The NOW Project: Living Resources and Human Societies in the North Water of the Thule Area

Posted on 28 February 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Bjarne Grønnow. The North Water (NOW) between the Thule area and Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic is an open water area all year – a polynya. Nutrient-rich sea-currents create an ‘oasis’ with an abundance of prey for hunters, and these rich living resources have formed the basis for human subsistence for millennia. The
Read more

China’s great power climate responsibility and the Arctic

Posted on 20 February 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Sanna Kopra. Despite scientific consensus on the multiple adverse effects of climate change, international negotiations on climate change have been slow and troublesome. In my previous study, I suggested that one reason for this has been the lack of great power leadership in international climate politics: Great powers have failed to acknowledge that with
Read more

Women in the Arctic and Antarctic

Posted on 8 February 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Danita Burke. My name is Danita Catherine Burke and I am an international politics and Arctic politics scholar with over 12 years of experience doing Polar research. I am from Newfoundland, Canada and I current live in Denmark. I have an undergraduate (honours) degree in Political Science with a minor in Business and a
Read more

Taking the Long View: Arctic Relations and the Historical Imperative

Posted on 5 February 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By John Woitkowitz. Speaking during the 2nd Arctic Science Ministerial in Berlin in October 2018, Georg Schütte, State Secretary for Education and Research made the case for Germany’s Arctic bona fides: “For a century and a half, we have conducted research at the North Pole. Over this period, we have gained a significant reputation. It is
Read more

Ny-Ålesund and the ascent of science on Svalbard

Posted on 1 February 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Eric Paglia. Svalbard is currently undergoing a significant socio-economic transition, with coalmining—once the primary economic activity and raison d’être for all Svalbard settlements—in rapid decline. Mining proved unprofitable for much of the coal era, while blackening Norway’s claims of enlightened stewardship of the Svalbard environment and damaging its international image as a country of
Read more

Writing an Introductory Textbook on the International Politics and Governance of the Arctic

Posted on 29 January 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Sebastian Knecht. Writing an introductory book on the international politics and governance of the Arctic region turned out to be much more difficult than my co-authors, Kathrin Stephen and Golo M. Bartsch, and I had previously anticipated. This had much to do with the format of a textbook-style introduction, but also with the current
Read more

The winding road of Arctic reality television

Posted on 28 January 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Derek Moscato. Canada’s 137 km Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway—built atop permafrost and traversing a polar landscape dotted with thousands of lakes and streams—just recently celebrated its one-year anniversary. In the years leading up to its construction, Canadians debated the merits of bridging the Arctic coastline to the rest of the country. Former Canadian Prime
Read more

Arctic on Fire

Posted on 18 January 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Edward Struzik.          In August 2017, a series of wildfires smouldered on the tundra near the town of Kangerlussuaq in Greenland. The biggest of these fires burned 3,000 acres. It was small by most wildfire standards, but enormous and unheard-of on a frigid island that is mostly covered by ice. The following summer, the normally
Read more

‘Peopling’ the Arctic

Posted on 18 January 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Ingrid Medby. When Arctic political relations make it into international news – often under a headline of competition or crisis – it is not unusual that the actors in these stories are states: The Arctic states ‘do’ this, ‘think’ that; the states compete and claim. This might be the language of media and everyday
Read more

Polar Entanglements: A new perspective to explain political dynamics in the Polar Regions

Posted on 18 January 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Dorothea Wehrmann. For a long time the Arctic and the Antarctic have been framed as “our planet’s last great frontiers”, as regions containing untapped resource reserves where the management of activities in a harsh “unforgiving” environment is also seen as contributing to a prestigious reputation. At present, with the experience of global climate change,
Read more