Elisa M. Lopez, PhD candidate, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University
Kiruna 4-Ever: Urban Planning for Displacement and Resettlement
Based on fieldwork in Kiruna and Stockholm, Sweden between 2012 and 2016, this presentation focuses on an in-progress dissertation chapter about the urban planning and design of New Kiruna, the first resettlement area for Kiruna residents forced to move due to earth deformations caused by underground mining. How did planning experts interpret the needs of the displaced and incorporate these into urban planning and design? This chapter takes as its foundation theoretical analytics of design, architecture, and the welfare state in order to understand the work of municipal planners and architects as sociocultural practice and response to mining-based displacement.
Elisa Maria Lopez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Uppsala University. Her dissertation, “Ptarmigan and Iron: Mining, Displacement, and Social Transformation in Kiruna” (working title) explores the sociocultural dimensions of mining and impacts of ongoing mining-based displacement in the northern Swedish city of Kiruna.
