List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Imagining Unbuilt Infrastructures across the Circumpolar North
Natalia Magnani and Matthew Magnani

Chapter 1. Imagining the Arctic in Northeast China: Ethnic Minorities and the State along the Polar Silk Road
Richard Fraser

Chapter 2. Vast Spaces and Inconsistent Anticipations in the Northeast Siberian Arctic
Florian Stammler, Aytalina Ivanova, and Piers Vitebsky

Chapter 3. Economies of Ghost Infrastructures in Arctic Norway
Natalia Magnani and Matthew Magnani

Chapter 4. Polar Silk Worlding: Imagination, Infrastructure, and Anticipation in Chinese Arctic Tourism
Ria-Maria Adams and Mia M. Bennett

Chapter 5. Anticipating Arctic Roads in Sápmi: From Finnish Nation Building to Global Geopolitics
Veli-Pekka Lehtola

Chapter 6. The Expansion of the Port of Prince Rupert:Between Economic Development and Alternative Life Paths
Giuseppe Amatulli

Chapter 7. The Promises and Fears of Infrastructure: An Alaskan Port Expansion, Geopolitics, and Local (Dis-)Engagement
Olga Povoroznyuk and Peter Schweitzer

Conclusion: The Resonance of the Unbuilt
Matthew Magnani and Natalia Magnani

Arctic Silk Roads

An Anthropology of the Unbuilt

Edited by Natalia Magnani and Matthew Magnani

216 pages, 15 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN 978-1-83695-308-1 Hb Published (January 2026)

Details

“I found this book to provide a novel and interesting take on the Silk Road concept, by relating and applying it to movements in the Arctic.” • Per Ditlef Fredriksen, University of Oslo

As climate change accelerates, melting sea ice is fueling the global imagination and geopolitical anticipation of the Arctic region’s accessible transport routes and possibilities for resource extraction. “Silk Roads” are being conjured across the Circumpolar North, both as official Arctic and infrastructural policy, and as broader visions of global connectivity with other markets. Following the myriad ways that local economies and agencies are proliferating around the anticipation of large-scale infrastructural corridors and their often-unrealized arteries, Arctic Silk Roads examines the different conditions under which top-down infrastructural dreams facilitate or constrain individual agencies.

Natalia Magnani is Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. She leads the Norwegian Research Council project “Arctic Silk Road” at UiT The Arctic University of Norway and is the author of Silent Knowledge: Reviving Embodied Practice in Sápmi (UBC Press, 2026).

Matthew Magnani is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Climate Change at the University of Maine, and a researcher on the “Arctic Silk Road” project based at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. He is the co-author of The Craft of Belonging: Material Culture and Social Boundaries in Sápmi (Toronto, 2026) with Natalia Magnani.

Series: Volume 7, Studies in the Circumpolar North

Subject: Political and Economic Anthropology Environmental Studies (General) Development Studies

Area: Circumpolar

BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; SCI092000 SCIENCE/Global Warming & Climate Change; BUS068000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Development/Economic Development

available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) with support from Norwegian Research Council.

berghahn New York · Oxford

Contents

Arctic Silk Roads

An Anthropology of the Unbuilt

Edited by Natalia Magnani and Matthew Magnani

Series: Volume 7, Studies in the Circumpolar North

Subject: Political and Economic Anthropology Environmental Studies (General) Development Studies

Area: Circumpolar

This title is published as Open Access

Full Text PDF | Full Text ePUB Made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license with support from Norwegian Research Council.

Home -> Title

Contents

Arctic Silk Roads

An Anthropology of the Unbuilt

Edited by Natalia Magnani and Matthew Magnani

Series: Volume 7, Studies in the Circumpolar North

Subject: Political and Economic Anthropology Environmental Studies (General) Development Studies

Area: Circumpolar

This title is published as Open Access

Full Text PDF | Full Text ePUB Made available under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license with support from Norwegian Research Council.