Epilogue. Field Notes from the End of the World: Light, Darkness, Energy, and Endscape in Polar Night

Résumé 0

This personal essay describes light(s) and darkness(es) in Longyearbyen, Svalbard (Norway) during polar night in January 2019. Drawing on autoethnographic methods, I also seek to describe how I experienced the remarkable lightscapes and darkscapes of the far north during winter. I suggest how the history of energy in Longyearbyen has both shaped and been shaped by the “extreme” light/dark cycle of the high Arctic. In the process, I develop the concept of “endscape” to characterize vestiges of a landscape that has been, and will continue to be, transformed by global climate change, and will eventually disappear. This recent experience illustrates the potential of experiential, reflexive ways of contending with light/dark. It also draws attention to tensions in the academic study of light/dark and the history of energy, and how they play out in practice, in the context of a conference held in a remote location that requires scholars to contribute to the continued extraction of fossil fuels –something that most would otherwise decry. I suggest that Longyearbyen is a useful case study for other endscapes in the early 21st C.