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Extracting the Future in Svalbard

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Competing Arctic Futures

Abstract

Minerals are not resources in and of themselves; they are constructed as such through processes involving narratives about the future, produced by actors who wish to realize them. This book chapter analyses how actors within industry successfully constructed the archipelago of Svalbard as a place for resource extraction at the turn of 1900. They made use of favorable historical contexts and enrolled investors and political supporters by future visions about market opportunities and serving national interests. In 2018, most of these mines are abandoned, providing a fruitful point of departure for critically evaluating future visions of the Arctic as an arena for resource extraction and to consider the sustainability of communities built around resource extraction there.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Dag Avango

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  1. Dag Avango
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Nina Wormbs

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Avango, D. (2018). Extracting the Future in Svalbard. In: Wormbs, N. (eds) Competing Arctic Futures. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91617-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91617-0_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91616-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-91617-0

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

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