
Series
Volume 7
Studies in the Circumpolar North
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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 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (January 2026)
eISBN 978-1-83695-309-8 eBook Not Yet Published
Reviews
“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
Description
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.
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 (Toronto, 2026) with Natalia Magnani.