Although modern societies depend on functioning telecommunication
connections, is our understanding of the expansion and impacts of such
infrastructure on sparsely populated Arctic regions insufficient. This
interdisciplinary project focuses on studying, recording, and
visualising the interdependence and interaction of telecommunications
infrastructure, environment, and communities. In our long-term research
perspective, the interest ranges from early telegraph and telephone
lines to fixed broadband and mobile phone networks.
The aim of our project is to understand how the special
characteristics of the Arctic environment affect the design,
construction, operation, maintenance, and possible dismantling of
telecommunications infrastructure in northern Europe (especially, the
northernmost parts of Finland, Sweden and Norway); how
telecommunications infrastructure affects life, the environment,
communities, and the landscape in the Arctic; how the people of the
northernmost regions have at different times reacted to the construction
of telecommunications infrastructure; and how they have perceived and
experienced the relationship between the environment and
telecommunications infrastructure.
The project reorients research focus from the needs of extractive
companies and the motivations for national defence and nation state
building to the activities and experiences of local people. It
emphasizes the involvement of local people in project implementation and
the evaluation of results. In practice, this materializes in various
practices related to the collection, sharing, and analysis of
information, which include, for example, open workshops, interviews, a
campaign to collect photographs, and a photography competition. The
project will culminate in an exhibition at the Arktikum Science Centre
in Rovaniemi in autumn 2025.
Photo: Jorma Autio