Material imaginaries of the new iron curtain

The “social imaginary” has been critiqued for its overly deterministic qualities and resemblance to concepts of culture. Our article interrogates the materiality of the indeterminate at a time of heightened global uncertainty. Furthering a rapid response, material methodology in anthropology, we examine objects, animals, and infrastructures that disrupt and reinscribe border imaginaries in differential and unexpected ways in Sør-Varanger, on the Norwegian border with Russia, one month after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, amid emerging international sanctions and national border closures. We show how everyday engagements with various “materials"—souvenirs and monuments, surveyed and commodified species, industrial and transport infrastructures—foster a sense of uncertainty around the (im)permeability of an East-West border. The array of effects that they have on the imagination is unevenly and at times randomly shaped by their materiality. However, these differential effects are also patterned in their indeterminacy, as the scale and temporality of the materials’ movements affect their potential to transform border imaginaries. We thus rethink the material imaginary as simultaneously indeterminate and patterned in dialogue with scalar and temporal dimensions of mobility.