Methodology: ethnographic fieldwork

My ethnographic fieldwork in Longyearbyen started in February 2019 and officially ended in February 2021. I lived there with my husband (a polar ecologist working occasionally as a nature guide) and our three sons. We stayed for five months past the official fieldwork end date. The fieldwork was designed as a two-year, open-ended inductive participant observation combined with auto-ethnography. Among the goals was conducting in-depth interviews with up to 10% of Longyearbyen’s population.

The reservoir of audio-registered face-to-face meetings (and a few meetings captured only in written form) consists of 114 Norwegian nationals (7.5% of the total Norwegian population) and 93 nationals of other countries (10% of the total non-Norwegian population).

Getting more immersed in life in Longyearbyen as the fieldwork proceeded, I actively tried to reach out to people across categories of age, gender, education, country of origin, job and lenǵth of stay. My sample is not fully randomised; in the beginning, it was easier to get in touch with internationals who spoke good English, worked as researchers and/or raised children in town, as those were niches I spontaneously found myself belonging to. After some time, it became easier to reach out to people whose worlds hardly ever interfered with my private universe in town. During the first year of my stay, most of my conversations were in English, with others occasionally in German, Italian and Czech. As my knowledge of Norwegian improved, most of the recorded meetings during the second year of my stay were in that language. When meeting a participant with whom I had no language in common, I asked a local translator for help. During a handful of meetings, we spoke Thai, Tagalog or Russian.

Because of the framing of my research, with interest in the question of how people live with rapid changes, it was particularly important for me to listen to people who have lived through the recent dynamic decades in Svalbard themselves. These Svalbard “veterans” are direct representatives of the social memory that enables people to “negotiate their identity in relation to the past, and a platform from which they can plan for a common future” (Lyons, Reference Lyons2010, p. 24). I met 31 out of 141 residents registered in the population register for more than 20 years, which means 15% of my participants have a long personal history in Svalbard, compared to the ratio of 6% in the actual population. The longest personal history within a broader family connection to the transient Svalbard was the life story of a participant whose children are fifth generation living in Svalbard.

Having said that, I do not wish to claim that memories, bonds and experiences of people who have been living in Longyearbyen for less than two decades are less worthy. Some “parallel structures” in town consist almost exclusively of people with a shorter personal Svalbard history, but those are also very much part of today’s Longyearbyen. The current annual turnover of people that come and leave is 25%. In my dataset, the level reaches – quite accidentally – 24%, meaning 50 people I met between February 2019 and February 2021 already moved away (status pr June 2021).

According to Statistics Norway (2021), there are less than 100 full-time year-round workloads in the mining industry (årsverk, not quite equivalent to jobs), more than 510 in the tourism industry (decreasing to about 370 in 2021 due to the pandemic), and more than 230 in research and education. In my dataset, people working in these industries are represented respectively by approximately 10% per economic pillar: 9 for the mining company, 53 in the tourism and service industry, and 28 in research and education. Employment in Norway’s central government rose to 16.4% in 2021, the municipal government employs about 16.2% and more than 47% work in the private sector. The ratio of non-Norwegian residents – most from Nordic countries, elsewhere in Europe, and Northern America, but also Thailand, the Philippines and elsewhere – is 35% from 57 countries as of September 2021.

Despite the large amount of time spent in the field and the high number of conducted interviews, my research is of qualitative nature. Participant observation, tracking systematically my own lived experience, and formal and informal conversations with my interlocutors build up a “dataset” that cannot be translated into quantifiable results. Yet the tension between the need of Longyearbyen residents to become a collective agent in shaping their home’s present and future, and the barriers for communitification, is a phenomenon perceptible in the field and traceable through the different types of ethnographic data I present in my analysis. In this article, I revisit my encounters with four participants, put them in a conversation with each other and weave them in with observations, anecdotes and my other interlocutors’ notions of what is happening in Longyearbyen. Two of the four are from Norway, living in Svalbard for more than 40 and more than 30 years. I cannot claim their life stories “represent” long-term Norwegian residents, but I see them as instructive examples. One is currently a local authority employee (public sphere) and the other works in the management of a major company (private sphere). Two of the four are non-Norwegians who have been Longyearbyen residents for less than 10 years, one of them non-European and employed in research, the other European and working in tourism. Similarly to the selected Norwegian participants, neither of the non-Norwegians “represent” the grouping of international newcomers. But they bring in the lived experience of non-Norwegian migrants working in the dominant knowledge and experience industries – science and tourism – and their time perspective is shorter, capturing the most recent developments. I choose conversation partners whom I met repeatedly for the purpose of research and followed their paths throughout my stay to avoid misinterpretations of a one-time encounter. For the sake of anonymisation I changed not only all the names, but in some cases the participant’s gender.

Extractivist Longyearbyen in the context of Nordic, circumpolar, rural, multilingual and immigrant communities

Founded in 1906 by an American mining enterprise and sold 10 years later to a Norwegian company called Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (since 2020 only Store Norske), the settlement of Longyearbyen has been home to a transient and predominantly Norwegian population for most of its short history (Arlov, Reference Arlov2003). Longyearbyen bears traces that make it both typical and atypical in several areas of interest relevant for this article’s focus.

Longyearbyen stands out as a settlement lacking an Indigenous population, since it was created for the purpose of resource extraction and sustained for the purpose of exercising presence to claim continuous sovereignty. The former disqualifies Longyearbyen from comparison with places inhabited by people that for generations have developed a strong sense of belonging who also have legally acknowledged rights related to the territory. The notion of people’s temporary stay, expressed in exclamations such as “we are all tourists here in one way or another” or “this is such a limbo place” became a recurring theme in my ethnography. Instead of an Indigenous population, there is a “local” one. A feature that makes Longyearbyen unique among other extractivist settler communities is the comparatively low legal hurdles people face relocating there (no visa and no work permit needed), thanks to terms of the Svalbard Treaty.

Any comparison made between Longyearbyen and other communities is thus made with caution and with two aims: exploring meanings the town’s inhabitants ascribe to how communities work (or should work) and showing similarities while bearing in mind the place’s uniqueness. For the sake of the former, Scandinavian (or Nordic), and more specifically Norwegian sociality (Bruun, Jakobsen & Krøijer, Reference Bruun, Jakobsen and Krøijer2011) is of particular relevance given the town’s history, frameworks of governance and the population’s majority. On a few occasions, my Norwegian interlocutors independently described Longyearbyen as un-Norwegian (unorsk). When prompted to elaborate, they would point to striking difference between how hierarchies are pronounced, growing and even fostered in Longyearbyen, and how egalitarianism, solidarity and commonality are idealised aspects of the Norwegian community life (Bruun et al., Reference Bruun, Jakobsen and Krøijer2011).

Longyearbyen is one of many settlements founded on the premises of extractivism with a high turnover of newcomers attracted by globalised job opportunities. In the Latin American context, Stenserud (Reference Stenserud, Eriksen and Schober2016) writes about Majes as a place special by the “non-existence of a pre-existing population, and the diversity of its population coming as it has from all places and classes,” (p. 75). Social differentiations and hierarchies are emerging where scale-related tensions are palpable between lived experience of individuals, local issues, regional and national affairs. A regionally closer example is Kiruna in northern Sweden, a heterogeneous “masculine working class town with ethnic tensions” (Granås, Reference Granås2012, p. 135) with industrial legacies and a normative ideal of outdoor life. When studying how the townspeople handle their relationship to the place, the future of which is largely shaped elsewhere, Granås criticises scholars victimising the inhabitants, representing them as disempowered and compromising their agency that might rather lie in pragmatism. Ambiguity and pragmatic attitude is explored in studies of communities based on extractivism beyond the circumpolar context; an example is Laastad’s (Reference Laastad2021) study of how “processes and conditions that include the local scale re-shape political geographies of extraction” (p. 100903). In her case in Peru, she documents the “uneasy coexistence” with bipolar local impacts and dependencies on decision-making processes that are co-shaped by national and economic interests in a global context.

In the circumpolar setting, Longyearbyen bears some similar traces as communities in Greenland, northern Canada or northern Fennoscandia struggling with the pains of boom and bust cycles. Shared elements include replacing or combining mining with tourism and research, experiencing the ambiguous impacts of both environmental destruction and protection, and other issues where rationality meets emotions (Sörlin, Reference Sörlin2021). Threatened Indigenous livelihoods due to climate change impacts combined with globalised markets (often a problem documented in Arctic anthropology, shown e.g. in Hastrup, Reference Hastrup, Stensrud and Eriksen2019) are not an issue in Longyearbyen as there is no traditional way of sustaining life locally without support from the mainland. All these places in the Arctic are redefining their futures in an overheated world (Eriksen, Reference Eriksen2016) where a new extractivist paradigm can be traced (Sörlin, Dale, Keeling, & Nymand Larsen, Reference Sörlin, Dale, Keeling, Nymand Larsen and Sörlinin press).

Globalisation has become increasingly pronounced in Longyearbyen since the turn of the millennium, causing local side effects and triggering locally specific reactions. The Arctic is home to about 4 million people today and, apart from the Russian Arctic, the area is expected to grow in population (EEA, 2017). In the case of Longyearbyen, two trends during the past two decades counteract the Norwegian governmental strategy for Svalbard – namely that Longyearbyen is expected to be a) a Norwegian community (samfunn) and b) population growth is discouraged (Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security, 2015–2016). Both the increased level of the population’s heterogeneity (currently about 2,400 residents from 58 countries) and steep population growth (doubling since the 1990s) are typical for boomtowns (Eriksen, Reference Eriksen2018).

Only since the early 2000s, it is possible to situate Longyearbyen in the context of multilingual and international immigrant communities. Mobility and community have become conceptual twins in the 21st century in Africa as well as the Arctic when “human mobility engenders socio-political interactions […] that form and reshape the meaning and boundaries of community” (Landau & Bakewell, 2018, p. 3). In some aspects, Longyearbyen can be seen as a rural locale where people appreciate short distances and less stressful life, an “elastic“ place constituted by mobility (not only the one associated with tourism), with numerous transnational migrants (Milbourne & Kitchen, Reference Milbourne and Kitchen2014). In the referred study situated in rural Wales, the authors summarise the perception of changing mobility patterns as follows:

In Longyearbyen, there is an obvious change in the demographic texture, sociocultural and linguistic outlook, and community cohesion. We can also draw a parallel with Nordic rural places shaped by migration from all around the world, with ambiguous implications:

Yet in this context, the studied locale is exceptional. A constant influx of workers (smoothed by the legal repercussions of the Svalbard Treaty keeping the area out of Schengen and visa-free) is necessary for the labour market, both in niches typically occupied by Norwegian and non-Norwegian employees. Yet in political and media discourse “local population figures” are presented in a normative matter, with the Norwegian ratio going proportionally up interpreted as a positive development, and vice versa. In their study of Nordic (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian) rural communities with high rates of foreign immigration, Søholt et al. (Reference Søholt, Stenbacka and Nørgaard2018) explore the link between resilience and retention/receptiveness of “local elites” towards international migrants, be it “short- and long-term labour immigrants, circular and seasonal workers, as well as refugees, and family immigrants” (p. 221). Except for refugees given the specific territorial regime of Svalbard, all the listed groups are part of the Masseyian throwntogetherness of today’s Longyearbyen. Longyearbyen’s immigrant population is three times larger than an average Norwegian peripheral locale (35% vs. 11–12%). Many patterns are similar; foreign immigrants tend to live in smaller houses, they are often employed in booming industries such as construction or tourism and they accept jobs the majority would not take. Diversity is (in a pragmatic, economy-oriented way) seen as positive for the future of the local communities, and social inclusion, participation and welfare are identified as necessary for building resilience, together with the migrants’ own responsibility for integration. An important issue here is language competence. In their study of immigrants’ perception of learning Icelandic, Skaptadóttir and Innes (Reference Skaptadóttir and Innes2017) discuss whether learning the language of the majority for an instrumental purpose (e.g. to have access to information or socialise more easily) also means a gate to inclusion. Their results instead show language is a tool of exclusion and a boundary marker. The case of Longyearbyen fits well in the picture, with the exception of the resilience-building measures, which are missing in Longyearbyen for political reasons. Søholt et al. (Reference Søholt, Stenbacka and Nørgaard2018) conclude:

Communitification: the concept’s meaning and application in the case of Longyearbyen

Sokolíčková, Meyer and Vlakhov (Reference Sokolíčková, Meyer and Vlakhov2022) discuss the multifaceted changes Longyearbyen and Barentsburg (the biggest Russian settlement in Svalbard) have been undergoing in the recent past and present. Change of both the economic base and demographic outlook is striking. Olsen, Vlakhov and Wigger (Reference Olsen, Vlakhov and Wigger2022) explore the concept of community viability, comparing the economically more diversified and – in terms of population – less homogeneous ex-company town of Longyearbyen with Barentsburg, where the doors to immigration and globalisation of capital have not been opened. In her comparative study of Qullissat in Greenland and the village of Sakajärvi in Sweden, Jørgensen (Reference Jørgensen2021, p. 1) claims

I apply the idea of communitification as a process, a dynamic strategy involving values and emotions. Jørgensen is aware of the illusionary imaginary of Arctic communities as isolated and “local,” while in reality they “encompass ethnically mixed, highly mobile, and composite identities,” (p. 2) which characterises Longyearbyen accurately. As I will show on my empirical material, “local community” (lokalsamfunn) in Longyearbyen appears almost as a “mysterious character,” something that everybody talks about, is mentioned in all governmental and strategic documents and in the media, but slips out of every effort to be captured in concrete words (Norwegian or English). The aspect of change in time is well pronounced here, with long-term residents witnessing a change in what the term would mean to them as they watch the highly transient town transform into a diverse and multi-ethnic place with illegible texture of the population. As Sverre, born in Longyearbyen and living here throughout his life, commented

The normative term of (local) community as a poor fit to processes that entangle people and places in a mobile, volatile and overheated world bounces back in reflections such as Sverre’s. Longyearbyen’s social memory mourned by Sverre is something typical for communities; a collective past that “draws on both the memories and life histories of its individual members, as well as the social context that they experienced together” (Lyons, Reference Lyons2010, p. 25). It refers to emotions, mostly nostalgia for something known, legible and safe.

Anthropologically and sociologically intensely researched, community (together with culture or identity) belongs to terms many have investigated and argued. Its understanding has shifted together with changing patterns traceable in human (and eventually more-than-human) lifeworlds. The way Cohen (Reference Cohen1985) or Anderson (Reference Anderson2016 [1983]) approached community, as an imagined entity symbolically constructed, “a system of values, norms, and moral codes which provides a sense of identity within a bounded whole to its members” (Editor’s foreword in Cohen, Reference Cohen1985, p. 9), was revised by the turn of the millennium by thinkers such as Bauman (2001) who still saw community as something positive, but also paid attention to the fluid and non-static process of boundary-making. Changing patterns in mobility and identity-making challenged earlier theories. The “trouble” with community – still sticking around as something desirable and homogenous – was recognised by authors such as Amit and Rapport (Reference Amit and Rapport2002) or Creed (Reference Creed2006). The term of communitification applied by Jørgensen (Reference Jørgensen2021) allows for focus on processuality and relationality instead of a static definition (verb instead of noun). Given that Longyearbyen is squeezed into a unique legal and (geo)political picture, how do its inhabitants make sense of their desire to claim agency in shaping their home’s present and future? Do they observe any developments in time in how the tension expresses itself against the backdrop of the unfolding changes? Is communitification happening in Longyearbyen? If yes, in which ways? If not, what hinders it?

In this context, we must tackle the question about the term community and ways it is locally invoked. What and in which setting does the term signify for whom? The Norwegian word samfunn can bear meanings that English (or German) translate in a more nuanced way; both society (sensu Gesellschaft, see Tönnies, 1955) and community (sensu Gemeinschaft, ibid.) can be intended. In addition, the political discourse of lokalsamfunn (Meld. St. 32 (2015–2016); Longyearbyen Lokalstyre, 2013) can be mostly read in the sense of a settlement constantly being re-populated with citizens of Norway whom are provided with basic services necessary for a middle-term stay. Though in the updated version of Lokalsamfunnsplan 2023–2033, the word settlement (bosetning) is only used once, while the term samfunn (or lokalsamfunn) appears 112 times. This clearly directs the meaning of samfunn towards community – not a neutral settlement, but a place the meaning of which is created through shared values: “Longyearbyen is a safe and inclusive local community whose inhabitants feel sense of belonging and accept responsibility, regardless of cultural, social or economic conditions” (Longyearbyen Lokalstyre, 2022, p. 17).

My data documents a strong wish to conjure a sense of group identity allowing Longyearbyen residents gain a “claim on the future” (Jørgensen, Reference Jørgensen2021). Lack of such claim is stressful when facing insecurities such as climate change impacts, strict environmental and tourism regulations, politicised housing, and lack of services accommodating the needs of those not fitting the imagined identity of Longyearbyen as a Norwegian settlement consisting of healthy visitors (besøkende), as the governmental documents understand anybody living in Longyearbyen. Using Jørgensen’s approach, I intend to show that unlike other Arctic communities at least partly succeeding in mobilising for the sake of communitification, allowing them to play a more active role in their home’s future-making, a similar process is hindered in Longyearbyen.

Samfunn, fellesskap and the trouble with local community

“Desired futures” of Svalbard are being designed elsewhere; the very purpose of communitification – negotiation of rights and ownership – gets tricky where national interests override. Yet people who settle down in Longyearbyen dislike being seen as “puppets in a geopolitical theatre,” as one of my participants put it, and they also notice change over time.

Olaf has been living in Svalbard for more than 40 years and witnessed the evolution from a company town to what it is today; some call it “state town,” some “tourist town” (Saville, Reference Saville2022), some “melting pot,” some “testination.” Given its size, the diversity of Longyearbyen’s inhabitants is extreme and has been increasing fast since the last survey with a comparable focus (Moxnes, Reference Moxnes, Jensen and Moxnes2008).

When we compare the formulations from the Norwegian government’s White Paper with Olaf’s reasoning, the angle of politics of translation might prove helpful. When Joks, Østmo and Law (Reference Joks, Østmo and Law2020) investigated (mis)translations of Sámi words weaving into Norwegian and English, they show how the colonial mindset is mirrored in the way we go about words. Despite the irrelevance of the Indigenous context, Svalbard politics demarcate the borders within which only what people call a “fake” or “synthetic community” is allowed to develop. Samfunn here means a settlement empty of locally shared values. For Olaf, a samfunn without fellesskap is dysfunctional, and he claims the communitification potential (thus, filling up something empty with emotions and values) has deteriorated during his lifetime.

The multicultural aspect of Longyearbyen is something typical for the last two decades. It accompanies the diversified job market, yet not all sectors employ equally across nationalities. Local authorities (such as The Governor of Svalbard and Longyearbyen Municipality Council), Store Norske (a state-funded mining company currently refocusing on new business avenues such as renewable technologies and property management), SVALSAT (satellite station operated by Kongsberg Satellite Services, a joint venture between Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and the Norwegian Space Centre), Avinor (a state-owned company that operates the airport), Lufttransport (a Norwegian helicopter and fixed-wing airline), LNS (a Norwegian family-owned entrepreneur in construction industry), Telenor (a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company) and others have a vast majority of Norwegian employees. Also almost exclusively Norwegian are employees of other institutions such as the hospital, bank, post office and tax office, Statsbygg (the Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property), or the local newspaper Svalbardposten. A recent phenomenon is moving offices of entities that have little or no relevance for Svalbard to Longyearbyen, such as the Norwegian Consumer Council (Forbrukerrådet, in 2021 transformed into a local branch of Forsbrukertilsynet, Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman) or Norwegian Health Net (Norsk Helsenett). The goal is establishing more jobs that will most likely attract Norwegian employees who will only stay for a few years and leave again (Forbrukerradet.No, 2017; Nhn.No, 2020). The Folk High School (Folkehøgskole) established in 2019 brings over 100 students to the island every year, the vast majority Norwegian, also with an explicit aim to increase the Norwegian ratio in the population.

These jobs are seen as “safe” in the sense of fair and legal working conditions, job-related benefits, adequate housing and health insurance, which also makes them attractive for non-Norwegian applicants. Succeeding is not easy. One of my non-Norwegian participants working in the public service sector recalled how surprised they were to be offered the job, expecting a Norwegian candidate to receive preference. Another non-Norwegian acquaintance shared it was unofficially communicated to them applying for state-funded jobs without a Norwegian passport is a waste of time. It is the other distinct sectors – most importantly tourism, service industry, research and freelancing – that are essentially international arenas.

People staying for several decades, such as Olaf or Wenche who are both part of multigenerational Svalbard-connected families, are aware of the inherently transient character of Longyearbyen. But they see something is happening to the community’s cohesion and agency potential not only due to turnover but also because of growing language, cultural and socio-economic barriers:

More people in town means that even with a similar level of turnover more people come and leave. In the strategic documents of the Norwegian government, the key priority is given to supporting the Norwegian population ratio. But people living in Longyearbyen see as the biggest problems a lack of continuity and loss of knowledge caused by the turnover, as well as growing differences and striking political underrepresentation of certain groups. Olaf’s feeling that continuity and engagement in shaping Longyearbyen’s present and future are weakening is shared by all the Svalbard “veterans” I met during my fieldwork, but it also resembles the feeling of Susan, a European “newcomer” employed in tourism:

Care and engagement are identified with equal urgency by long-term and short-term residents as values that hold the “community” together. Since the turn of the millennium, local governance has shifted towards a place-specific form of local democracy, but the town has also become more diverse and cosmopolitan. Both changes bring challenges that – unless tackled – hinder communitification:

Wenche’s perception through the perspective of several decades in Svalbard is close to the interpretation of Susan. Interaction is complicated by the usual class divide, newly accompanied by the split among people with and without Norwegian citizenship (often combined with a gap in language competence), and the intensified transience:

The hundreds of people applying for jobs within the tourism and service industries are exposed to the impacts of the usual mechanisms of costs externalisation combined with the governance and legal legacies of the company town. Their employers are not legally bound to provide housing or language courses. There is no valid legal framework granting them a safety net when it comes to health care or unemployment aid. Only few job benefits accompany the often seasonal, short-term contracts. People working in the sector are caught in the dead end of a contradictory element in the Norwegian strategy for Svalbard: honour the Svalbard Treaty, support tourism and keep the ratio of Norwegian inhabitants of Longyearbyen up (compare to Pedersen, Reference Pedersen2017).

In an informal conversation with a non-Norwegian entrepreneur, they recalled a situation when they visited the office of Innovation Norway, a state-owned company and a national development bank at that time still had a branch in Longyearbyen. The entrepreneur was encouraged to apply for a grant and start up the business, but the Innovation Norway officer “kindly reminded [them] that it is desirable to employ Norwegians in the company, if it ever grows and [we] need more people.” The encouragement is perceived as embarrassing, as another participant confirmed – a Norwegian who previously worked in the tourism sector and moved to a state job afterwards. They told me about a meeting the governor’s office arranged for tourism managers about a decade ago, concluding the presentation about new possibilities opening up for tourism with a reminder that “now, it is up to you guys to employ Norwegians here.” My participant reacted with astonishment: “But you know what, this is private business!” Another participant, a local businessperson in the sector of service industry, wanted to comply but did not succeed: “I have tried to employ Norwegians but they are unusable (ubrukbar).”

The term “unusable” has interesting connotations. First, it addresses the core premises of the business, which is profitable only if “human resources” are “used” efficiently. Efficiency does not only include work ethos, diligence and accuracy; it might also consist of willingness to accept suboptimal work conditions when it comes to working hours, physical and psychological fatigue, housing or salary (or all of that). The somewhat cynical observation of my participant also points to the fact Norwegian job applicants are more likely to speak up if they have a good reason to believe conditions are not acceptable, and they are able to organise and fight for their rights. Norwegian guides I have spoken to confirm this univocally and mastering the language of power – Norwegian – is not a factor to be underestimated here. The language barrier that delineates spaces of information accessibility, but also agency, most urgently but not exclusively among Thai and Filipinx migrants (Sokolíčková, Reference Sokolíčková2022), is perceived as a political tool.

When Simon is trying to make sense of the “hints” he is getting from different directions, he does so against the backdrop of his previous life elsewhere (in different countries on different continents), where he also experienced racism and discrimination. While Svalbard might look like a utopia from the outside – an area in the far North where everybody is welcome – Simon realised over time the illusion is manifesting itself in an ever harsher way and what he would expect to be obvious issues to tackle politically have become the norm. Some of my interlocutors confessed that when they left Svalbard, they felt relieved from this politically accepted pressure.

While the situation of people employed in science such as Simon and those employed in tourism and service industry differs in terms of housing (with researchers being granted housing through their employer, while employees in the latter group often must rely on the volatile and expensive private market), they share the difficulty in learning Norwegian. According to Susan, it hinders her involvement in shaping the town’s future from within: “Perhaps I am not so much part of the community as I could be if I spoke the language. Because I am engaged. In transition and social responsibility, you know.” When asked about what she associates with the term “local community” in case of Longyearbyen, Susan claimed:

The issue of solidarity was recollected by numerous participants, especially in connection to the state of emergency caused by the avalanche in 2015 that works as a rupture in the collective memory of the place (Sokolíčková, Meyer & Vlakhov, Reference Sokolíčková, Meyer and Vlakhov2022). Yet once again, change is palpable in the short period of several years:

The perception of people like Susan and Simon, working in tourism and science, fighting the language barrier and practices that on the individual level are experienced as discriminating for higher political purposes, does not differ from the perception of long-term Norwegian residents who have lived through the turbulent era since the 1980s.

While existence of layers in society is not remarkable, even in the supposedly egalitarian Scandinavian context (Bruun et al., Reference Bruun, Jakobsen and Krøijer2011; Gullestad, Reference Gullestad1984), both Susan in her reflection about the Svalbard environment as potentially inhospitable and encouraging solidarity and cooperation of its human inhabitants, and Wenche in her fear of parallel “bubbles” express something particular for Longyearbyen. The town is indeed exposed to a number of vulnerabilities (energy, health care, search and rescue, military tensions, climate change and beyond). In other words, there is enough to worry about anyway, and if barriers between people keep growing, the feeling of discontent with life in town follows the trend. Jørgensen’s (Reference Jørgensen2021) argument about communitification touches upon emotions that arise when a “community” is dealing with change and which shape the fight for desired futures. When Olaf, Wenche, Simon or Susan refer to an entity that is weak/weakening, it is fellesskap. The political goal of sustaining the town is free of values such as care, engagement, knowledge or continuity, which Longyearbyen residents identify as important for people to thrive. The aspect of change is perceived as obvious and overwhelming; the town has become more diverse, the local governance has been transformed, knowledge and continuity are perceived as being lost, and the turnover is experienced as impacting more. These processes cause problems people see as negative for fellesskapet: language barrier, uneven working and housing conditions, exploitation of non-Norwegian workforce, formation of “parallel communities” and push for Norwegianisation (fornorsking, term used by historian Thor Bjørn Arlov, e.g. in Arlov, Reference Arlov2020).

In Olaf’s blaming the authorities, he speaks both about central and local ones, acknowledging a bottom-up approach would not work on its own in Longyearbyen where communitification is hindered. The feeling that responsibility lies on the authorities is shared in town, which has to do with the company town legacy. These factors the lived experience of my participants frames as threatening fellesskapet are caused by a combination of unforeseen consequences of Svalbard going global, and the political agenda designing Svalbard’s “desired futures” from the outside.

In lack of vision

In the concept of communitification Jørgensen developed in the context of Arctic extractivism, active future-making is presented as desirable. In my encounters with Longyearbyen residents of different nationalities and professions and of varied Svalbard age, a feeling of helplessness, loss and confusion emerged about what Svalbard’s “desired futures” are. The trouble with local community – the mismatch between the goal of sustaining a Norwegian community (meaning settlement) and the wish of Longyearbyen residents to conjure up a community laden with different values and emotions – hinders a bottom-up formulation of uchronotopias, “narratives connecting place with a vision for a perfect time to come” (Thisted, Sejersen & Lien, Reference Thisted, Sejersen and Lien2021, p. 1).

When I met Sunniva who shared with me her Christmas tree metaphor to illustrate what she feels “the local community” is in need of, my being in the field was fresh and I had little auto-ethnographic material to reflect upon. Almost a year later when meeting Olaf, I had been through the struggle with the language barrier, efforts to become part of “bubbles” that were difficult to access, and more than 100 conversations with people sharing their lived experience from a place in midst of change.

Olaf’s common goal resembles Sunniva’s Christmas tree; it is a call for a narrative that would connect instead of a polarising one. During one of our research conversations, Wenche came up with another metaphor touching upon the same issue:

In the wish to pursue a vision for the future of the “community”, both Olaf and Wenche recall the central authorities who are seen as co-responsible for the lack of course and blurred legal landscape that allows negative patterns evolve while singular entities (individuals or companies) profit economically. When I asked Simon about his potential agency in a situation that he describes as discriminating, he held back:

Mobility determining life in Longyearbyen is more “likely to be informed by a general ethos of movement and personal development that emphasises social disjunction than one which emphasises continuity” (Amit & Rapport, Reference Amit and Rapport2002, p. 35). Social actors that gather in groups, personal networks, subcultures, “bubbles” and “parallel communities” of Longyearbyen “can call into play cultural imaginings: categorical identities, notions of home, belonging or community” (Amit & Rapport, Reference Amit and Rapport2002, p. 23). The town experiences top-down measures presented as protecting Norwegian interests (such as initiatives to increase the Norwegian population percentage, or policy and legal practices that certain segments perceive as discriminating). These measures have a polarising effect amplified by the factor of turnover, and mobility in general. The tightened political grip combined with transience resulting in lack of locally unifying vision hinders Longyearbyen’s communitification potential.

Conclusion: a future already decided, or an improbable political act?

Longyearbyen is a place in transition, entangled in processes that impact many other places. The essentialist representation of Longyearbyen as a “Norwegian community” is disrupted by the multilayered realities of the town. The lived experience is, among other things, constituted by the feeling the micro-scale of an individual life with its wounds, hopes and dreams clashes with a much larger scale of machineries that are interconnected and difficult to transform. Is that a reason to conclude the future has already been decided, and that – paraphrasing Simon’s words – the people of Longyearbyen are little pawns in a high political game?

For communitification, emotions are crucial. While some factors stay the same over time (such as the legal and political framework of Svalbard or transience of Longyearbyen’s residents), others have changed significantly (the population’s texture, the town’s economic base, the archipelago’s accessibility, the local governance regime, and beyond). Emotions emerging from these changes, and the impacts thereof, point to the direction of lack of fellesskap and vision. While one could expect such emotions to become an impetus to political mobilisation, it is not the case.

The aim of my study was to document tensions Longyearbyen residents across categories of nationality and citizenship, age (including Svalbard age) or occupational identity live with, sometimes pragmatically, sometimes in a painful way. Agency gained through communitification that enables an active role in the future-making of a place reconfiguring its economic base is what people hope for, but do not see coming. Mechanisms that hinder communitification contribute to disempowerment, alienation, frustration and eventually turnover and thus impact negatively the social climate. Illustrating areas include Facebook pages such as Homeless – 78 Degrees North and Spitsbergen Association of Unwanted Foreigners, and strong local reactions opposing strict regulations suggested by Norway’s government in 2021 in spheres such as environmental protection, movement, tourism, services for children with special needs, and taking away voting rights from people without three years of residency in mainland Norway. Future research will hopefully explore the impacts of these changes in sight.

People witness a change in time; the town has developed since the 1980s into a more “normalised” settlement according to Norwegian standards, as if “the world came to Svalbard” (Strømmen, Reference Strømmen2016) with diverse cultures, inequalities and hierarchies rooted in “differentiated ability to master the proper forms of sociality” (Bruun et al., Reference Bruun, Jakobsen and Krøijer2011, p. 2). But it has also become unorsk in the sense that while people expect values to play a role (clearly the direction into which the new Lokalsamfunnsplan goes, for example), they are astonished, frustrated or shocked when they see the rhetoric of lokalsamfunn as used in the strategic governmental documents is empty for values. The geopolitical purpose of the settlement is emotionless and “people have no meaning,” as my conversation partner who claims to “be sitting in the room when decisions are being made” commented.

The need to engage with the place my interlocutors inhabit and love, and to do it as dignified agents, with emotions and value negotiations rather than as geopolitical puppets, is present and unlikely to disappear. I see labelling such hopes, dreams and expectations as “false” or “naive” in line with the arrogance of dislocalised governance that considers life stories meaningless and would object to partaking in reproducing such a narrative.

In today’s world “the construction of communities should never be treated as simply probable” (Amit & Rapport, Reference Amit and Rapport2002, p. 25) and “any easy summoning of ‘community’ either as pre-existing or as a simple aim” is rendered problematic (Massey, Reference Massey2004, p. 6). The study raises the question of communitification as a political act performed despite the improbability of its success. Societal drivers of change in relation to future-making hinted in the study of Kaltenborn et al. (Reference Kaltenborn, Østreng and Hovelsrud2020) referenced earlier deserve further attention in Longyearbyen, which is a site of “conflictual negotiation” (Massey, Reference Massey2004). While the questions of “Who is local?” or “Is there a local community?” are wrongly posed, ethnography can contribute to critical explorations of “Who is deprived from agency to co-shape Longyearbyen’s future, and how?” and “What can be done about it?”

Communitification as a process of community empowerment challenges the discourse of victimisation suffered when exposed to processes such as “climate change,” “globalisation” or “big politics.” Such a vulnerability-centred narrative takes away responsibility. Engagement for fellesskapet, imagined by Sunniva as dancing around a Christmas tree or by Wenche as navigating a boat, requires action that cannot be expected as a top-down quick fix. To address issues that hinder communitification in Longyearbyen means first acknowledging their existence and offering a language to discuss them, that is, where ethnography can also be useful. To make them become actual political agenda is a task ethnography can neither refuse nor fulfil alone. Arenas enabling open, transparent, democratic and public negotiations about Longyearbyen’s “desired futures” are scarce. Now that the suggested reduction of participation in the political life of the town got approved (Regjerning.no, 2022), even the existing arenas will diminish. Inclusive encouragement to take part in fellesskapet (e.g. in the form of multilingual communication, accessibility of a language course, adjustment of the legal framework to minimise exploitation of workforce, change of housing policy or incentives to decrease the turnover) belong to on-the-ground actions that can improve Longyearbyen’s communitification potential. Such an enhancement would strengthen the claim Longyearbyen is a Norwegian settlement with a vibrant community sharing values that help it navigate towards an alternative, not-yet-decided future.