Vanlife landscapes (2022-) is my postdoctoral research project at the
UiT – Arctic University of Norway. In the project, I aim to build academic understanding of the vanlife phenomenon by approaching it as a vehicle-dwelling culture and community, and a lifestyle mobility. I consider vanlife to situate in the interface of lifestyle, tourism/travel, and counterculture. I wish also to take part in crafting alternative stories of vanlife and the road trip culture through decolonizing storytelling practices. These practices are sensitive to the many times forgotten, silenced or disregarded histories of the landscapes driven through, evoking alternative conceptualizations and lived experiences of life on the road. My empirical work situates in Northern Highlands of Scotland and the regions of Helgeland and Finnmark in Norway. I also apply digital ethnographic methods to gain understanding of the international vehicle-dwelling communities. The project is conducted as part of a larger project at UiT: Traveling Post-Corona: Revisiting Guests and Hosts (2021-2025), |