Postcolonial polar cities? New indigenous and cosmopolitan urbanness in the Arctic

ABSTRACT

The arrival into geography, and especially urban geography, of a frame of questioning coming from postcolonial studies has contributed to a fascinating debate about what a “postcolonial” city is and how the urban duality between ethnically, socially, and spatially segregated “European” towns and “native” settlements is being reformulated and transformed. Obviously, Arctic cities are not postcolonial in the political sense of being independent from the former colonial centre – although this process may be under way in Greenland – but they have seen a progressive move from a Eurocentric culture toward greater hybridization. This article looks into two new trends that contribute to making Arctic cities postcolonial: first, the arrival of indigenous peoples in cities and the concomitant diminution of the division between Europeans/urbanites and natives/rurals; and second, the arrival of labour migrants from abroad, which has given birth to a more plural and cosmopolitan citizenry. It advances the idea that Arctic cities are now in a position to play a “decolonizing” role, in the sense of progressively erasing the purely European aspect of the city and making it both more local and rooted (through indigenous communities) and more global and multicultural (through foreign labour migrants).

KEYWORDS:

• Arctic
• cities
• postcolonialism
• indigenous peoples
• migration
• multiculturalism

Acknowledgements

This research was developed as part of the George Washington University initiative “PIRE: Promoting Urban Sustainability in the Arctic,” supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), grant PLR-1545913, and as part of the “HIARC: Anthropogenic Heat Islands in the Arctic – Windows to the Future of the Regional Climates, Ecosystems and Society” project coordinated by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center and funded by the Belmont Forum and the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Marlene Laruelle http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8289-2695

Notes

1 See also “Cities on Ice: Population Trends in the Arctic,” Northern Forum, https://www.northernforum.org/en/news/481-cities-on-ice-population-change-in-the-arctic (accessed December 5, 2018).

2 Author’s fieldwork, Yakutsk, July 2017.

3 Author’s interviews with Norilsk Nickel representative in Norilsk and with Kazakh association leader in Talnakh, July 2013.

4 Author’s interviews with a local geologist working for one of the main mining companies of the region, Apatity, July 2015.

5 Author’s fieldwork in Norilsk, July 2013 and July 2015, as well as interviews with a City Council MP in charge of the educational institutions, July 2013.

6 Author’s fieldwork and interviews with anonymous local experts, Yakutsk, July 2017, and Salekhard, July 2018.

7 Reported by Olga Povoroznyuk to the author during fieldwork preparation, April 2015.

8 Author’s interview with local imams in Yakutsk, July 2017, and Salekhard, July 2018.

Additional information

Funding

This research was developed as part of the George Washington University initiative “PIRE: Promoting Urban Sustainability in the Arctic,” supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), grant PLR-1545913, and as part of the “HIARC: Anthropogenic Heat Islands in the Arctic – Windows to the Future of the Regional Climates, Ecosystems and Society” project coordinated by the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center and funded by the Belmont Forum and the National Science Foundation.