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SSF-Svalbard Science Forum

Teenagers without land: Offspring of economic migrants to Svalbard in an overheated world

Tildelt: kr 60 690

There are tens of children living in the Norwegian settlement of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, who joined their parents migrating mostly for economic reasons to the high Arctic from Thailand, the Philippines and other places in the global South. Some of them stay long, become fluent in Norwegian and call the town their home, those arriving in older age struggle with integration. All of them have a precarious legal status because of the special governance regime of the archipelago, their rights regarding health care and education are limited and their identity often hybrid. The project is an anthropological study of political marginalization in the context of overheating as analyzed by Thomas Hylland Eriksen. Stuck in a legal vacuum, the case of „teenagers without land“ is a local impact of global changes in a world where many desire what only few have. On an island warming up fast, with an economy fully dependent on tourism, there is a voiceless group whose story needs to be narrated. The project aims to describe and analyze the situation of a specific segment of Longyearbyen’s population and its inner diversity, and cast light on the teenagers‘ perspective and their perception of the status quo.

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SSF-Svalbard Science Forum