The Danger of Natural Resource Use: Fishery, King Crab and Nostalgia for the State in the Barents Region

Abstract

The article analyses the practices of private informal extraction of natural resources in connection withthe discourse of governance and power relations circulating inside the coastal village community of the Barents region. The patchwork of local resource economy consists of fishery, king crab catching, reclaiming of the village lands (especially access to the river and seashore), and communicating with the tourists whose arrival is constantly changing the existing economic situation. The transformationof patterns of village management as well as dependence on natural resources in the early post-Sovietperiod shaped the perception of social life in the village as disordered and the area of natural resources exploitation as constantly dangerous. The main discursive effect of the contradiction between the perceived sense of “absence” of the state and situation of “hypergovernance” is the prevalence of nostalgic narratives that criticize the current governmental practices and idealize the total control of Soviettown-forming enterprises.