No room in the North: housing scarcity as infrastructure’s failed relations in the Arctic
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This article examines the entanglements of housing infrastructure, economic structures, and social relations in Arctic regions, focusing on Nunavut (Canada) and Malmfälten (Sweden). Using a comparative ethnographic approach, we explore how housing scarcity is shaped not only by physical infrastructure but by broader political and economic forces. Drawing on thematic content analysis and an infrastructural relations framework, we highlight how capitalist logics, demographic shifts, and governance structures contribute to ongoing housing crises. Rather than viewing infrastructure as a static entity, we adopt a relational perspective that emphasizes the reciprocal dynamics between housing, social networks, and state policies. Our findings suggest that housing scarcity in the Arctic is not merely a consequence of remoteness or material limitations but a product of structural neglect, economic disincentives, and governance complexities. By framing infrastructure as a site of contested relations rather than a neutral technical system, we argue that addressing Arctic housing challenges requires not only increased investment but a fundamental rethinking of infrastructural governance, social responsibility, and sustainability in northern communities.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.015 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".