Virtual Posters
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Virtual Posters
A BOURGEOIS MILIEU IN THE SWEDISH WILDERNESS OF SAREK IN THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Education and Outreach
IPY 2012 Conference, Montreal, Canada, April 2012
2012
Sarek is a well-known high-mountain massif in Sweden, which was explored by natural scientist Axel Hamberg in 1895-1931. The Sarek research project became famous for its ice-, glacier- and evaporations studies, and the area contains of reminiscence of ice from the last inland ice. In the
research Hamberg always presented Sarek as pristine, harsh and very isolated wilderness only men with experience could enter, and it could only be reach by foot or with animal transportation such as
horses or reindeers.
Hamberg’s presentation of Sarek though, stood in contrast to the very obvious civilisation project in Sarek at the beginning of the 20th century with construction of several research huts that had furniture, table cloths, gramophone, lace curtains in windows, parallel with him bringing a
bourgeois cuisine with goose lever, caviar, ox tongue and whiskey with him on his research trips to the area. He took his food culture and his interests with him to Sarek, and eventually he also came to
bring his wife and son on his research travels to the mountain region.
It was common at the time, though, to create a comfortable milieu in the Arctic, such as the mining industry did on Svalbard. It was an attempt to create a normality in the abnormality in the Arctic desert.
In the case of Hamberg was it obvious that he, in Sarek, wanted to create a mirror, if not a mimetic image, of his own bourgeois home environment in Uppsala, Sweden, where he worked as a professor. The creation of a bourgeois milieu with huts and an upper class cuisine in Sarek also meant that the transfer from his home milieu to the mountain massif area less had the feeling of transportation. The difference between his home and the circumstances of the research in Sarek became minimized, and in the end it meant that the mountain area not only got to be partly civilised, but also domesticated. The hut building project did not only result in a decreasing distance between the centre – the university and his home in Uppsala – and the periphery – Sarek –, it also meant that the border between “home” and “wilderness” got to be blurred. So the building project of huts in Sarek not only made the research observations and studies more comfortable and easier to perform, it also domesticated Sarek when it, to some degree, became ‘bourgeiosed’ and filled with ‘civilised’ items. But at the same time did Hamberg uphold the image that Sarek was a desolate and isolated
wilderness since that particular representation of the high mountain area was necessary for the natural scientific studies being made there – the Sarek research still need to be presented as being done in a harsh wilderness, as well as Sarek had to be represented as such an environment.
The methods being used in this research project of the buildings of huts in Sarek are studies of Hamberg’s field research diaries, receipts, and lists of purchase.
research Hamberg always presented Sarek as pristine, harsh and very isolated wilderness only men with experience could enter, and it could only be reach by foot or with animal transportation such as
horses or reindeers.
Hamberg’s presentation of Sarek though, stood in contrast to the very obvious civilisation project in Sarek at the beginning of the 20th century with construction of several research huts that had furniture, table cloths, gramophone, lace curtains in windows, parallel with him bringing a
bourgeois cuisine with goose lever, caviar, ox tongue and whiskey with him on his research trips to the area. He took his food culture and his interests with him to Sarek, and eventually he also came to
bring his wife and son on his research travels to the mountain region.
It was common at the time, though, to create a comfortable milieu in the Arctic, such as the mining industry did on Svalbard. It was an attempt to create a normality in the abnormality in the Arctic desert.
In the case of Hamberg was it obvious that he, in Sarek, wanted to create a mirror, if not a mimetic image, of his own bourgeois home environment in Uppsala, Sweden, where he worked as a professor. The creation of a bourgeois milieu with huts and an upper class cuisine in Sarek also meant that the transfer from his home milieu to the mountain massif area less had the feeling of transportation. The difference between his home and the circumstances of the research in Sarek became minimized, and in the end it meant that the mountain area not only got to be partly civilised, but also domesticated. The hut building project did not only result in a decreasing distance between the centre – the university and his home in Uppsala – and the periphery – Sarek –, it also meant that the border between “home” and “wilderness” got to be blurred. So the building project of huts in Sarek not only made the research observations and studies more comfortable and easier to perform, it also domesticated Sarek when it, to some degree, became ‘bourgeiosed’ and filled with ‘civilised’ items. But at the same time did Hamberg uphold the image that Sarek was a desolate and isolated
wilderness since that particular representation of the high mountain area was necessary for the natural scientific studies being made there – the Sarek research still need to be presented as being done in a harsh wilderness, as well as Sarek had to be represented as such an environment.
The methods being used in this research project of the buildings of huts in Sarek are studies of Hamberg’s field research diaries, receipts, and lists of purchase.
Sarek research project, glacier, expedition, history
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