CONTRIBUTORS

‘What started as a train adventure to Russia’s polar region in 2009 became a long quest to document Gazprom’s engineers exploiting the gas and oil trapped underneath the permafrost,’ says Justin Jin ( page 18). This prize-winning work shows Russia’s critical lever in energy politics’ coldest battle front and the gritty reality of work in such an unforgiving climate.

‘The highest city on Earth, El Alto, is known as the “Aymara capital of the world”, thanks to its distinct indigenous identity,’ says author Shafik Meghji ( page 42). ‘In my new book, Crossed off the Map: Travels in Bolivia, I explore the city’s dramatic growth over the last 30 years, as the climate crisis and economic pressures have prompted millions of Bolivians to migrate.’

Veronica della Dora is an Italian cultural geographer and a professor of human geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. In her spare time, she has a fascination for lighthouses. On page 65, she writes of these functional structures, exploring the strange, universal appeal they seem to possess and the rich part they have played in the human imagination over many centuries.