Just a short post to plug my first journal ‘publication’: I have written a book review for the Journal of Ecotourism of the excellent collection edited by Bram Büscher and Veronica Davidov: The Ecotourism-Nexus: Political economies and rural realities of (un)comfortable bedfellows. The book is all about the spaces and places where ecotourism and resource… Read More
Author: S Saville
Sustainable mining in the Arctic?
I might be in danger of sounding like a broken record, but last month I returned from another great conference and am struck again by the importance of getting out there and presenting my research, but for different reasons. This time, I headed to the very North of Norway for the Barent’s Institute’s “Mining the… Read More
Thinking theory
Value is one of the key theoretical concepts my PhD project is based around, given the title ‘Polarising nature-culture: An examination of value in Svalbard’. So, it’s not surprising this slippery little word occupies a lot of my thinking space/ time at the moment. It seems fairly innocent on the surface, we use the word… Read More
Persistent Memories of Pyramiden: book and field review
Right at the beginning of this blog I mentioned reviewing the book Persistent Memories: Pyramiden – a Soviet mining town in the High Arctic, by Hein Bjerk, Bjornar Olsen and Elin Andreassen, (2010). Now I have visited Pyramiden myself, I feel in a stronger position to say something about its subject matter as well as… Read More
PhD life
At the start of the year seems a good time for reflection (plus a few links back to previous posts!). For the past few months it has been dawning on me how much life has changed since starting the PhD 15 months ago. Back then, I was struggling to retain a semblance of ‘normality’ despite… Read More
Summer Svalbard Part 2: Petunia Bay Camp
From 2 -9th July I joined the KTH (Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology)/ Illinois University field course: Environment and Society in a changing Arctic on their trip to Petunia Bay (we named our camp ‘Avangostad’ in honor of the course leader/ benevolent dictator, Dag Avango). What an incredible and magical week this was! Coming into… Read More
Summer Svalbard Part 1: Longyearbyen
Well, I have been here in Svalbard for just over a week now (though I didn’t manage to post this at the time of writing). It’s hard to know where to start in terms of describing it. Were it not for the stunning back drop of snow laced peaks and glacier, and hundreds of snow… Read More
Nordic Notes
Well we had an amazing little holiday travelling round the West of Iceland: lava fields, volcanic craters, natural springs, waterfalls, seals, a glacier, crazy mossy/ lunar looking landscapes, snow-topped mountains, a Viking… But the reason for being there – the Nordic Geographers Meeting, also far exceeded expectations. I’ve had a really good time there meeting… Read More
Venturing a little way North – to the Nordic Geographers Meeting
After what seems like a very, very long wait this year, summer has finally arrived in Mid-Wales, and it’s stunningly beautiful. You can kind of hear, smell, sense and see the relief and joy the sun and warmth brings. And we’re leaving. It feels exceptionally ‘wrong’! I’ve been planning this first set of Arctic trips… Read More
PhD Prezi
Last month has been a busy one: I presented an introduction to my PhD project to fellow human geographers amidst the beautiful grounds of Gregynog. The director of the ESRC Wales DTC came along too, they have a little piece on the conference here. I’ve just gotten back from the Royal Geographic Society’s Postgraduate Mid-Term… Read More
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