Corporeality of Consultant Expertise in Arctic Natural Gas Development

Abstract

The contemporary ethnographic landscape and social fields of emerging actors involved in resource extraction in the Arctic draw attention to the role “expert” knowledge, specifically, the organization of consultant work, the production, commodification and dissemination of expert forecasting, and technologies. While anthropology traditionally has focused on adaptations in northern areas in relation to state policies, regulations of the environment and ethnopolitical categorizations, in this article we introduce new approaches to the study of experts and forms of knowledge that have the potential for shaping energy development in the Arctic. We contribute to the state of theory and knowledge in relation to how experts drive the structure and content of pivotal conversations on Arctic oil and gas development by building a conceptual terminology and typology of relations between products of human bodies associated with expertise (gesture, ideas, voice, linguistic phenomena) and the material environment that ensures the security and authority of experts (turnstiles, ID badges, guards) as forces of energy production in their own right.