Boden is located in the north of Sweden, just south of the Arctic Circle, where the Lule River widens before continuing toward the coast. There is no dense centre. Instead, Boden appears as a series of dispersed elements—housing areas, railway lines, military sites, open land, and barrack camps.
Boden’s emergence as a town is closely tied to the simultaneous development of military and railway infrastructure at the turn of the twentieth century. The construction of Boden’s Fortress and the expansion of the railway network occurred in parallel, transforming what had been a small agricultural and church settlement into a strategic node following the loss of Finland in 1809 and the newborn ambition to “within Swedish borders, conquer Finland again,” thereby constructing Sápmi as an internal frontier. The railway, mainly constructed to carry iron ore from Gällivare to the open sea off Narvik but stretching to Boden, Luleå, Piteå and Skellefteå to the south-east, established Boden as a junction linking inland resource extraction to the coast, while the fortification anchored its military importance. Together, these systems laid the groundwork for a broader industrial expansion into the north and formed an important part of the colonization of Sápmi. The “green” ventures in Boden, Gällivare, Luleå, Piteå and Skellefteå, can be understood as a continuation of this process.
Like many towns in the area, Boden have been struggling with outmigration and a shrinking tax base. The fact that the “green” steel producer Stegra chose Boden as the site for its establishment has therefore represented a major opportunity for the town in its search for employment and a “secured future.” So far, however, it is only temporary jobs that have been created, and for a highly temporary population consisting of migrant workers in the construction sector. The project has turned the outskirts of the town into one of Europe’s largest construction sites. In a municipality with around 28,000 permanent residents, approximately 26,000 guest workers have been registered in the identification system connected to the site since 2022. This industrial venture is part of “the green transition in northern Sweden” —a phenomenon initiated around 2020 to initiate the region as the centre for fossil free industrial production of iron, steel and batteries.
The presence of the temporary workforce reshapes the town. A handful of housing complexes have been established in the areas surrounding the construction site, housing some four to five hundred workers each. These consist of portable, modular units arranged in rows or clusters, often built under time-limited permits. The private housing units of the barracks are so small that they would not be permitted if they were not classified as temporary, forming a 10 square meter spatial envelope around the workers’ free time, especially during winter when temperatures drop below minus thirty degrees Celsius, limiting outdoor activity.
The presence of the guest workers can simultaneously be understood as part of a broader tendency. Boden is increasingly characterized by a circulating population. The town’s military function has regained prominence. Conscription has been reintroduced, and military regiments are active once more. Conscripts and cadets pass through Boden in cycles, living in barracks and training facilities. Along with the construction workers, these two groups form a large, predominantly male population that is present but not permanently settled.
Taken together, Boden is a site where different temporal layers overlap. The built environment reflects this through a combination of permanent structures and provisional settlements. The historical movement of rallare along the railway, the military cycles tied to the fortifications, and the current flows of industrial labour all follow similar patterns of temporary occupation. It forms a continuation of a colonization process where the indigenous Sámi people, understood to be nomadic, have effectively been deprived of spatial agency.
The town functions as a point within larger systems—military, industrial, and logistical—where people, materials, and infrastructures pass through. The repetition of temporary settlement makes the site particularly relevant for studying how architecture and temporariness operates as a colonial tool to render some groups invisible in the service of resource extraction.
