny-Ålesund have collectively shaped the community’s institutions over some 30 years. The article also reflects on recent policy changes signalling more assertive Norwegian administration and greater coordination of research in Ny-Ålesund.
Highlights
This article provides an historical account and analysis of the repurposing of Ny-Ålesund from Arctic coalmining settlement to Norwegian-administered international research base in Svalbard
As a community and economic system centred on natural science, Ny-Ålesund today helps sustain Norway’s effective occupation of Svalbard, a High Arctic archipelago under Norwegian sovereignty through the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, by facilitating a permanent Norwegian presence along Kongsfjorden on Spitsbergen island’s Brøgger Peninsula
The analysis focuses mostly on the period that ensued in the late 1980s, when Norwegian authorities began to actively encourage and facilitate the establishment of research stations managed by national polar institutes
Summary
This article provides an historical account and analysis of the repurposing of Ny-Ålesund from Arctic coalmining settlement to Norwegian-administered international research base in Svalbard. The local level examines Norway’s efforts to maintain effective occupation of greater Kongsfjorden by promoting research, underpinned by the economisation of the area’s near-pristine natural environment as a non-extractive resource for science; the global level applies the concept of telecoupling to consider the role of events and processes at larger spatial scales that facilitated NyÅlesund’s transformation; and the “glocal” level explains how the interaction of Norwegian and global actors in the locality of Ny-Ålesund have collectively shaped the community’s institutions over some 30 years. Ny-Ålesund offers an opportunity to study the reinvention of an Arctic coalmining community, radically repurposed as a site of scientific activity that serves to enroll other states in maintaining Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard, while providing the former an Arctic foothold.
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