In the formal sense of the word, colonial times in Greenland lasted eight to nine generations. Although basically self-reliant in their livelihood, and never bereft of their language or physically oppressed, the greenlanders have been heavily influenced by the authoritarian mode of decision-making characteristic of any colonial regime. Greenlanders remain under that influence till this day, albeit for the most unconsciously.

One important tool to understand the predicament of the greenlanders is to view the situation through Paolo Freire’s renowned analysis of the psychology of oppression, seeing the present home rule situation through the lense of center and periphery, or, in Freire’s terminology, “metropolis and satellites”. It appears that - to some extent at least - the Home Rule has fallen into the trap of authoritarianism unconsciously inherited from the colonial times, one example being the lack of public interest in free and independent radio and TV broadcasting.

Most poignantly, maybe, the problem is felt - and is going to be felt - in the conflict zone that inevitably will arise between environmental policy concerns and the interests vested in mineral exploitation.

Hence, for the future of Greenlandic society - the importance of a politically free university with no direct government influence on curriculum and administration.

August 23, 2008

Communicating and Sharing Knowledge: Scientists Still Need to do More

Lynge, Aqqaluk

ICC Greenland President, Aqqaluk Lynge, will aim his talk directly to scientists, recognizing that they have made significant strides over the past decade on involving indigenous peoples, and sometimes also their traditional knowledge. Mr. Lynge will, however, point to additional ways in which the indigenous peoples of the Arctic can make even more positive impact, alongside the scientific community, on solving the many Arctic challenges through research. By drawing upon his experience this year as a visiting fellow at Dartmouth College, Mr. Lynge will call on scientists to do even more, especially increasing their partnerships with indigenous peoples, and fostering meaningful dialogue with local populations. See PPT Slides.

August 23, 2008

Climate Change and Subsidiarity – Is there a Need of an Arctic Treaty?

Rasmussen, Rasmus Ole

Climate change is a recognized reality, and change in accessibility of the Arctic region and its resources is an obvious consequence. But the question is how to manage this new situation.

It has been emphasized that “The Law of the Sea” already exists as a legal framework for solution of potential conflicts in the Arctic, but the situation may not be that simple. There may still be reasons to look into how Arctic governance systems may be structured to minimize problems arising from gaps and potential overlaps with other already existing governance systems in the region. The fact that there are problem areas in the North Atlantic and North Pacific indicates that there are still problems within the existing laws and regulations when it comes to resolving specific conflicts.

The key question in the Arctic, however, is that UNCLOS is based on the recognition of rights of states, but not on rights of people. Inherited in the present situation, therefore, is the option at the national level of reaching agreements that might violate the rights of peoples in the Arctic! Classic notions of state sovereignty, therefore, cannot adequately address the issue of sovereignty of peoples! Instead the principle of subsidiarity may be providing a conceptual tool to mediate polarity of pluralism and the common good in a globalized world by providing a tool in making sense in relation to future management of Arctic resources.

There is an obvious need of ensuring peoples of the Arctic by means of regional arrangements to be granted a voice through the establishing of a comprehensive regime – as some have suggested, a constitutional contract – treating the Arctic as a distinct region in international society. View Presentation.

August 24, 2008

IPY 2007-2008 and Social Science a Challenge of 50 Years

Krupnik, Igor

In summer 2004, at ICASS-5 in Fairbanks and in the following weeks, IASSA made what in hindsight was a historic decision to join the preparations for IPY 2007–2008. During that summer of 2004, IASSA argued on behalf of Arctic social scientists and polar residents for a legitimate place for social/human research in a new IPY, based upon the crucial role that studies of northern communities and cultures play in today’s scholarly and public approach to the Earth’s polar regions. This paper is a tribute to IASSA’s successful effort to raise the profile of social research and the humanities in the mainstream polar science. It reviews the planning and implementation of IPY 2007–2008 as a ‘once-in-fifty years’ opportunity for social scientists and Arctic residents, as well as for IASSA. It covers, in particular, the history of the origination of IPY 2007–2008 from several independent and often competing proposals in 2000–2002; the role that IASSA played in building its socio-cultural agenda; the current status of social/human research in IPY; and the future of that legacy after IPY 2007–2008 is officially completed in spring 2009. It is hard to underestimate the transition between ICASS-5 in 2004 and ICASS-6 in 2008 in the way the wider polar research community views the value of social and human sciences. IASSA’s efforts also opened the door to a new level of engagement of Arctic residents and indigenous people in research, science planning, and education through many activities under IPY 2007–2008, as well as other major ventures of the past years. View Presentation.

August 24, 2008

Issittumi ilisimatusarnermi (Arctic science) Inuit suleqatigiinnerannik (human collaboration) nalliuttorsiutiginninneq (celebration).

Gearheard, Shari and Kielsen Holm, Lene

On this IPY Day, we offer a celebration of the human relationships and personal connections that can develop over the course of research. Many projects depend on and acknowledge human relationships to be key to their research, but we rarely have the opportunity to hear more about these interactions or get a chance to meet the individuals involved. Who are the people in these research relationships? How exactly are these relationships formed and nurtured? How are those connections that lead to trust and respect established? How do human relationships benefit research and how are the individuals involved affected?

Drawing on our own experience with the international Siku-Inuit-Hila (Sea Ice-People-Weather) Project, we look at research relationships at the level of, and from the perspective of, the individual. At the finest human scale, we explore what terms like “participation”, “community involvement”, and “collaboration” can really mean.

Theme no. 01 Sustainability & Climate Change

Session no. 01.02: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industry in the Arctic

Session Chair / co-chair: Rowe, Elana W. / Wilson, Emma

Rowe, Elana W., Centre for Russian Studies at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI)

Wilson, Emma, Business and Sustainable Development; Sustainable Markets Group, United Kingdom

Abstract

The effects of climate change, the development of new technologies and the increasing value of many natural resources (i.e. oil, gas, minerals) found in the Arctic all contribute to an increasing pressure from extractive industry on indigenous peoples’ lands and waters. In this panel, we will critically review a variety of governance measures, such as impact benefit agreements, environmental impact assessments/expertiza, ‘development plans’ and co-management boards, used to facilitate and monitor natural resource extraction in the Circumpolar North. Looking at case studies from around the North, this panel’s presentations will focus on three key questions: What are the existing arrangements for preventing/facilitating and subsequently monitoring natural resource extraction in the indigenous North? If and how can/do these governance structures contribute to or hinder power-sharing and profit-sharing between local and regional governments, industry and indigenous peoples? Are there any ‘best practices’ that could be shared across the Arctic? The panel’s concluding discussion will focus primarily on the last question posed. At present, it is quite common for northern actors facing new large-scale development (for example in northern Norway and Russia) to draw rather uncritically on the experiences of northern Canadians and Alaskans. Using the paper presentations as a point of departure, all participants will then debate the appropriateness and possibility of such transfer of North American governance institutions to new locations in the North during a discussion/question-answer period.

01.02.01

Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples in the Russia North:
Regulation, Participation and International Processes

Wilson, Emma and Swiderska, Krystyna

Extractive industry development has historically led to loss of lands, livelihoods and community cohesion for indigenous and local communities living close to the industrial activity. At the same time, these industries have also contributed to local socio-economic development in these regions. The effectiveness and sustainability of local development in the context of such projects depends on the minimization and mitigation of negative environmental and social impacts; the equitable distribution of project benefits; the opportunities for meaningful participation of local communities in decision-making; and the extent to which local expectations are managed and satisfied. Public involvement can be hampered by people’s lack of awareness of their rights to participate in the development process. This article explores the ways that international legal processes and corporate self-regulation initiatives can inform the development of relations between indigenous and local communities and extractive companies in Russia. The analysis has particular relevance for the oil and gas industry and the nomadic reindeer herding communities of the Russian North, Siberia and the Russian Far East. View Presentation.

01.02.02

Sakhalin Indigenous People and New Reality in the Life

Roon, Tatyana

Sakhalin Island has been the place of new economic development of multinational projects for more than the last 10 years. Field research demonstrated that the Sakhalin 1 and Sakhalin II oil and gas projects have had both a direct and an indirect impact on the populations and settlements of several northern districts. Monitoring data was collected in 2002- 2005, based on questionnaire administration with native communities in Nogliki, Tymovsk and Poronaysk districts which are likely to be affected by construction. The main impact is on domestic reindeer spring and summer pastures (pipeline and access roads), the environment at river crossings in several districts, and small native communities in the bays and at cultural sites. People are concerned about the unusual smell and size of salmon, the decrease in populations of salmon and other marine resources and river pollution. Other questions connected to Molikpag and Sakhalin I and Sakhalin II projects were concerns about drilling waste pollution. These were new realities in the life of local communities. These projects have special benefit programmes for social and cultural questions of the Indigenous People. But people are troubled about environmental questions connected with oil projects on the shelf zone of Okhotsk Sea. This new landscape required companies to make “ethnologicheskaya expertiza” all projects. After social conflict with the first IP strike action, “green line” in 2004, over the Sakhalin -2 project, the Regional Government and Sakhalin IP Association started a new development plan for IP Communities (IPDP). Political activity is another new reality in the IP life for the last decade. The author will focus on the influence of these projects and several changes of IP life and the common situation in Sakhalin.

01.02.03

Resource Extraction and Community Well-being in the Canadian North

Buell, Mark E.

The National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO) is an Aboriginal-designed and –controlled organization dedicated to improving the well-being of Aboriginal Peoples. NAHO recognizes that non-renewable resource extractive development is an essential ingredient to Canada’s northern economy, and that Aboriginal communities are positioned to benefit from the non-renewable resources in their territories. These activities can offer positive outcomes, such as increased employment opportunities and revenue for local development initiatives. They can also affect community cohesion and exacerbate existing socio-economic challenges, affecting the well-being of individuals, families and communities living on or near resource extraction sites. Over the past three years, NAHO’s has carried out activities focused on the social, economic, political and cultural effects of non-renewable resource extractive development on northern Aboriginal communities. This has included the developing a discussion paper on the impacts of resource extraction development on Inuit communities; conducting an environmental scan of interventions to mitigate the social impacts of development; and, convening a roundtable of representatives from northern Aboriginal and community-based organizations, social service agencies and academia, for a discussion to identify community-based strategies aimed at maximizing the opportunities and mitigating the impacts of extractive activities. Careful preparations, including interventions at the policy level, can be effective to minimize the impacts of development and to ensure that Aboriginal Peoples achieve maximum benefit from development. This presentation will highlight the outcomes from NAHO’s work, and speak to the challenges of ensuring the First Nations, Inuit and Métis community voice is represented at national and international discussions on resource development.

01.02.04

The Social and Cultural Impact of Oil and Gas Development in the Russian North: Research Results from Yamal and Nenets Autonomous Okrugs

Stammler, Florian

Social Anthropological research within an interdisciplinary project with reindeer herders and industry-workers shows the importance of level and scale when evaluating the socio-cultural impacts of industrialisation on local communities. The paper argues that restricting impact analysis to quantitatively measurable impacts means missing the essence, although this forms the basis of negotiations and compensations by companies. Research revealed both positive and negative consequences of industrialization, the positive ones being even harder to quantify. One of the important results is that coexistence between industry and reindeer herding is the expressed goal on both sides, and maximizing benefits alongside limiting the negative impacts guides the interaction of both sides on the ground, where we found in most cases long-established and well functioning working relations among industry workers and reindeer herders. Relations on high political or economic levels are often characterized by more tensions. Lack of information about each other's needs was identified as hampering coexistence. Ecological and social damage to herders may happen because nobody told oil workers of reindeer nomads' needs, while on the other side the tundra population would be in a better position to adapt to changes if they were included into the planning of industrial development at earlier stages. This need for more exchange has also potential socio-cultural consequences, as it might make sense to share confidential information. A set of basic requirements exchanged between both sides would be a step forward in using the good working relations on the ground. View Presentation.

01.02.05

Situated Perspectives on Hydropower Exploitation in Sapmi: Swedish Industrial Expansion and its Impacts on the Sapmi Indigenous Population in the 20th Century.

Öhman, May-Britt

Although the Swedish industrialization has been studied from a number of historical perspectives, there is still a void to fill regarding its relation to the Sami indigenous population. The paper discusses the initial findings of a study addressing a case study of hydropower exploitation in Sapmi in the 20th century. The study itself aims at identifying experiences by the local inhabitants with a special focus on Sami women connected to reindeer herding. The reindeer herding is considered as a cultural activity with specific relation to the Sami indigenous population, containing specific knowledge of water and land resources, and as an important trade for a large number of people.

With this in mind, different viewpoints and perspectives are identified, as well as opposition and protests that have arisen alongside the hydropower exploitation. Questions asked are: what viewpoints were/are forwarded by whom and to whom? What knowledge was/is taken account of in regard to damming and continuous water regulations? Time period in focus is 1950s-1980s, considering traces and consequences of today. Primarily a historical study, the hope is also that it will be useful for discussions on the relation between the Swedish state, ideas on modernity, technological and industrial expansion on the one hand and indigenous people inside and outside of Sweden on the other, including issues of local knowledge, natural resources and sustainable development. View Presentation.

01.02.06

Mobile Models?: Debating the Applicability of Canadian Co-Management to a Russian Context

Rowe, Elana W.

A common myth about globalization is that ideas and knowledge, like money, can now circulate freely. This is not always the case. Knowledge and ideas are embedded in particular places and societies and do not lend themselves straightforwardly to export. At the same time, globalization and region-building efforts in the North certainly have created an unprecedented level of opportunity for sharing innovative solutions to shared Arctic problems, such as northern natural resource management and economic development. In this presentation, I describe both opportunities for and challenges to the transfer of governance knowledge across northern borders through a case study of a development project designed to promote Canadian-style natural resource management and economic development models in the Russian North. This project, one of many cooperative endeavours involving Arctic indigenous peoples and governments, was based in the belief that relevant knowledge should be shared across the state boundaries that transect the Circumpolar North. Drawing upon over thirty qualitative interviews and my participation in the project itself, I point to the important role played by the notion of an Arctic region in developing and carrying out this development project and also to ways in which fundamental national differences (historical, economic, and social) between Canada and Russia reduced the applicability of Canadian northern knowledge to new Russian contexts. View Presentation.

Session no. 01.03: The Impacts of Oil and Gas Activity on Peoples of the Arctic using a Multiple Securities Perspective (GAPS - IPY project # 310 or http://www.ipygaps.org/)

Session Chair / co-chair: Slowey, Gabrielle A. / Hoogensen, Gunhild

Slowey, Gabrielle A., York University, Department of Political Science

Hoogensen, Gunhild, University of Tromsø

Abstract

Over centuries, Arctic peoples have learned to adapt and thrive in an uncertain, harsh environment. Today, change is occurring at an unprecedented rate. Local peoples' capacity to cope and adapt is under pressure. Occurring amidst a changing climate, oil and gas activity poses critical challenges to peoples in Arctic communities. It affects local economies, traditional livelihoods and identities, health, food and the environment. However, while there is enormous strain on the factors that affect human well-being in the Arctic, it is essential to recognize that Arctic peoples have a capacity to determine what is needed for their well-being as well as the capability of developing resilience based on local knowledge. This session aims to bring together papers on these topics of critical importance to the Arctic that explore the effects of oil and gas activity, and its interaction with climate change, on the human security of Arctic peoples. Participation by indigenous people and from across circumpolar regions is greatly encouraged.

01.03.01

Multiple security discourses in the Arctic: making sense out of the energy, environmental and human security concepts in the context of oil and gas development

Hoogensen, Gunhild

My paper will examine the relationships between the increasingly popular "energy" security concept, the varying evolutions of the "environmental security" concept, and human security. Traditional security perspectives (protection of the state and its borders, sovereignty) are competing for political attention in the Arctic. The environment and human relationships to the environment are taking more of the centre stage. Energy security, largely rooted in a traditional security discourse, dominates much of the security discussion pertaining to security and the environment. Energy security focuses upon the reliable supply of energy sources at an affordable price (roughly speaking) and is most often articulated at the national or state level. Some lip-service is paid to the implications of a national strategy to secure energy sources at a reasonable price might have at the community/individual level and on the environment (including climate change issues), but these implications have been rarely explored nor theorized upon within the security discourses that exist today. Important connections need to be made between different environmental security perspectives which are impacted themselves by developments in the energy industry, not least in oil and gas. What are the links between the discourses of energy, environmental and human security in the oil and gas context? In what ways, if any, does the security of one impact the in/security of the other (in other words - does energy negatively or positively impact human security? environmental security?) And how can these both illuminate and inform a wider security policy?

01.03.02

Qualitative methods in Human Security Research -- The Impacts of Oil- and Gas Activity on Peoples in the Arctic

Dale, Brigt

Concepts within political science tends to express the needs and views from a state- or organisational level and although they can express ideals for universal rights or be fruitful in analyzing state relations, they often mask the social, cultural and personal consequences of global trends and large scale development on an individual and/ or small group-level. Thus, there is a need for a renewed methodology within the research area of Human security – one which takes into account the personal and diverse experiences of content, meaning and consequences of such a concept.

If political scientists have been methodical and concrete in their identification of human security – aspects, social anthropologists have for decades studied local responses to and adaptations to (and of) global trends. The anthropological methodology discourse has often taken into consideration the complex relation between the need for generalization and utilization of abstract concepts and the necessity for precise and thorough depictions of specifics to be able to thoroughly understand local life.

In this presentation, I want to show how qualitative research methods like participatory fieldwork and focus-group interviews can be very fruitful in order to achieve a more thorough understanding of the understanding of the concept of human security on the ground, and how what is learned from this bottom-up perspective may serve to strengthen the legitimacy and analytical strength of the concept in question.

Keywords: Human security, Methodology, participatory fieldwork, anthropology, globalization, local knowledge.

01.03.03

The Impacts of Oil- and Gas Activity on Peoples in the Arctic

Stuvøy, Kirsti

With its focus on the individual and the context in which security is experienced, the concept of human security addresses security in people’s life-world. In this life-world, people can be agents of their own security as choices that affect human security are made also amid severe life-conditions. This concern with people’s agency in regard to human security directs critical attention to the constraints and capabilities to act. When thinking with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this space is defined by the positions of security agents in the field and by internalized dispositions. The question addressed in this paper is what does a Bourdieuian approach contribute to the concept of human security in context of oil- and gas development? It is argued that this approach directs attention both to material and immaterial structuring forces that confine subjects’ space of manoeuvring in the field of security. An analytical concern with Arctic people’s practices of security attempts to broaden the understanding of theory and practice of human security from a non-dominant, bottom-up perspective. This perspective addresses material structures (e.g. distribution of economic power, control of legislation, etc.) that affect agent’s ability to address security concerns relevant to their life-world. It also directs attention to immaterial aspects, inter-subjective beliefs that also constitute forces structuring agents’ space of manoeuvring.

01.03.04

Resilience of the Yamal-Nenets Social-Ecological System Under Oil & Gas Development

Forbes, Bruce C. and Stammler, Florian

Tundra ecosystems are considered vulnerable in the face of large-scale petroleum development, in part because even small-scale, low-intensity disturbances can affect vegetation, permafrost soils, and wildlife out of proportion to their spatial extent. Scaling up to include human residents, tightly integrated arctic social-ecological systems are believed similarly susceptible to industrial impacts, as well as climate change. In contrast to northern Alaska and Canada, virtually all terrestrial and aquatic components of YNAO gas & oil fields are seasonally exploited by migratory herders, hunters, fishers and domesticated reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). Here we emphasize the Yamal-Nenets ecosystem. Despite anthropogenic fragmentation and transformation of a large proportion of the environment, socio-economic upheaval over the past 2-3 decades, and pronounced climate warming, we find the Yamal-Nenets social-ecological system resilient according to a few key measures. We synthesize data showing the remarkable extent to which the system has successfully reorganized in response to recent shocks. Our analytical approach combines quantitative methods with indigenous knowledge to more fully understand the cumulative effects of rapid land use and climate change at the level of the entire Yamal system. We find that institutional constraints and drivers are as important as the documented ecological changes and so offer positive lessons to manage for resilience. View Presentation.

01.03.05

Does Self-Government Make a Difference? Community Perspectives from Old Crow (Yukon) and Tuktoyaktuk (NWT).

Slowey, Gabrielle A. and Simpson, Jessica

Does self-government make a difference? Based on fieldwork findings conducted in the fall of 2007, the authors reveal the answer to this question as provided by community members and leaders in Tuktoyaktuk (NWT) and Old Crow (Yukon). In this paper, the authors examine the ways in which self-government and economic development policies interact with land claims and resource development in the study communities.

More specifically this project (a) identifies the extent to which First Nation communities are, in a post land claims era, better able to meet the socio-economic demands of their constituents (b) explores why some First Nations groups, in areas where there is the potential for oil and gas development, have decided to center their development strategies on oil and gas while others have not; and (c) highlights community concerns related to the impacts of oil and gas activity on community health, traditional livelihoods, local economy, ecosystem sustainability, and food security. By studying the impacts of oil and gas, we can better examine the risks, threats and opportunities that oil and gas activity presents to human security in the Arctic. View Presentation.

01.03.06

Homeless in a Homeland: Resource Development and Housing (In)security in Inuvik, Paulatuk and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

Christensen, Julia B.

The proposed Mackenzie Gas Project is expected to stimulate economic growth, as well as have other impacts, throughout the Northwest Territories (NWT). One area of social concern is housing and homelessness, a condition that must be addressed if all Northerners are to share in the benefits of economic growth.

The primary objective of my doctoral research is to understand how economic growth relates to housing insecurity and, in turn, to issues of homelessness. This project thus addresses four critical and underdeveloped gaps in current research: 1) to explore the meaning of ‘housing (in)security’ in the study communities; 2) to illustrate the relationship between economic growth and emerging housing (in)security; 3) to assess the role housing security plays in the (re)production of homelessness in the communities; and, 4) to examine how government policy and regulations related to housing and economic development serve to fuel vulnerability to housing (in)security and homelessness and among whom.

In this paper, I examine the ways in which housing and economic development policies interact with economic growth in the creation of housing insecurity and homelessness in the study communities. Moreover, I explore the historical and contemporary patterns which shape these dynamics and provide the context for present socio-economic change. View Presentation.

01.03.07

Negotiating change: Community-based mental health and addictions practice in the Northwest Territories

Kronstal, Alana C.

Across the circumpolar north, socio-economic change is taking place at an extraordinary rate. Nowhere is this more evident than in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT), where accelerated natural resource extraction is occurring alongside significant shifts in the social, cultural, environmental and political landscape.

While many developments taking place in the region are beneficial to residents, there are widespread public concerns over a perceived increase in community mental health and addictions issues. In this graduate research project, I explore how long-serving mental health and addictions workers view the effects of rapid socio-economic change in relation to their professional practice. Moreover, I aim to capture their perspectives on the future of mental health and addictions service delivery in the region.

In this paper, I present an overview of my thesis research, including the themes which emerged from in-depth interviews with mental health and addictions workers in the NWT. This study is taking place as part of the multi-disciplinary International Polar Year project: “The impacts of oil and gas activity on peoples in the Arctic using a multiple securities perspective (GAPS)”. Thus, I will also discuss how a securities framework might facilitate policy development related to the impacts of rapid change on community health service providers. Together with the other GAPS project team members, I will comment on the collaborative measures taken to ensure local priorities are reflected in the wider multi-disciplinary, multi-country research initiative. View Presentation.

Session no. 01.04: U.S.-Canada Collaborative Study of the Nearly Developing Arctic Natural Gas Industry (IPY)

Session Chair / co-chair: Nuttall, Mark / Mason, Arthur

Nuttall, Mark XE "Nuttall, Mark" , University of Alberta

Mason, Arthur XE "Mason, Arthur" , University of California Berkeley

Abstract

There are so many changes occurring now in the Arctic and, fortunately or unfortunately, the broader context of these changes lie beyond the reach of local insight, but not necessarily control. Discussion of Arctic natural gas development, for example, focuses on building multi-billion dollar pipelines to deliver energy to markets in mid-continental United States, Europe, and Asia. Such pipelines will travel south across indigenous communities, lands, and territories. Members of these communities will also want access to this natural gas, and to the benefits from its production. But to gain access, they must involve themselves in the discussions over how these projects move forward. This requires learning new ideas about technology, economics, and regulation. And because of the 20 year life-span of these projects, everyone involved must be thinking about the future.

As anthropologists, we see a real need for focused research on how these local and transnational visions come to play a part in defining these projects. We are concerned by the way economic and technical details often define a realm of thought concerning development. Such arguments over the best location of energy infrastructure, for example, can conflict with arguments about the identity of places, and their environmental and aesthetic quality, or be used to undermine the claims of local communities on choices about local access to natural gas.

This session addresses the cultural shifts brought forth by recent proposals to develop Arctic natural gas. We consider regional and federal policy on Alaskan and Canadian Arctic natural gas development, institutional commitments to economic principles of a newly restructured industry, and how the interplay between these different forces contributes to establishing a global natural gas energy market. We also place this discussion within broader circumpolar context by discussing northern European and Russian issues. The intellectual merit of the research relates to the practical aspect through which Arctic gas is shaped into the object of an image of global gas development. Like other anthropological attempts to frame the present, our concern is the conduct of institutions and the practices through which these proposals are brought to bear on the subjectivity of individuals. The broader context relates to studies of globalization that require a reconceptualizing of power that identifies the nation-state as the fundamental horizon of communal life. The work investigates the changing role of state control and governance by considering the emergence of a new global dynamics that is replacing social systems as central units of analyses in favor of the concept of flows and networks.

This session is part of a larger collaborative proposal that seeks funding through the National Science Foundation IPY among other sources, and has been submitted to the IPY committee for official recognition.

01.04.01

Quantification and Anticipatory Knowledge in Alaska Natural Gas Development

Mason, Arthur

In this paper, I argue that quantifiable matter is integral to an ethnography of time, space and anticipatory knowledge in Arctic natural gas development. Quantifiable matter is linguistically coded economic values and political relations—the establishment of socially recognized standards of measurement. Prospects for Alaska natural gas development are often expressed through the interplay of quantifiable qualities, measurable units and quantities expressed as value. A veritable avalanche of numbers surround such things as pipeline capacities, ownership percentages, pipeline diameters, construction costs, timing of events, and amounts of available gas reserves. For the uninitiated, the ubiquity of these numbers, names and acronyms appear as a vulgar surplus. The full significance of these units, their relation to a structured energy market, its interrelated parts, cannot be perceived. Still, for select government officials, energy consultants and various stakeholders, this ethno-hydrocarbony of quantification provides insight into historical change, decay, as well as speculative potential. Such quantitative build-ups serve as the means through which otherwise inexpressible psychic states can be immediately expressed. Importantly, quantifiable matter provides a means to propel one’s thoughts into the future, achieve a sense of decay surrounding the aura or future events and even contribute to the destruction of the present. View Presentation.

01.04.02

Modern-Day Treaties: Changing Governance and the Role of Land Corporations in Oil and Gas Decision Making in the Sahtu Region, Northwest Territories

Dokis, Carly A.

In 1993 Aboriginal people in the Central Mackenzie Valley signed a comprehensive land claim agreement providing the Sahtu Dene and Métis with fee simple title to 41,437 km of settlements lands, some (22.5%) of which include subsurface rights. The Sahtu Dene and Métis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement has radically altered governance structures in the region, replacing Chief and Council with the Land Corporation as the primary decision-making authority pertaining to lands and resources. The current role of the Land Corporation has required a broad transformation in how Sahtu Dene and Métis communities engage outside interests looking to conduct work on Sahtu lands. Land Corporation Presidents, along with their management boards, are engaged in sophisticated strategies for the negotiation of agreements and partnerships to increase social and economic profits. These negotiations include the establishment of strategic networks, the learning of new terminology and skills, and the implementation of novel means of decision-making. At the same time, shifting community dynamics as a result of changing governance structures can bring about internal conflict and fracture, particularly when there are multiple and conflicting governance institutions operating in the same arenas. This paper will examine the conduct of Land Corporations in decisions related to oil and gas exploration in the Sahtu region of the Northwest Territories. In addition to considering strategies employed by Land Corporation Presidents and boards, I will examine the role of the Land Corporation within wider contexts of Sahtu Dene and Métis norms of governance and decision-making practices.

01.04.03

Historicizing Energy Assemblages: The Emergent Geographies of High Arctic Petropolitics.

Powell, Richard C.

During the summer of 2007, the High Arctic re-entered the global geopolitical imagination as Russia, Denmark and Canada initiated scientific missions to investigate hydrocarbon potential in the region of the Lomonosov Ridge and the northern coast of Greenland. Climatic changes, specifically unpredicted decreases in mean annual sea ice extent and thickness, had reconfigured Arctic geography at the very moment that hydrocarbon prices continued towards unfrequented global highs. Energy security, climatic changes, and nationalistic scientific practices formed a new assemblage in techno-politics. Inspired by recent writings by Timothy Mitchell, I term this precarious settlement ‘High Arctic petropolitics’.

This paper embarks upon on a critical investigation of these emergent geographies. Drawing from science and technology studies, I begin to decipher the cartographies of arctic energy by examining the socio-cultural dimensions of environmental and technical knowledges. As a number of states begin to source future energy security upon the basis of this precarious settlement in the region, the northern encroachment of petropolitics becomes of global significance. Through investigations of these practices, the paper contributes to nascent interdisciplinary attempts to retheorize the social dimensions of Arctic resource extraction.

01.04.04

Overlapping Frontiers: Science, Politics and Arctic Oil for Whom and By Whom?

Shadian, Jessica

Resource development, territorial integrity and scientific inquiry are historically dynamic and constitutive processes of a larger narrative of nation state-building and moreover the construction of the Westphalian political system. These interconnected processes have structured and been structured by changing intellectual modes of thought concerning changing definitions of progress and development. Since its inception, the Westphalian system has permeated the globe, dividing territory through the making of sovereign states “each capable of defining its own goals and cultural mission”. The legal parameters of Westphalian sovereignty evolved interdependently consisting of two dominant stratums, the domestic and the international. Internationally, Westphalian sovereignty is marked by indifference to national politics thereby creating a disjuncture between the national and the international. Domestic sovereignty in this system is based on land ownership or territorial integrity which was then legitimated through international law. Westphalia, as such, has come to determine the limits and domain of sovereign political space and within this the ownership of resource exploration, development and utilization.

Of late, global processes have begun to unseat this long standing political and economic order. Events in the 1960s and 1970s internationally and in the 1970s more particularly in the Arctic, began to call to question Westphalian assumptions regarding two specific yet interrelated aspects of sovereignty1) Internationally: states are the sole governing authorities in global politics and 2) Domestically: territorial integrity (natural resource development as the sole prerogative of the state). Several harbingers have been central to this shift; namely 1) Scientific findings which expose the transnational nature of environmental problems and 2) the expansion of rights based policies including many Arctic indigenous land claims agreements. Combined, these realities affect the global politics of development and provide a concrete space upon which to recognize how and where the Westphalian system is coming.

As such, the focus of this paper is to examine these processes as they come to bear on oil and gas development and policy change in the Arctic. As political reality has begun to expand the dialogue of resource exploration to include multiple stakeholders with ownership and/or rights to resource development and utilization, questions which this paper address include: What obligations and what rights do oil companies operating in the Arctic have under international law, through Arctic policy and within indigenous settlement areas? What mechanisms exist to create compliance with these rights and obligations? What stakeholders are involved? Who decides what constitutes a legitimate stakeholder? Given the most recent environmental turn to global climate change how are stakeholders living and operating in the Arctic affected by and responding to increased scientific knowledge regarding climate change and subsequent policy measures? Who are the designated climate change science ‘experts’? And what constitutes an ‘expert’? Essentially, the central question of this research: Who governs the intellectual sovereignty of Arctic oil and gas development and how and where do these processes play out?

01.04.05

Petroleum and Indigenous People in the Arctic–Challenges and Opportunities for Co-existence

Johansen, Thomas

Indigenous people represent a group of stakeholders which are characteristic for the Arctic, and inherently it makes the business environment more intricate than in other parts of the World. Indigenous and corporate values have traditionally been seen as polarized perspectives in the Arctic where the “debate” has been regarded as the Frontier versus Homeland. In short, on the one hand the Arctic is seen as the last frontier or the last storehouse of resources. Supporters of this perspective feel it natural and necessarily to subdue the land and develop the resources. On the other hand, the Arctic is a homeland for many different indigenous people with over 40 different languages. The indigenous people living in the Arctic say the North is their homeland. They have lived there for thousands of years. They claim it is their land, and they believe they have a right to say what its future ought to be. The Arctic is now again a hot topic on the political agenda, expressed, for example, in Norway’s High North Strategy (2006), where harmonization of economic and indigenous people values is highly relevant.

The investigation primarily addresses the following research question: What are the challenges for oil and gas industries working in the Arctic for attaining coexistence with Arctic’s indigenous people? and Are there any opportunities for attaining coexistence between these stakeholder groups? I will throw light on the challenges by using secondary data regarding indigenous people rights, laws, society and Arctic environmental issues.

Session no. 01.05: Community Adaptation and Vulnerability in Arctic Regions (CAVIAR) (IPY)

Session Chair / co-chair: Wandel, Johanna / Hovelsrud, Grete / Smit, Barry E.

Wandel, Johanna, University of Guelph, Global Environmental Change Group, Department of Geography

Hovelsrud, Grete, CICERO

Smit, Barry E., University of Guelph, Department of Geography

Abstract

CAVIAR consists of case studies undertaken in Arctic communities by an interdisciplinary international team during the IPY. The case studies a) address how communities are vulnerable in the context of broad social, economic, environmental and political change; b) in what ways communities cope with hazards, and what determines relative adaptive capacities; and c) how can knowledge of adaptive capacities contribute, in a practical way, to improving the ability of communities to deal with conditions that may be exacerbated by changes in climate and other conditions. This session presents the underlying rationale and methodology for the CAVIAR case study approach followed by a series of case studies from across the circumpolar north. The last presentation summarizes the case studies, with a focus on comparison and integration of insights.

01.05.01

Community Adaptation and Vulnerability in the Arctic Regions – CAVIAR: The Framework and Approach

Hovelsrud, Grete and Wandel, Johanna

This paper presents the underlying framework and methodology for the CAVIAR case study approach. CAVIAR an International Polar Year 2007-2008 Consortium consists of case studies undertaken in a number of Arctic communities across the circumpolar region. The case studies address how communities are vulnerable in the context of broad social, economic, environmental and political change, and seek to understand what determines, and how to improve the adaptive capacity of a community. CAVIAR is fundamentally interdisciplinary and conceptualizes vulnerability as a function of exposure-sensitivity and adaptive capacity to a complex set of interactive changes. Vulnerability is assessed by analyzing data and information gathered from community members (including local and traditional knowledge) as well as from regional/national institutional representatives, scientific research, and instrumental record. The CAVIAR approach to vulnerability is distinct in that it begins with an examination of which conditions (climatic and otherwise) are relevant for the community of interest (exposure-sensitivities) and how these have been managed in the past and are currently dealt with (adaptive strategies). Once this baseline of exposure-sensitivities and adaptive strategies is established, the approach focuses on what future exposure-sensitivities are expected, and what adaptive capacities exist, or can be built, to deal with these in the future. CAVIAR contributes, in a practical way, to identifying strategies which decrease future vulnerabilities. View Presentation.