ARCA - Biocultural Heritage in Arctic Cities
Resource for Climate Adaptation?
ARCA is a Belmont Forum consortium project consisting of social and natural scientists and artists. It’s main research question is: “How can biocultural heritage embodied in Arctic urban green spaces and natural landscapes serve as a resource for climate adaptation?" It combines the methods of social anthropology, climate science, remote sensing, human geography, arts and community engagement to co-create publicly accessible and place-specific science and arts products. The Vienna anthropology team is focusing on the role of local and Indigenous ecological knowledge and human-nature relations embodied in urban green spaces and landscapes in environmental adaptation and cultural resilience. Our ethnographic research sites include Anchorage in the USA and Kirkenes in Norway. Together with research partners and local communities, our team co-organizes collaborative workshops, including presentations, artistic interventions, participatory mapping and discussions.
This project is funded by BMBWF for Belmont Forum
News
Upcoming: Arctic Science Summit Week 2025
Olga Povoroznyuk will co-organize a community workshop on planning research on Arctic infrastructure and climate for the next decade and co-present a paper on green spaces, climate adaptation and community engagement at the Arctic Science Summit Week in Boulder, Colorado, US.
March 5th 2025 | presentation @ARCHE conference
By invitation from the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Researcher, Olga Povoroznyuk presented the ARCA project at the conference organized by the Alliance for Research on Cultural Heritage in Europe.
February 2025 | Fieldwork and Workshop
On February, 17-26 Olga Povoroznyuk conducted fieldwork in the Sør-Varanger Municipality in Norway and organized a community workshop.
Project Team
Olga Povoroznyuk
Principal Investigator
Peter Schweitzer
Co-PI
partner institutions
- George Washington University, USA (consortium lead)
- Nancen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Norway
- Art & Science International Institute, France
- Indigenous, environmental and arts NGOs in the USA and Norway
