Mining industrial heritage as a resource for sustainable societies
Mining industrial heritage as a resource for sustainable societies: lessons for Sweden from the Arctic
In order to contribute to sustainable communities in the Arctic, this project examines how heritage from mining industry activities has been handled and under what circumstances the heritage has been able to contribute to sustainable communities after the closure of operations.
Based on cases studies from mining communities in the Nordic Arctic, the aim of this research project is to explain how and why legacies of mining have become defined and re-used as cultural heritage. The project examines post-mining histories of communities in the northernmost parts of the Nordic countries, including Greenland, in order to inform contemporary discussions on the future of mining communities in northern Sweden. History at Luleå Universit of Technology conducts this project in close interaction with the Nordic Centre of Excellence REXSAC – Resource Extraction and Sustainable Arctic Communities.
The project primarily focuses on the heritagisation of material legacies of mining – from transformed eco-systems to operational equipment, infrastructures for transport and energy, as well as settlements and other built environments. Across the Nordic Arctic, communities have taken very different approaches to mining legacies, where heritage making and incorporation into new economies through tourism or other forms of re-use has been only one out of several possible post-mining histories. We want to explain how, why and under what circumstances mining legacies have been constructed as cultural heritage and used to generate new values for active or former mining communities.
In the project researchers from LTU (Dag Avango) cooperate with scholars from Dalarna University (Albina Pashkevich), using approaches from history, human geography, archaeology and cultural heritage studies. Through archaeological documentation of former mining sites, archive work, and interviews, we explore how different groups interpret and use mining legacies to support different visions for the future of local communities.
Funding agency: Formas
Funding: 3 MSEK
Duration: 2017-2021
PI: Professor Dag Avango
Project participants: Associate Professor Albina Pashkevich, Dalarna University
Contact
Dag Avango
- Professor tillika ämnesföreträdare
- 0920-491573
- dag.avango@ltu.se
- Dag Avango
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