Permafrost Politics

Toward a Relational Materiality and Design of Arctic Ground

Bibliographic Data

ID11168023
AuthorsLeena Cho (0000-0002-8027-5746, University of Virginia, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume46
Issue1
Pages25-35
Publication date2021-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLandscape Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0142-6397 • E-ISSN: 1469-9710
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01426397.2020.1831461
OpenAlexW3097872619
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited60

Permafrost—continuously frozen ground for more than two years—is one of the defining landscape elements in the Arctic. In the U.S., its development as an idea has parallelled mid-twentieth-century territorial struggles in Alaska and is inextricably linked to permafrost science and frontier engineering. Permafrost is more than a scientific category and engineering risk subject to correction and control; it is a foundation for dynamic socioecological and cultural expressions in arctic landscapes. In response, a relational approach is taken to examine permafrost’s cold, vibrant and plural materialities, with an aim of generating design possibilities that are attuned to these dynamics. In the Arctic where science continues to play a central role in determining putative futures, the article further suggests to creatively instrumentalise scientific forms of landscape inquiry, highlighting thermo-material interactions and multiplicities of arctic ground

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Arctic · Arctic ecology · Climate change · Climate science · Common ground · Earth science · Environmental ethics · Frontier · Futures contract · Geography · Materiality (auditing) · Permafrost · Plural · Political science · Politics · Sociology · The arctic · Arctic and Russian Policy Studies · Climate change and permafrost · Geology · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law · Oceanography

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