Cultural and Ecological Analysis of Mining in Norrbotten, Sweden

This is a report Jessica Malmberg and I compiled during the summer of 2015 under the direction of Dag Avango and Dr. Mark Safstrom, as a part of the course AK1214 Environment and Society in a Changing Arctic, hosted jointly by KTH in Stockholm and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The course involved three weeks of lectures in Stockholm on the topic of environmental and social change in the Arctic region, with an emphasis on Norrbotten, Sweden, as well as two weeks of travel and field research in Norrbotten, including on-site visits to Aitik, Malmberget, and Kiruna, as well as a stay at the Tarfala Research Station in the Tarfala Valley and visits to the Samí Museum in Jokkmokk, Laponia national park, and other cultural heritage sites in Norrbotten.

The paper incorporates first-hand research into the environmental and social impacts of mining, hydropower, industrialization, and the railway - together known as the Norrbotten Technological Megasystem.