MoHu Guest Lecture | To the Edge and Beyond. Long-term trends in frontier mobility and the historical experience of the European sub-Arctic

Sala Bortolami, Palazzo Jonoch Gulinelli. Via del Vescovado, 30

08.11.2022

Martedì 8 novembre 2022 alle ore 15.00 presso la Sala Bortolami, Palazzo Jonoch Gulinelli. Via del Vescovado, 30, nell'ambito del progetto di Eccellenza "Mobility and the Humanities" Margarita Dadykina (Higher School of Economics) sarà ospite di una Guest Lecture dal titolo "To the Edge and Beyond. Long-term trends in frontier mobility and the historical experience of the European sub-Arctic"

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In my presentation, I will analyse the long-term development of human mobility in the Russian sector of the European sub-Arctic in the 16th – 21st centuries. From the monastic colonisation based on the rational management of scarce human resources, through the industrial exploitation of the area's natural resources, to the recent boom of the touristic and hospitality economy, I will demonstrate three long-term trends that regulate human mobility in frontier zones. First, we deal with the dynamic yet constantly important ideology of mobility and/or immobility. The monks go to the North under the influence of certain ideas, and the economic actors stay in the North with some ideological background as well. Eventually, we deal with the direct link between mobility, locality, and identity. Second, we deal with the vision of frontier nature as rich and available for profitable exploitation throughout all the periods under study with all the changes of perception of the resources of the area. Eventually, we deal with the long-term value of the historical past, which becomes an important element of economic imaginaries and a driving element of mobility. I insist that these observations are important for the general discussion of frontier mobility in the Anthropocene.