Ingar Moen Johnsen
Affiliation: University of Oslo
Contact: i.m.johnsen@iakh.uio.no phone (+47) 974 76 507
Project duration: September 2025 – September 2028
Planned fieldwork periods: June to September 2026
Islands of the Anthropocene: The tension between heritage and memory politics on Svalbard
As an archaeological PhD fellow, I’m researching the cultural and historical dimensions of the human presence on Svalbard. My project explores how landscapes, routes, and ruins shape collective memory and identity in the High Arctic, combining fieldwork, literature review, and archival research. I focus on how traces of past and present human activity intersect in the formation of place narratives and heritage practices, and how people continue to make sense of Svalbard as both a lived and imagined space amid environmental change.