Re-framing the relevance and presentations of northern geographies

Abstract

Given the growing geo-political significance of northern geographies, let alone their role as benchmarks of global environmental change, it is no surprise that northern high latitudes are receiving more attention than ever before. As Hall and Saarinen (2008) noted in an editorial in Fennia for a special issue on tourism and change in northern geographies, ‘Once portrayed as locations of natural curiosities and as a source of Nordic identity through contact with harsh nature there have been substantial changes in representation of the north in recent years’ (Hall and Saarinen 2008: 1). Of course such a statement raises the question of what are the various representations of northern geographies and what is their contemporary relevance?