Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ArcticLabourTime (Investing in the Arctic: the affective and temporal contradictions of work, mobility and inequality in northern peripheries)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2018-11-01 al 2020-10-31
Global economic uncertainty, the increasing precarity of work and widespread unemployment in Europe have ruptured linear paths to upward mobility and work security. The precaritization of labour and life has led some scholars to argue that there is no longer a utopian future to work towards. Other scholars maintain that anticipation is the dominant temporal mode of late capitalism through which present investments anticipate the profitability of the future. However, recent anthropological research demonstrates that multiple temporalities often co-exist in tension, in specific contexts. This scholarship further demonstrates that the affective and temporal dimensions of workers’ expectations for the future are crucial for understanding how and why people are invested in particular forms of work.
ArcticLabourTime argues that places constructed as peripheral are crucial sites for understanding the temporal contradictions of the financialized global economy. Through ethnography and critical discourse analysis, this project examines the Finnish Arctic, that has been characterized by disinvestment and precarity, but which is currently a site of anticipatory investment, particularly in growing industries that exploit Lapland’s natural resources (e.g. tourism). Lapland’s sparse population, labour shortages, high rates of unemployment and seasonal work pose both challenges and opportunities for economic growth. One of the key means governments and employers aim to manage labour challenges has been to promote labour mobility. While critical sociolinguists have been attentive to how multilingual resources have become central to the global economy with the increased mobility of people and production, the temporal and affective dimensions of work and migration have not been adequately examined in sociolinguistics and Arctic studies. ArcticLabourTime importantly addresses these gaps in research.
ArcticLabourTime asks: 1) How do mobile workers’ temporal and affective aspirations for work/life facilitate their investment in the Arctic’s labour markets and create value for growing industries?; 2) How does differential access to resources enable or constrain workers’ aspirational mobility and ability to manage insecure labour markets?; 3) What are the risks, costs, and benefits of such mobility and for whom? Answering these questions constitutes the project’s Objectives 1-3. Through an innovative focus on timescapes, this project further outlines how the ability to invest in economic futures is differentiated (Objective 4). Finally, the project develops the researcher’s skills in teaching, supervision, management and research to advance their career plan (Objective 5).
ArcticLabourTime argues that places constructed as peripheral are crucial sites for understanding the temporal contradictions of the financialized global economy. Through ethnography and critical discourse analysis, this project examines the Finnish Arctic, that has been characterized by disinvestment and precarity, but which is currently a site of anticipatory investment, particularly in growing industries that exploit Lapland’s natural resources (e.g. tourism). Lapland’s sparse population, labour shortages, high rates of unemployment and seasonal work pose both challenges and opportunities for economic growth. One of the key means governments and employers aim to manage labour challenges has been to promote labour mobility. While critical sociolinguists have been attentive to how multilingual resources have become central to the global economy with the increased mobility of people and production, the temporal and affective dimensions of work and migration have not been adequately examined in sociolinguistics and Arctic studies. ArcticLabourTime importantly addresses these gaps in research.
ArcticLabourTime asks: 1) How do mobile workers’ temporal and affective aspirations for work/life facilitate their investment in the Arctic’s labour markets and create value for growing industries?; 2) How does differential access to resources enable or constrain workers’ aspirational mobility and ability to manage insecure labour markets?; 3) What are the risks, costs, and benefits of such mobility and for whom? Answering these questions constitutes the project’s Objectives 1-3. Through an innovative focus on timescapes, this project further outlines how the ability to invest in economic futures is differentiated (Objective 4). Finally, the project develops the researcher’s skills in teaching, supervision, management and research to advance their career plan (Objective 5).
To answer the project’s research questions, after receiving training in Arctic economies and sociolinguistic methodologies at the University of Jyväskylä, the researcher conducted 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork and critical discourse analysis in a municipality in Arctic Finland that is the site of a growing tourism resort. Research data reveals that large business owners manage the seasonality of tourism, in part, by recruiting seasonal workers from the south of Finland and increasingly internationally. Recruiters and governments attempt to attract foreign entrepreneurs and workers by selling “the good life” in the Arctic. While studies have examined “lifestyle migrants” in Finland, lifestyle migration is often viewed separately from labour migration, but in the case of Lapland the two cannot be separated. Mobility to Lapland, particularly for young people, is often viewed as a way to escape stagnation and stalled futures elsewhere and to explore alternative possibilities for self-development in exceptional nature. While tourism research examines how nature creates value for tourism as a product sold to tourists, this project demonstrates how the worker/tourist consuming nature creates value in the form of labour power. Similarly, in regards to small business owners, foreign entrepreneurs move to Lapland to chase a particular lifestyle, while locals who moved away relocate to Lapland because they value the lifestyle it provides. At the margins of mass tourism these small businesses are finding innovative ways to profit from nature. These innovations are informed by the entrepreneurs’ lifestyle values, with a particular focus on sustainability and wellness.
ArcticLabourTime also outlines the political economic conditions, institutional supports and differential access to resources that enable and constrain such aspirational mobility. For example, foreign workers are valued by hiring managers for their “soft skills” (that Finns are perceived to lack) and English language skills. The majority of seasonal workers faced unemployment or precarious work at home, which fuels their desire to chase an alternative lifestyle. Similarly, entrepreneurs reproduce a discourse of foreignness as an asset: it enables one to more clearly tap into international markets. Their focus on innovation is, in part, facilitated by EU innovation business grants. While access to this funding supports small businesses, it also encourages them to take risks that aren’t necessarily profitable.
This project also identifies who benefits and loses from labour mobility in Lapland. Many seasonal workers, for instance, complained that their wages were too low and recognized that their lifestyle, which was difficult on relationships, had an expiration date. Enthusiasm for nature nevertheless enables recruitment of relatively cheap labour for large employers. Small business owners also provided innovative product development that benefited the destination more broadly and yet the monetary return on their investments was uncertain. Their innovations were often supported by secondary employment. This research thus has broader societal and policy applications, revealing ways to better support precarious workers and small business owners.
Finally, this project maps multiple Arctic timescapes. For example, it highlights the contradictory temporalities of lifestyle entrepreneurship: desires for a “slow lifestyle” fuel intense seasonal work and future-oriented anticipatory investments.
These results have been disseminated to academic audiences, stakeholders and the general public.
ArcticLabourTime also outlines the political economic conditions, institutional supports and differential access to resources that enable and constrain such aspirational mobility. For example, foreign workers are valued by hiring managers for their “soft skills” (that Finns are perceived to lack) and English language skills. The majority of seasonal workers faced unemployment or precarious work at home, which fuels their desire to chase an alternative lifestyle. Similarly, entrepreneurs reproduce a discourse of foreignness as an asset: it enables one to more clearly tap into international markets. Their focus on innovation is, in part, facilitated by EU innovation business grants. While access to this funding supports small businesses, it also encourages them to take risks that aren’t necessarily profitable.
This project also identifies who benefits and loses from labour mobility in Lapland. Many seasonal workers, for instance, complained that their wages were too low and recognized that their lifestyle, which was difficult on relationships, had an expiration date. Enthusiasm for nature nevertheless enables recruitment of relatively cheap labour for large employers. Small business owners also provided innovative product development that benefited the destination more broadly and yet the monetary return on their investments was uncertain. Their innovations were often supported by secondary employment. This research thus has broader societal and policy applications, revealing ways to better support precarious workers and small business owners.
Finally, this project maps multiple Arctic timescapes. For example, it highlights the contradictory temporalities of lifestyle entrepreneurship: desires for a “slow lifestyle” fuel intense seasonal work and future-oriented anticipatory investments.
These results have been disseminated to academic audiences, stakeholders and the general public.
This project addresses three of the EU’s policy priorities: environment and climate, our digital future and jobs and economy. These policy goals aim to create fairer industrial processes and economic growth that respect the planet and value workers’ well-being. The project’s results found that the majority of small business owners in Lapland’s tourism industry aimed to contribute to sustainable tourism and work conditions that prioritized wellbeing. The research also examines how to make work for both local and mobile seasonal workers more equitable. Beyond the project’s original goals, this action also analyzes how digital technology creates new possibilities for economic growth, along with new forms of work in the tourism industry. The researcher also conducted additional follow-up research to assess the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry, which reveals what inequalities were deepened by the crisis, but also what strategies and supports enabled small businesses to survive. This project thus contributes to the EU’s goal of creating more equitable work through, in part, green and digital transformations.