In writing this I'm hoping to get some feedback on some research that I
am currently doing in the Canadian Arctic. During the 1950's, Inuit were
moved from traditional camps into settled communities across northern
Canada. The spatial layouts of these communities appear to have been
determined primarily by servicing and administrative reqirements
associated with the unique conditions of arctic environments. For
example, because sewage and water have to be trucked to and from houses
(permafrost prevents standard utility hook-ups) the street grid has to
be made as compact as possible. This is done to minimise servicing
costs. In addition, expansion of these settlements is often determined
by the presence/absence of solid surfaces (gravel beach ridges versus
softer tundra).
I became interested in using axial analysis to better understand the
configurational properties of these unusual settlements which appear to
be unlike towns found in other areas of North America. Not suprisingly,
many of the arctic communities I analyzed have produced low correlations
between connectivity and global integration, indicating low
intelligibility. A few summers ago, I began to collect observational
data on pedestrian and vehicular movement in one Inuit community on the
west coast of Hudson Bay. To my surprise, while vehicular movement (all
terrain cycles and trucks) was highly correleated with local
integration, this was not the case for pedestrian movement, where
correlations were much, much lower. Given that all of the observational
studies I have come across in space syntax research indicate that a
strong correlation exists between pedestrian movement and integration in
western cities such as Atlanta and London, I am interested in
understanding why I did not observe this in the Canadian Arctic.
My first thought is that it might have something to do with the fact
that the occupants of these communities (Inuit) might be transposing a
"uniquely Inuit" pattern of movement onto the communities in which they
live....communities which reflect Euro-Canadian concepts of 'community'
and adminitrative control.
This research is still in its early stages and my observations are
limited to a 3 month period in a single community. However, I was
wondering if anyone had any ideas as to why these correlations appear
lower than those observed elsewhere. Is human movement
culturally-mediated? and if so, does this mean that arctic communities
may not be spatially sustaining Inuit cultural values?
cheers,
Peter
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