Introduction: Experience and Emotion in Northern Mobilities

• Main Authors: Joachim Otto Habeck, Ludek Broz
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; Siberia
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17450101.2015.1061262

This introduction opens a special section on emotional and experiential aspects of travel in Northern and Siberian landscapes. Conventional representations of the Arctic as a frontier have foregrounded the difficulties and risks of travel. The collection of articles presented here serves to complement this perspective, exploring both negative and positive connotations of travel. On the basis of ethnographic fieldwork in Greenland and Siberia, authors discuss the joy of movement along with moments of frustration and tension. Time and seasonality, companionship and imagination, and anticipated and unexpected encounters all bear particular significance in the Far North; simultaneously, they are key to a more nuanced understanding of the emotional qualities of travel in general.