Globalization and the Circumpolar North 1602230781, 9781602230781

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Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved. Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:12.

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

G lobalization of the C ircumpolar North

Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:12.

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved. Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:12.

G lobalization and the C ircumpolar North

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

Edited by Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott

University of Alaska Press Fairbanks

Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:12.

© 2010 University of Alaska Press All rights reserved

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

University of Alaska Press P.O. Box 756240 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Globalization and the circumpolar North / edited by Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60223-078-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Globalization—Arctic regions. 2. Arctic regions—Economic conditions. 3. Arctic regions—Politics and government. 4. Arctic regions—Social conditions. 5. Social change—Arctic regions. I. Heininen, Lassi. II. Southcott, Chris. G735.G56 2010 303.48’2113—dc22 2009045143 Cover design by Dixon Jones, Rasmuson Library Graphics. Background map courtesy of Archives, Alaska and Polar Regions Collections, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks, RARE MAP G3210 [1740?] T57. Interior design and layout by Taya Kitaysky This publication was printed on acid-free paper that meets the minimum requirements for ANSI / NISO Z39.48-1992 (R2002) (Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials).

Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:12.

contents Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii 1 Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott 2 History of Globalization in the Circumpolar World. . . . . 23 Chris Southcott 3 Globalization and the Economies of the North. . . . . . . . . 57 Lee Huskey 4 Changing Forms of Governance in the North. . . . . . . . . . 91 Jerry McBeath

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5 Community Viability and Well-Being in the Circumpolar North. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Larisa Riabova 6 Epistemological Conflicts and Cooperation in the Circumpolar North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Mark Nuttall 7 Globalization and Traditional Livelihoods . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Elina Helander-Renvall 8 Globalization and Security in the Circumpolar North . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Lassi Heininen 9 Circumpolar International Relations and Cooperation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 Lassi Heininen Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 v Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:23.

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved. Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:23.

acknowledgements

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The editors would like to thank the authors for their contributions and patience. The reviewers of the initial manuscript made some excellent suggestions to improve the book and we thank them for their time and effort. The staff at University of Alaska Press have been exceptional and we would like to thank Elisabeth Dabney, Sue Mitchell, and Taya Kitaysky for their dedication to this project. We would also like to thank those individuals involved in the University of the Arctic: the organization that in many ways was the inspiration for this book, as well as the Northern Research Forum. Finally, the organization and editing for the book turned out to be more time consuming than we had thought it would be at the beginning of the project, and we are thankful for the understanding and support of our families during this period.

vii Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:30.

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved. Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-19 08:19:30.

globalization and the circumpolar north

An Introduction

1

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott

A new region has recently emerged in the world. Its geographical components have always existed, but its identity as a region is quite recent. It does not have a fixed border but is loosely defined as Alaska, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the northern areas of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Canada. It has had, and still has, many names. To some it is known as the Arctic; to others it is a combination of the Arctic and Subarctic and is referred to as the circumpolar north. Until recently it has been a frontier rather than a region. Since the 1970s, however, the notion of frontier has been pushed aside and replaced with the notion of homeland. The world outside this region has started to realize that people live here and that these people have aspirations to control their destiny in the same way that people in other regions have. Until recently this northernmost region of the globe was rarely mentioned or considered in the context of world affairs. Despite this, the circumpolar north has been an integrated part of the global economy for many years. Northern fishing grounds, whaling, and the fur trade were all global operations oriented around a European market. Mining and other resource exploitation operations were more often than not initially developed and organized as international operations by foreign companies to meet the demands of markets outside the region. 1

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Politically, the area was often the subject of conflicting national and international aspirations. It was the scene of some of the earliest global negotiations and, as seen in the Spitsbergen Treaty of 1920, some of the most innovative international political arrangements. With the end of the Cold War, the circumpolar north often finds itself at the center of world politics. Present indications are that this international attention will only intensify. At the same time that this new region is seen to be emerging onto the international stage, it is being exposed to an increasingly globalized world. Indeed, its recent development cannot be understood without reference to the influences often referred to as “the forces of globalization.” Despite this fact, there is surprisingly little written about the relationship between globalization and the circumpolar north. This book is an initial attempt to change this. The contributors describe the varying ways that globalization is transforming the region. By examining changes in the economic, political, and cultural aspects of communities, they point to changes that can be seen to have both negative and positive effects on northern communities. The impacts are highlighted in a manner that attempts to isolate not only the problematic aspects of globalization but also the potentially constructive opportunities. w hat is the circumpol ar north ?

The circumpolar north is many things to many people. It is a place that few people have visited but in which many people have an interest in—one interest based on a particular image they have of the region. When discussing the circumpolar north we have to deal with the many, often conflicting, notions that exist of the region (Young and Einarsson 2004). One important image sees the region as being primarily frozen, extreme, and exotic; another perceives the North as a sparsely populated frontier, a wild North, with new opportunities for settlers, or newcomers; yet another sees the circumpolar north metaphorically as a Klondike with rich natural resources and poor capital—a region to be exploited for the benefit of the nation. Until

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Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction

3

recently the region was seen by some primarily as a military theater and target area of military strategies. More recent images are related to the environmental importance of the region: as a “sink of pollutants” for long-range sea and air pollution, and recently as the first victim of global climate change. Correspondingly, the circumpolar north is also an object, either a laboratory or workshop, of the global scientific community. These visions emphasize that the circumpolar north is a periphery, albeit a strategic periphery, from the point of view of the major arctic nation-states. Recently, these types of visions have been countered by one that sees the circumpolar north first and foremost as a homeland for indigenous peoples with a long tradition, rich cultures, and resilience. In large part it is this last vision, helped no doubt by the decline in importance of the military vision, that has helped create the new vision of the circumpolar north as a platform for international and interregional cooperation and an area of region building. While it is relatively simple to list the metaphorical definitions of the circumpolar north, it is less easy to describe its geographical definitions. In this book, the authors do not take a definitive position on the region’s geographical limits. As mentioned above, for the purpose of this book, it is loosely defined as Alaska, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and the northern areas of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Canada. The region is characterized by several important physical and social conditions that affect the lives of the people who live there and make the region unique. While these conditions vary from place to place within the region, an overlap of many key characteristics have enabled this region to recognize itself as a unique entity. A cold climate, high latitudes with low levels of solar energy, limited biological diversity, the presence of ice and snow, and limited precipitation are key physical and biological elements used to define the region; isolation, limited forms of agriculture, dependence on natural resource exploitation, and lack of a diversified economy are key social elements (Hamelin 1979; Graham 1990). More recently, the importance of the indigenous population has emerged as a key factor in defining the region.

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Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott

The newly articulated visions stress that the circumpolar north is a distinctive and coherent international region with a policy agenda. New regional actors, lead by indigenous organizations, have helped bring this policy agenda to the world since the 1980s. Concerns relating to climate change, sustainable development, and indeed the impacts of globalization have helped bring circumpolar regional concerns to the global consciousness.

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w hat is globa liz ation ?

Globalization is often mentioned as an important issue facing the circumpolar north. When experts discuss the impacts of climate change on the region, they often note that climate change and globalization are perhaps the most important stressors in the region (IPPC 2001; ACIA 2004). It is not unusual to see declarations that all recent social, economic, and cultural change in the region is being influenced by, or is the result of, globalization. Yet very few studies have actually tried to look at the impact of globalization on the region in any sort of depth. For one, most academics involved in the region are engaged in the more practical aspects of environmental damage, political devolution, and economic development and as such have less time for abstract theoretical debates. Add this to the relatively recent period of time that academics have been considering the region as a whole, and the dearth is even more understandable. However, another reason may be that it is not a very well-defined concept. Arctic researchers may shy away from a term that, while important and popular, lacks analytical precision. As many commentators have already noted, globalization is perhaps the dominant new theoretical concept of the social sciences in the last fifteen years. As early as 1998 Zygmunt Bauman (1998, 1) was calling it a “fad word fast turning into a shibboleth, a magic incantation, a pass-key meant to unlock the gates to all present and future mysteries.” The term is not without its critics. Some deny the existence of globalization. According to Anthony Giddens (2002, 8), there are those who believe “the global econ-

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Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction

5

omy isn’t especially different from that which existed in previous periods. The world carries on much the same it has done for many years.” Giddens himself counters these arguments by noting that the level of world trade is much higher than it ever was before and that it involves a much wider range of goods and services (9). This trend, influenced heavily by changes in communications technologies that started in the 1960s, is having important technological, cultural, political, and economic impacts (Giddens 2002, 9–10; see also Castells 2000). In part, the term’s recent popularity is related to its vagueness. While there appears to be a general overlapping agreement that globalization is related to the compression of time and space and increased global interaction, there is considerable disagreement about the essential components of the trend, and even more disagreement about the impacts of the trend on nations and communities. Every month sees the publication of several books noting the positive impact that globalization is having on society, along with several books noting its negative impacts. Globalization refers to phenomena and systems that are truly worldwide in scale, such as the information and communication systems and technologies of the World Wide Web, or the development of world trade into global free markets and a global economy. Similarly, worldwide movements against global markets, as well as general changes such as global climate change and global economics, are also evidence of “globalization.” Thus, there are several types, or aspects, of globalization, including economic, political, cultural, and socioeconomic globalization and globalization of the environment. Interest in globalization as a concept developed quickly during the 1990s and does not seem to have faded over the past few years. The Social Sciences Citation Index records few mentions of the term in the 1980s but a rapid increase in use starting in 1992 (Sumner 2005, 15; Giddens 2002, 7). One could, however, argue that as a phenomenon globalization is not so new, since many things developed within a global scale prior to the coining of the word. These include, to name only a few, colonialism, the Second World War, television, pop music, Coca-Cola. What might be new about

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6

Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott

g­ lobalization at the beginning of the twenty-first century is the intensity of the trends and, ­correspondingly, the constant mobility on a global scale that accompanies this phenomenon—the seamless movement, crossing both time and place (including borders) without breaks (Heininen 2005, 95–96).

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globa liz ation a nd the circumpol ar north

As pointed out earlier few, if any, existing works have as their main objective to isolate the impacts of globalization on the circumpolar north. At the same time many works suggest potential impacts or discuss globalization as part of several forces affecting the region, without identifying the specific impacts caused by globalization. These statements have served as the backdrop for much of the discussion contained in this book and, as such, are deserving of some attention. Rather than list all of these works, it is perhaps more effective to borrow a general typology from others, and attempt to summarize the main points as they apply to potential impacts on the circumpolar north. While many different typologies exist, for our purposes we note that there are three main types of globalization: economic, political, and cultural. e c o n o m ic g l o b a l i z at i o n

Theories that stress the economic aspects of globalization appear to be the most common. One of the best summaries is provided in a brief prepared by the International Monetary Fund. According to this brief, economic globalization “refers to the increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial flows” (IMF 2000/2002, What is Globalization?, section 2). This integration is the result of the extension of market forces. “It refers to an extension beyond national borders of the same market forces that have operated for centuries at all levels of human economic activity— village markets, urban industries, or financial centers” (section 2).

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Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction

7

While noting a debate about the issue, the IMF is one of many international economic and business organizations that see this extension of market forces as being positive for society.

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Markets promote efficiency through competition and the division of labor—the specialization that allows people and economies to focus on what they do best. Global markets offer greater opportunity for people to tap into more and larger markets around the world. It means that they can have access to more capital flows, technology, cheaper imports, and larger export markets. (section 3) Circumpolar economies have often been seen as being under the control of national economic and political forces; northern societies have often been seen as internal economic colonies of national states and as having suffered because of this. Some see globalization as the continuation and extension of these forces. In the Arctic Human Development Report, Young and Einarsson (2004) mention that globalization has intensified the volatility of world markets for raw materials (e.g., oil and gas) and as such has intensified ­boom-­­and-bust cycles in many arctic communities. The narrow economic base of most arctic communities has made them vulnerable to actions on the part of outsiders who may not understand the impacts of their actions on northern communities. In this same report, Duhaime’s chapter on the state of the economic system discusses the negative impacts that the “forces of globalization,” such as recent neoliberal economic policies and privatization, are having on the Arctic (80). Lyck (2001) observes that for circumpolar regions to compete and be economically successful in the era of globalization, they have to develop sustainable competitive advantages. Aside from a few areas, it will be extremely difficult for circumpolar communities to develop these sustainable competitive advantages. Other works have pointed to the negative effects on northern regions of the globalization of the oil and gas industry (Standlea 2006). Some see the impact of economic globalization in even more negative terms. In a course module written for the University of the Arctic, Kailo and Sunnari (n.d., 5) state that

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Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott

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the dominant discourse surrounding free market globalisation emphasises economic growth, consumer based development, and the alleged trickle-down effect of wealth creation. The discourse conceals the fact that the corporate agenda behind globalisation concentrates power in unprecedented ways in the hands of multinational corporations and their predominantly North American and European, white male elite. For another researcher, Canada’s “northern settlements . . . are reeling from resource depletion, corporate consolidation, government cutbacks, and industry shutdowns. The reality for many in ‘the Majority World’ is grim, with little relief in sight. All in all, the consequences of corporate globalization are becoming a global disaster” (Sumner 2005, 30). While the negative aspects of change are acknowledged, others have a more nuanced vision of the impacts of economic globalization on the region. Some see globalization as an opportunity to break internal national colonialism and be better connected to the benefits of international markets (McMichael 1996). Others in the region, notably in the Russian North, have seen international economic forces as a positive event. In her analysis of socioeconomic changes occurring in rural Sahka, Crate (2003) notes many disruptions and problems linked to globalization. At the same time she stresses the capacity of the local population to use local resources in a manner that enables them to manage these changes. In his research on Russian reindeer herding in the post-Soviet economy, Anderson (2006) notes that while reindeer herders have had to adapt to the new economic situation, the “relationship between people and reindeer is a very sensitive indicator of globalisation.” At the same time, he argues that they have been able to use their unique skills to adapt to the influences of the new global economy. Others have pointed out how some urban areas of the circumpolar north have managed to adapt and harness the potential of economic globalization to the benefit of the region. Cooke’s (2001) analysis of economic development of Oulu, Finland, shows how

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Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction

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postsecondary education and new high-tech industries in the city have used the global economy to their advantage in a manner that is being replicated in other urban centers in northern Fennoscandia. While at this point it is perhaps too early to tell, recent events such as the 2008 economic recession, and in particular the economic meltdown in Iceland, may temper some of the enthusiasm of those who believe that economic globalization can be used to the advantage of northern centers.

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p o l i t ic a l g l o b a l i z at i o n

Those theories that discuss political globalization stress the internationalization of political activity. David Held and Anthony McGrew note three major aspects to political globalization. The first is the “institutionalization of a fragile system of multilayered global and regional governance” (n.d., Political Globalization section, 2). They note that the number of intergovernmental organizations has increased from thirty-seven at the beginning of the twentieth century to over three hundred at its end. “This multilateral system institutionalizes a process of political co-ordination amongst governments, intergovernmental and transnational agencies—public and private— designed to realize common purposes or collective goods through making or implementing global or transnational rules, and managing trans-border problems” (section 2). This has created the infrastructure of a global polity where “globalization itself is promoted, contested, and regulated” (section 2). Along with the rise of these institutions is the rise of transnational political activity. According to Held and McGrew, “in 1909 there were 371 officially recognized INGOs (from the International Chamber of Commerce, International Trades Unions, to the Rainforest Foundation), by 2000 there were in the region of 25,000” (section 3). We have seen a rapid rise in transnational communities of interest and political actors that work to shape the decisions of both international institutions and national states. The third aspect of political globalization noted by Held and McGrew is changes to the scope and content of international laws.

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Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott

They see the rise of a framework of “cosmopolitan law” that delimits the powers of national states: “In principle, states are no longer able to treat their citizens as they think fit. Although, in practice, many states still violate these standards, nearly all now accept general duties of protection and provision, as well as of restraint, in their own practices and procedures” (section 4). Not all commentators see limitations on the powers of nationstates in as positive a fashion as Held and McGrew. For many the most important political aspect of globalization is the “emasculation” of the powers of national government. Previously, the nation-state could serve as a counter to the negative aspects of the market. Increasingly, the dominance of neoliberal global economic logic restricts the ability of these states to play this role and, as a result, communities are being increasingly subjected to the violent inequalities of international market forces. The belief that globalization has increasingly placed limitations on the nation-state’s ability to support regional economic development and social welfare has been expressed by several researchers working in the North. Kailo and Sunnari (n.d., 5) see globalization as “deregulating, cutting social programs, downsizing government and privatising public services.…Cuts to social services have already resulted in the loss of many good jobs that women had, and a downward trend in wages and protections for women performing the same work in privatised settings.” The dismantling of the welfare state in Canada and Fennoscandia and the Soviet subsidy and support systems in northern Russia have had negative consequences for the region. Duhaime (2004, 81) notes that the Arctic’s traditional dependence on public service and transfer payments to deal with economic disruptions is being threatened and communities are being increasingly left on their own. Yet many have also commented on the seemingly positive impacts of political globalization on the region. A well-established literature exists on how during the 1990s political globalization helped establish the Arctic’s regional actors as important players in international relations (Young 2005; Heininen 2005; Keskitalo 2004). Indeed, one of the main contentions coming out of the Arctic Human

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Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction

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Development Report was that political globalization was producing positive results in the circumpolar north. Else Broderstad and Jens Dahl’s chapter (2004) on the political system stresses the positive impacts of decolonization and the growth of regional autonomy. An additional key trend is an increasing integration of indigenous affairs into mainstream local, national, and regional government institutions. “The main focus of this chapter is thus on the development of indigenous influence in the political systems of the Arctic” (Broderstad and Dahl 2004, 85). Nigel Bankes’s chapter (2004) on legal systems deals extensively with globalization’s impact on the Arctic and pursues three “basic themes” all noting the cosmopolitan benefits of an increased recognition of indigenous people’s rights, resource ownership, and the increased transfer of legal authority to regional governments. According to Bankes, the Arctic has benefited from a shift toward democracy and human rights, an increased emphasis on the rule of law, and a growing number of multilateral environmental initiatives.

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c u lt u r a l g l o b a l i z at i o n

Discussion of cultural globalization has been primarily limited to sociologists and anthropologists. The discussions are divided between those who stress the problems of cultural homogeneity brought on by globalization and those who stress the potential for cultural heterogeneity that this trend represents. The critics of homogeneity talk about the spreading of cultural codes throughout the world—cultural imperialism—either from the United States or from the West in general (Ritzer 2003). Multinational corporations promote a certain kind of consumerist culture, in which standard commodities, promoted by global marketing campaigns exploiting basic material desires, create similar lifestyles. Terms such as the “Coca-Colanization” of the world are often used. Backed by the power of certain states, Western ideals are falsely established as universal, overriding local traditions. In particular there is a belief that the United States exerts hegemonic influence in promoting its values and habits through popular culture and the news media.

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Lassi Heininen and Chris Southcott

Heterogeneity is stressed by those who see an increase in the ability of smaller cultures to bring their products to a wider market. Globalization means that local cultures provide more input to the main cultural discourse. Robertson talks about the importance of the “glocal,” while Friedman notes the rise of a “cultural pastiche” (Ritzer 2003). Cultural globalization leads to greater diversity. Interaction across boundaries leads to the mixing of cultures in particular places and practices. This promotes pluralization. Cultural flows occur differently in different spheres and may originate in many places. This leads to differentiation. Integration and the spread of ideas and images provoke reactions and resistance. This leads to contestation. Global norms or practices are interpreted differently according to local tradition; the universal must take particular forms. This leads to glocalization. Diversity has itself become a global value, promoted through international organizations and movements, not to mention nation-states. There is no shortage of observers who have mentioned the negative cultural impacts that Western culture has had on indigenous communities in the circumpolar north. The list of social pathologies linked to the destructive influence of outside cultural ideals includes high rates of suicide, violence, mental illness, and general poor health (Bjerregaard and Young 1998). Works such as Endangered Peoples of the Arctic highlight the global influences that are threatening the cultural survival of northern indigenous peoples (Freeman 2000). As Freeman states in his introduction, “Relentless globalizing influences, occurring in the most remote northern communities by way of television and other electronic technologies place a great pressure on native languages and the values that constitute an integral part of distinct cultures” (xiii). Industrial intrusions are threatening the respectful relationship between these indigenous communities and nature. The relationship is also threatened by the cultural imperialism of urban-based global animal-protection organizations which attempt to put an end to practices that are essential to the identity of arctic peoples (xv). Still, while the negative cultural aspects of global influences are admitted by many, quite a few researchers stress the positive impacts of cultural globalization. In his review of Endangered Peoples of the Arctic,

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Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction

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Cole (2002, 128) points to the need to acknowledge “the real benefits that have accompanied globalization, including improved medical care, a more reliable food supply, and access to modern conveniences that few groups would be willing or able to do without.” The results of the Circumpolar Coping Processes Project show many of the negative aspects of globalization mentioned above, but they also point out that northern localities are increasingly places of modernity—not only in living conditions and technology but in the minds of the people living in these communities. The Fordist/welfare society modernization of the North is changing, forcing the people of the region to “reflect upon what to do when faced by multiple pressures and challenges” (Aarsaether and Baerenholdt 2001, 17). Reflexive modernity is increasingly a part of these communities. This theme is repeated in the Arctic Human Development Report’s chapter on community viability. Aarsaether, Riabova, and Baerenholdt (2004) discuss the potentially negative impact of cultural globalization but counter that, in reality, these impacts may be producing positive effects. Local cultures, often based on the heritage of indigenous peoples, have been challenged by both national cultures and by a global entertainment culture. Within this context, a reassertion of indigenous culture has taken place, but also a redefinition of local identities in the wake of deindustrialization and with increasing awareness of ecological and cultural values. The development of hybrid or complex identities, in which individuals see themselves as a mix of traditional and modern elements, is a process that may lead to innovations in the business and public sectors, to individual mobility, and to new forms of political self-assertion (141). In the same work, in their chapter “Societies and Culture,” Csonka and Schweitzer (2004) discuss the impact of new communications technology on indigenous cultures. They concur with Marshall Sahlins’s observations regarding the third and fourth world that indigenous culture is not disappearing—“rather it is modernity that becomes indigenized” (51). In a similar manner to Robertson’s notions of glocalization, they note the culturally empowering influences of global changes. In each arctic region, there is a feeling of being distinct from regions further south, even where those regions are

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a­ djacent. Globalization increases worldwide connections, but the information and communications technology that fosters it is also used to intensify circumpolar connections. The emergence of a pan-arctic identity can be further encouraged (64).

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globa liz ation ’ s impact on the circumpol ar north

Many of the examples mentioned above highlight some aspect of globalization’s impact on the circumpolar north and often portray it in either a positive or negative light. Other statements by researchers relating to globalization fall outside of this typology, noting that globalization, often in concert with climate change has an effect that is difficult to determine (IPPC 2001; ACIA 2004). A consensus exists, then, that the phenomena known as globalization is an important source of change in the circumpolar north. While little research has been done on exactly how it is affecting arctic communities, a wide range of people have many ideas based on varying notions of globalization. They see a complex relationship between the “forces of globalization” and the way they have affected northern communities. Both negative and positive impacts are clearly distinguished by most experts on the region. What is needed is a work that explicitly examines globalization’s impacts from a wide range of notions of globalization in a manner that does not attempt to hide these complex relationships. It is hoped that such a work will not only stimulate an interest in further investigations of these complex relationships but also show that evaluating globalization in the Arctic will add much to a better understanding of global change in general. This book is an attempt to achieve this. Each chapter examines some aspect of social change occurring in the circumpolar north from the specific perspective of globalization. The authora try to achieve this by examining changes from their own area of expertise and using their own conceptualization of globalization. In chapter 2 Chris Southcott offers a historical context, dividing the history

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Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction

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of the region into several periods based on the dominant economic system in use. He notes that global relations are not new to the circumpolar north: during premodern hunting and gathering societies, economic links to other regions and societies existed but these links were neither continuous nor constant. They were often based on the needs of the circumpolar peoples. During preindustrial colonialism, a historical period characterized most vividly by the fur trade, these links became more regular and became dominated by the demands of outside markets. Despite this, preindustrial colonialism did not destroy the traditional hunting and gathering economy but transformed that system to meet the needs of European economic demand. Under industrialism, the North became a fully integrated part of the West. Settler communities were established in the region to serve the resource needs of the industrialized center. Indigenous communities became marginalized. Industrialism integrated the North into the West to the extent that the North as a distinct society became threatened. Southcott concludes by noting that if globalization does represent the emergence of a new type of development, it could mean the intensification of industrialism. It could also, however, represent new opportunities for these communities. Lee Huskey’s chapter deals with the economic challenges that northern communities are experiencing under globalization. He points out that the North has long been characterized by two economies—the international and the local. The international economy is one of large-scale production for worldwide markets, while the local economy is subsistence activities for local consumption. While the impact of globalization is most evident in the international economy, the two are closely connected. The intensification of resource development under global economic forces is creating conflict between nonrenewable activities and the renewable traditional economy. Yet despite these conflicts, the traditional economy remains strong. In addition, new institutional changes are bringing about a greater degree of local ownership, which gives northern communities new power to deal with the possible negative impacts of increased global economic developments. These institutional changes are detailed in Jerry McBeath’s chapter on the changing forms of governance in the North. While

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g­ lobalization brings the threat of increased dependency, political changes have increased northern peoples’ abilities to manage these threats. Over the past three decades northerners have increased their ability to govern themselves, or their political capability, through various means. Indigenous peoples have fought for and succeeded in gaining recognition of their collective rights. Constitutional interpretations in northern nations have become more supportive of increased power for subnational units. The global democratization movement has also ensured that increased support for self-government objectives. The chapter describes in detail the various forms that these trends have taken in the different regions of the circumpolar north. Globalization presents northern communities with many challenges and opportunities as far as viability and well-being is concerned. Larisa Riabova notes that globalization has helped increase the exposure of northern residents to unstable market forces and has forced national states to decrease their support for social services in these communities. Yet while these responsibilities are being downloaded onto northern communities, certain opportunities are created. A certain amount of local empowerment is created that gives communities the potential tools to mobilize themselves to face the challenges of globalization. Riabova points out that a community’s ability to manage the negative impacts of globalization depends on its ability to mobilize various forms of capital—especially local social capital and its political forms. One of the most evident forms of conflict concerning the North is that over knowledge. Mark Nuttall discusses these conflicts and their relation to globalization. Global forces have increasingly challenged the cultural base of northern indigenous peoples, yet these same forces have given these peoples the means to counter these challenges. Nuttall discusses how both the positive and the negative aspects of globalization struggle over issues such as climate change, wildlife management, and animal rights. Globalization brings forces of epistemological homogenization based on Western scientific notions, but it also brings opportunities for northern indigenous peoples “to become aware of the extent of social change, to become conscious of their own identities, and to articulate their own sense of cultural distinctiveness” (­Nuttall, page 153, this volume).

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Globalization and the Circumpolar North: An Introduction

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Indigenous peoples of the circumpolar north experience globalization differently. Elina Helander-Renvall’s chapter examines the impacts of globalization on two particular groups of indigenous peoples: the Sea Sami of Tana Fjord in northern Norway and the Nenets reindeer herders of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. She notes that in the recent past both groups have been experiencing many economic and identitybased difficulties, but globalization has also offered them the tools to start countering the sources of these difficulties. The Sea Sami have been able to mobilize global influences to put pressure on the national government so that their voices could be heard. Nenets reindeer herders are unable to use the global forces to the extent that the Sea Sami have, but even they have been able to mobilize certain new forces of globalization to deal with the challenges they face. Since the Second World War the circumpolar north has been at the center of discussions about global security. The militarization of the region during the Cold War meant that the North served an important purpose for military security as it acted as both a buffer zone and a primary line of defense between the two superpowers. In the post– Cold War period, new global forces have transformed the relationship between the North and the notion of security. While military concerns remain important, new security concerns have arisen. In chapter 8 Lassi Heininen describes this new situation and shows how the forces of globalization have ensured that environmental and energy concerns are now also important security concerns in the circumpolar north. International relations have been significantly affected by these new security forces. In chapter 9 Heininen outlines how globalization has influenced the development of new trends in international relations in the region. These include increasing circumpolar cooperation by indigenous peoples’ organizations and subnational governments, region building, and a new relationship between the circumpolar north and the outside world. It is too early to say whether these trends will serve to truly empower the people of the region, but over the past twenty years the position of the circumpolar north in international relations has been greatly strengthened. Almost all the chapters in this book point out that globalization is bringing problems to the North and has the ­potential to

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bring more. Globalization represents an intensification of many of the negative effects resulting from modernity and industrialization. Intensification of resource development in the North as a result of globalization increases the conflicts between international economic forces and those of the local land-based economy. New conflicts surrounding the issues of energy security have the potential to develop. In many instances globalization means increased dependency of local interests on external powers and unstable markets. Politically it has meant a weakening of a nation-state’s ability to protect its northern communities from these new threats. Culturally, globalization brings with it increasing threats to the traditional ways of life of northern indigenous peoples—threats that have been linked to many social pathologies that northern communities currently experience. At the same time, all the chapters stress that the forces of globalization have also brought about many opportunities for northern communities. Globalization is linked to a new political and cultural empowerment of northern peoples and to a distinct improvement in their conditions under previous forms of national colonialism. To quote Helander-Renvall in chapter 7, “local actors resist the effects of globalization, and they adapt to globalization by using the same tool kit that globalization uses.…[I]ndigenous peoples increasingly adopt modern goods and images and make them fit into local marine and terrestrial activities and overall indigenous particularities” (page 207). Few researchers studying the North are prepared to state that globalization has been good for northern communities. At the same time, they are often prone to note that under globalization, northern peoples have the potential to do things that they were never able to do previously. r efer ences

Aarsaether, N., and J. O. Baerenholdt, eds. 1998. Coping Strategies in the North: Local Practices in the Content of Global Restructuring. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. ———. 2001. The Reflexive North. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers.

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Aarsaether, Nils, Larissa Riabova, and Jørgen Ole Baerenholdt. 2004. “Community Viability.” In Arctic Human Development Report, 139–153. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. ACIA. 2004. Impacts of a Warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anderson, D. G. 2006. “Is Siberian Reindeer Herding in Crisis? Living with Reindeer Fifteen Years after the End of State Socialism.” Nomadic Peoples 10(2):87–97. Arctic Council. 2004. Arctic Human Development Report. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Baerenholdt, J. O., and N. Aarsaether, eds. 2001. Transforming the ­Local: Coping Strategies and Regional Policies. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. Bankes, N. 2004. “Legal Systems.” In Arctic Human Development ­Report, 101–117. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Bauman, Z. 1998. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bjerregaard, Peter, and T. Kue Young. 1998. The Circumpolar Inuit: Health of a Population in Transition. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Broderstad, E. G., and J. Dahl. 2004. “Political Systems.” In Arctic Human Development Report, 85–99. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Castells, M. 2000. The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Cole, Terrence. 2002. “Review of Endangered Peoples of the Arctic: Struggles to Survive and Thrive.” Journal of American Ethnic History 21(2):127–129. Cooke, P. 2001. Knowledge Economies: Clusters, Learning and ­Co-Operative Advantage. New York: Routledge. Crate, S. A. 2003. “Viliui Sakha Post-Soviet Adaptation: A Subarctic Test of Netting’s Smallholder-Householder Theory.” Human Ecology 31(4):499–510. Csonka, Yvon, and Peter Schweitzer. 2004. “Societies and Cultures: Change and Persistence.” In Arctic Human Development ­Report, 45–67. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Duhaime, Gerard. 2004. “Economic Systems.” In Arctic Human ­Development Report, 69–83. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute.

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Freeman, Milton M.R., ed. 2000. Endangered Peoples of the Arctic: Struggles to Survive and Thrive. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Giddens, Anthony. 2002. Runaway World: How Globalization Is Reshaping Our Lives. New York: Routledge. Graham, Amanda. 1990. “Indexing the Canadian North: Broadening the Definition.” Northern Review 6 (Winter):21–37. Hamelin, Louis-Edmond. 1979. Canadian Nordicity: It’s Your North, Too. Montreal: Harvest House. Heininen, Lassi. 2005. “Impacts of Globalization, and the Circumpolar North in World Politics.” Polar Geography 29(2):91–102. Held, David, and Anthony McGrew. n.d. Globalization, Entry for Oxford Companion to Politics, http://www.polity.co.uk/ global/globocp.htm (accessed March 2, 2005). International Monetary Fund. 2000 [Corrected 2002]. Globalization: Threat or Opportunity? http://www.imf.org/external/np/ exr/ib/2000/041200.htm#I (accessed March 2, 2005). IPCC. 2001. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report: Climate Change 2001. Arendal, Norway: GRID Arendal. Kailo, Kaarina, and Vappu Sunnari. n.d. BCS 332 Module 7: “Women and Gender Relations in the North,” http://www.uarctic.org/ bcs/BCS332/Module_7.pdf (accessed February 10, 2005). Keskitalo, E. C. 2004. Negotiating the Arctic: The Construction of an International Region. New York: Routledge. ———. 2008. Climate Change and Globalization in the Arctic: An Integrated Approach to Vulnerability Assessment. London: Earthscan. Lyck, L. 2001. “Arctic Economies and Globalisation.” In North Meets North. Proceedings of the First Northern Research Forum, 68–71. Akureyri and Bessastaðir, Iceland: Stefansson Arctic Institute and University of Akureyri. McMichael, P. 1996. “Globalization: Myths and Realities.” Rural Sociology 61(2):25–55. Ritzer, George. 2003. Modern Sociological Theory, 6th ed. Toronto: McGraw-Hill. Standlea, D. 2006. Oil, Globalization, and the War for the Arctic Refuge. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Sumner, Jennifer. 2005. Sustainability and the Civil Commons: Rural Communities in the Age of Globalization. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Young, Oran. 2005.” Governing the Arctic: From Cold War Theater to Mosaic of Cooperation.” Global Governance 11(1):9–15. Young, Oran, and Niels Einarsson. 2004. “Introduction: Human Development Report in the Arctic.” In Arctic Human Development Report, 15–25. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute.

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history of globalization in the circumpolar world

2

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Chris Southcott

Globalization is not new to the circumpolar north. For a long time now the vast majority of northern communities have been under the influence of economic forces based outside the region. As stated in the introductory chapter, one of the often mentioned negative aspects of economic globalization is the loss of local control. For many northerners, local control has not been a reality for centuries. The Canadian economist Harold Innis noted that Canadian economic development was largely determined by its dependence on staples— raw, unprocessed natural resources (Innis 1961, 385). Dependence on these staples led to a situation where the Canadian economy was subject to the demands of external markets and centers of power. Staples production meant that the region where staples were harvested became a hinterland to a dominant and external heartland. A situation of social, political, and economic dependence was established around the particular staple being exploited. This situation was seen to be even more apparent in the Canadian North. While Innis’s theories were applied primarily to Canada, they could also apply to other areas of the circumpolar north where economic change was dependent on staples exploitation. Innis’s theories clearly imply that the negative impacts identified as part of globalization have existed in the circumpolar north for hundreds of years. Still, it can be argued that, economically speaking, this lack of local control has 23

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Chris Southcott

intensified under recent globalization trends. This is in seeming contradiction to political trends which appear to represent an increase in northern self-government and empowerment. In this chapter we will look at the history of the circumpolar economy in an attempt to better understand current trends. Dealing with the circumpolar world as a totality is a difficult thing to do. The different areas of the region have been exposed to different imperial and national traditions that make it seemingly impossible to talk about the region as sharing in any sort of common history. Yet while there are national differences in the region, there are also a remarkable number of historical similarities. These similarities are linked in large part to common economic systems that characterized the region at different periods of time, each of which has left its mark on communities in the different areas of the North in varying ways. The similarities of these systems across the region lead one to attempt to see a common pan-arctic political economy. This chapter will attempt to analyze the evolution of global forces on the Arctic using a general historical categorization based on a temporal succession of economic systems. While attempting to avoid the construction of a new metanarrative, the chapter looks to common historic economic structures as a way of understanding the cumulative impact of global forces on circumpolar communities. Certainly, each system is structured in a way that makes it difficult to state that all are part of the same system. Still, similarities in past hunting and gathering societies are found across the circumpolar north that make it possible to construct, for analytical purposes, what Max Weber (1904/2001) called “ideal types” that allow us to see similar underlying historical structures. Likewise, the fur trade came at varying times in different periods and in different forms. Still, it is possible to isolate common elements that affected communities across the circumpolar north. The exploitation of industrial staples needed by industrialism varied from place to place, but its impacts were shared. We can thus presume that the common application of new international political, economic, cultural, and communicational relations will leave similar footprints across the circumpolar north.

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History of Globalization in the Circumpolar World

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One way to understand these cumulative impacts in a circumpolar perspective is to see the modern economies of circumpolar communities as the accumulation of several layers of earlier economic systems. This perspective is inspired by the earlier work of Tim ­Ingold (1980, 2), who traced the shift of reindeer-herding peoples in the circumpolar north through three separate “modes of production,” which he labeled hunting, pastoralism, and ranching. He showed how the hunting mode, where no one owned either reindeer or land, was transformed into the pastoral mode, where someone owned the reindeer but not the land, and then transformed into the rancher mode, where someone owned the reindeer and controlled the land. Ingold pointed out that social relations were both determined by and affected these modes. While Ingold used the term mode of production in relation to reindeer harvesting, this author is less convinced that the entire economy of the circumpolar world can be reduced to an integrated deterministic theoretical system suggested by modes of production. As a result, the chapter refers to the much more open concept of economic systems. Within each, one can see similarities in the accompanying social relations but with a great deal of variations. In the classical Marxian sense, a mode of production does not build on a previous mode of production. It eliminates it altogether. The argument in this chapter, as was originally suggested by Ingold, is that the contemporary economic structures of circumpolar communities are not universally controlled by one specific mode of production. Rather, each historical economic system leaves an imprint which continues to influence later systems. One particular economic system can be dominant, but previous economic systems continue to exercise influence (Southcott 2003). While rejecting Ingold’s use of mode of production as our main historical typology, the chapter does endorse his evolutionary perspective. It is possible to see general common historical evolutions throughout the history of circumpolar communities. These changes are not necessarily inevitable or unilinear. Still, it is possible to see a general historical change in circumpolar communities as they went from hunting and gathering to fur harvesting and to industrial resource exploitation.

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This discussion of the historical development of globalization in circumpolar communities sees these communities as the cumulative result of several ideal-type layers of economic systems. The first layer is a system we can call a traditional hunting and gathering economy. The second layer is a system that we can refer to as preindustrial colonialism. The third layer can be called industrialism (or modernization). The fourth and most recent layer, discussed in the subsequent chapters of this work, is that of globalization. The current economy in any one region of the circumpolar world is the product of a combination of these layers. Although the importance of every layer varies from region to region, most are affected in one way or another by each of these layers. In this chapter we attempt to describe the gradual evolution of relations between communities in the circumpolar world and global forces leading up to the current period of globalization.

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the tr a ditiona l hunting a nd gathering econom y

The hunting and gathering economy was the first economic system in the circumpolar region. It has received quite a bit of attention from ethnologists and anthropologists in both its current and past forms. For our purposes it is enough to point out that it is the most common economic system among the indigenous peoples of the region, and it is still practiced to varying degrees by most of them. In the circumpolar north the traditional hunting and gathering economy has always existed in many forms but can be generalized as four main subtypes: inland hunting and fishing, maritime hunting, horse and cattle breeding, and reindeer breeding (Golovnev n.d.). For the purposes of this chapter, horse and cattle breeding can be excluded from the definition of a traditional hunting and gathering economy.1 Each subtype varied and evolved based on climate, environment, cultural particularities, and intensity of outside contact. According to Golovnev, chronologically, inland hunting and fishing was the first subtype to exist in the circumpolar region. It depended on a combination of activities.

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The inland hunting-fishing type used various methods of foraging (hunting, trapping, fishing, gathering). Ethnographically, they are represented in Siberia by the Yukagir, Nganasan, Ket, Selkup, Mansi, Khanty, Evenk, Even, Itelmen, Nivkh, Nanaitsy, Negidaltsy, Ulchi, Udege, and Orochi; in Northern America by inland Eskimo, Algonquian and Athabaskian groups. Their semi-nomadic life style demanded light, transportable lodges for housing, such as conical tents, including chum (West and Central Siberia), urasi (Yukagir), and tepee (American Indian), which consisted of poles bound together at the upper end, and covered with skin (mostly reindeer) in winter and bark (mostly birch) in summer. Dugouts were often used for winter housing. Means for transportation included skis, snowshoes, sleds, and boats. Clothing was made of fur and animal skin, birds’ feathers, and fish skin. (5, 6)

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On the other hand, maritime hunting was based on different patterns of subsistence, was practiced along the sea coasts of the region, and depended heavily on fishing: Maritime hunting, typical for coastal cultures, emerged in the areas favourable for hunting big sea mammals like walrus, whale, and seal, though this subsistence pattern was also based on exploiting a wide range of animals . . . . Peoples of the Siberian north-east and the American north-west represented this economic type: Chukchi, Koryak, Aleut, Inuit, Yupik, Itelmen. The main features of their cultures were living in stationary, year-round settlements in dugouts or semiunderground houses (Yupik and Aleut) and seasonal dwellings like the Chukchi yaranga or the Eskimo igloo. Some groups used dog sleds, boats of different types (kayak, baydara, twin boat) for transportation.

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­ istorically, mediaeval Scandinavians, Saami, and H ­Nenets shared traits of this type. (6) Reindeer herding was the last variation to the hunting and gathering economy, and it straddles both this and later types (Ingold 1980, 83). Originally reindeer were used as part of a “foraging subsistence pattern” (Golovnev n.d., 6). They were not purposely raised for food as in the modern era. Their main purpose was for transportation and as decoys to attract wild reindeer. Herding was an adaptation that occurred with increased exposure to outside influences. In this sense it is difficult to talk of reindeer herding until at least the Middle Ages (Krupnik 1993, 161). While there is evidence of relatively large herds of domesticated reindeer among the Sami as early as the ninth century, in Russia it appeared to occur much later. According to Krupnik, at the time of Russian contact in the 1600s, “a complex subsistence system dominated by hunting and fishing, and supplemented by small-scale reindeer breeding prevailed among most of the inhabitants of the Eurasian tundra” (ibid.). The hunting and gathering economic system is seen as the one that, while not benign, has the least negative environmental impact. It is the economic system that, in most cases, is portrayed as giving the indigenous communities the greatest autonomy from outside human interference, an autonomy often compromised by a heavy dependence on environmental conditions. This autonomous aspect of traditional hunting and gathering economies is a perspective that has permeated and tantalized the Western imagination for centuries, if not millennia. The Marxian vision of human freedom under primitive communism, often juxtaposed to the Hobbesian vision of the state of nature, has influenced perceptions of hunting and gathering societies. Since the 1970s, ­Brody’s (1973) vision of Inuit life as being fundamentally different from other types of societies has been very influential. Associated with the notion of autonomy from inequalities is also a notion of general autonomy from outside human relations. Hunting and gathering societies are often analyzed as being isolated from other societies. In the North especially, geography serves as a barrier to nonlocal

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influences prior to the rise of European colonialism. This vision of an autonomous existence has been criticized by anthropologists, such as Eric Wolf (1982), who have argued that it is an illusion to view foraging societies as having been isolated from the larger historical changes in human societies. Recent research work points to a more complex situation, one in which indigenous communities in the circumpolar region were often in contact with other peoples and empires prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Recent archaeological work suggests the need for new theories of Inuit migrations into North America. McGhee (2004, 119) suggests that about two thousand years ago, the ancestors of the modern-day Inuit were heavily involved in the iron trade between China’s Han Empire and other northern peoples. According to McGhee, “The Old Bering Sea people, the earliest group that we can identify as Eskimo, seem to have built not only a surprisingly rich hunting society exploiting the abundant resources of the Bering Sea, but a complex society of entrepreneurs engaged in what must have been an extremely profitable and competitive commercial enterprise” (120). The arrival of the early Inuit into North America, often referred to as the Thule migration, was not simply the result of a natural spread of whale hunters into a new region that had resulted from to them as a result of changing climates. McGhee suggests that the migration was actually tied to the discovery of iron in the eastern Arctic, which would be valuable for trading. Likewise, their migration to Greenland can be linked to a desire for iron made available by the early Norse inhabitants. Slezkine (1994, 7) has pointed out that the arrival of the Russians in Siberia did not mark the first time that the indigenous peoples of the region were exposed to external powers or markets. Commercial relations with southern and western merchants were an important part of these societies, and long-term commercial alliances were fairly widespread. According to Slezkine, one reason the Russians were able to conquer Siberia so easily was that the indigenous people were already paying furs in tribute to the existing rulers, descendents of the Golden Horde, and as such it made little difference to them whom they were paying tribute to (13). Forsyth (1992) describes the

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s­ uccessive invasions of Turkic and Mongol peoples into Siberia prior to the Cossack incursions. Armstrong (1965, 9) has detailed evidence of trade between indigenous peoples in northern European Russia and Slavs starting in the sixth century. In northern Fennoscandia, the Sami-Norse relations were established at least as early as the ninth century AD and probably before (Thuen 1995, 25). Ingold (1976, 1) has noted that “strong linguistic similarities between Lappish and Finnish bear witness to centuries of close contact.” This contact must have started prior to the formation of Lappish as an oral language. Beach has noted that while the Sami language indicates a substantial degree of autonomy in its development, there has also been a fairly constant degree of interaction with other peoples and civilizations. According to Beach (1993, 5), “The Saami language itself provides evidence of long isolated development in the north. . . . Since historical times, however, the Saami have mingled and intermarried with Swedes, Norwegians, Finns, and Karelians.” The above discussion leads us to see that the image of premodern hunting and gathering societies living independently of outside influences is overly simplistic. While their relative degree of separation from these forces was much more extreme than many other societies, they did have historical links to global economic systems. These links were neither continuous nor constant. They traded for goods when convenient or when forced to. Most of their activities were devoted to their own particular sustenance rather than the needs of a global market. This changed considerably with the rise of furs as a market commodity. pr eindustria l colonia lism

The creation of a demand for furs in a market largely controlled by Europeans had a profound impact on northern communities. The fur trade introduced a new system of relations to the circumpolar world that can best be called preindustrial colonialism.2 Under this system, the circumpolar region came to be much more influenced by outside forces: forces shaped by the economic demands of primarily Euro-

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pean peoples. Colonization meant that the indigenous populations of the region became more directly subjected to the demands of the colonizing power. Europe became the center of economic decision making, while the circumpolar regions, along with other areas of the world, became the periphery, the subservient region. This economic system was made up of several key elements, including the fur trade, whaling, European settlement, and the transformation of reindeer herding. The unique aspect of this particular system was that it introduced European domination while maintaining some aspects of traditional activities. Preindustrial colonialism did not put an end to the traditional hunting and gathering economy. It transformed that system to meet the needs of European and other consumers. The time frame for the start of this new economic system in the circumpolar region varied from place to place. As early as the tenth century AD, the princes of Novgorod came to dominate the indigenous peoples of northwest Russia. Arab sources record a Slav trade in northern sables as early as 912 (Armstrong 1965, 10). The White Sea littoral is listed as a possession of Novgorod as early as 1137 and the Kola Peninsula somewhat later. While Novgorod’s interests were primarily related to fur, by the thirteenth century Slav peasants had started to settle and fish in the White Sea area, also known as Pomor’ye, or the seashore. Often they were fugitives from invading Tatars or Novgorod. These peasants were followed by monastic communities. This period also saw the steady incursion of the Finnish and Scandinavian peoples into the lands of the Sami. Icelandic sagas talk of incursions of Scandinavians into Lapp areas as early as the second half of the ninth century in order to collect taxes on behalf of the King of Norway (Collinder 1949, 13). Karelians were also believed to have made incursions into northern Fennoscandia shortly thereafter. Until 1326 and the signature of a peace treaty between Norway and Novgorod, this period was marked by competing control of the area between Norway and Karelia. Yet it was especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that colonization of the circumpolar region occurred. Furs were the major driving force behind these incursions. The end of the sixteenth

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century saw the Russian Cossacks crossing the Urals into Sibir and moving quickly across it in search of furs extracted from the indigenous peoples of the region. Furs were central to the development of Russia starting in the fifteenth century. According to Forsyth (1992, 40):

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From the middle of the fifteenth century onward the prosperity and pomp of Renaissance Europe created a great demand for luxury goods, including furs. . . . It was the ability of Moscovite Rus to engage in this trade, especially after it had crushed and enveloped Novgorod, that gave it its principal commodity of foreign exchange, and provided the means for purchasing goods from abroad which Russia lacked, such as precious metals, textiles, fire-arms, lead, sulfur, tin etc. . . . It was also in terms of furs that the Tsars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were able to display their munificence in relations with other countries. The opening up of Siberia created a “fur fever” in Russia comparable to the North American gold rush of the nineteenth century (ibid.). From 1585 to 1680 the total number of sable and other furs obtained in Siberia amounted to tens of thousands per year, and their value represented 10 percent of the total state income. The desirability of these furs, in particular sable, meant that newly conquered areas of Siberia were quickly exhausted of furs. When this happened the Russians would look for new areas farther east. According to Forsyth, this more than anything else explains the rapidity with which the Russians conquered Siberia (41). Slezkine (1994) has described the impact of the Russian conquest and harvest of furs on the indigenous people of Siberia. Russian officials were directed to ensure that the indigenous people of the region accepted the sovereignty of the czar. Once this was obtained, communities were obligated to pay iasak, a tribute in furs, to the czar every year. While positive enticements were the preferred method of obtaining both loyalty and tribute to the czar, violence was also used. Creating a dependence on Russian goods was a very

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effective way of ensuring loyalty. Indeed, although the Russians considered the yearly delivery of iasak as a form of taxation, many indigenous peoples saw it as a form of trade. When they delivered the furs to the tribute collectors, they were often rewarded by return gifts of Russian goods. These goods included such things as sugar and vodka. When the Russians conquered Siberia they took over preexisting colonial relations. Fur tribute existed prior to their arrival and as such did not represent anything new to many of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. At the same time the Russian appetite for furs was considerably larger than that of previous rulers, and this had an impact on traditional societies. More time was spent on fur harvesting and less on other activities—at least until the fur supply was exhausted. Russian colonialism also brought other obligations. Iasak-paying peoples were often obliged by the state to wage war on non-iasak-paying peoples. Forced labor was another form of tribute extracted from these communities. Traditional societies were also considerably affected by both increased dependence on Russian goods and attempts to convert them to Christianity. While the societies were able to maintain some vestiges of their previous way of life, they were significantly transformed by Russian colonialism. The increased European demand for furs that led to the Russian conquest of Siberia also attracted other countries to the fur trade. At roughly the same time that the Russians were crossing the Urals into Siberia, the French had started to develop a fur trade in northern Canada. Indigenous peoples such as the Ottawas and the Hurons had started trading with the French as early as 1550, bringing furs from the interior to the rendezvous at Tadoussac in the northern part of the St. Lawrence Valley. At first the Algonquinspeaking ­Ottawas dominated this trade as they controlled the route to the north and west by way of the Ottawa River. As early as 1603 they sought a more formal alliance with the French to protect their position in the trade (Rich 1967, 8). The Ottawa, and later the Hurons, would trade European goods for furs with the more northern and westerly tribes and then transport these furs, along with their own, for trade at Tadoussac and later Lachine.

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This control of trade was jealously protected. When the French indicated a desire to travel farther west themselves, the Ottawas attempted to dissuade them and refused to help them. The Hurons would take them as far as Lake Huron but no farther. This refusal, combined with ongoing conflicts with the Iroquois and internal administrative issues in France, kept the French bottled up in the St. Lawrence Valley until the later part of the seventeenth century; this despite the fact some French wanted to push west in order to further imperial ambitions, find a route to the Pacific, and increase fur trade profits by cutting out their Ottawa and Huron partners. By the 1640s the defeats incurred by the Huron at the hands of the Iroquois meant that new partners emerged in the fur trade. Among these new partners of the French were a number of ­Algonquin-speaking peoples, including the Ojibwa. Although these new tribes brought more direct knowledge of the north to the French, there remained two main obstacles to the movement of the French into the region. One was the continuing hostilities with the Iroquois. The second was the attempt by the Canadian-based administrators of the fur trade to strictly regulate the trade. These regulations were important as profits from the fur trade were the only resources available to pay for the defense of French settlements against the Iroquois (Rich 1967, 18). Despite the noble intentions of the regulations, the fact that much money could be made from the trade meant that many of the inhabitants engaged in smuggling and illegal trade. It is generally thought that the first Europeans to have visited the region north of the Great Lakes were the fur traders and explorers Radisson and Groseilliers. In 1659 they left New France on an unauthorized journey west in search of furs and geographical information. After wintering with the Sioux in the forests of Wisconsin, and there making contact with Crees from the north, they claimed to have traveled to the north shore of Lake Superior in the spring of 1660 (Nute 1978). The fact that they also claimed to have traveled to James Bay and back to Montreal by late summer of 1660, a trip impossible to do during that time frame, means that they might not have visited the region at all. They might have gotten much of their information about the region from the Crees they met on the south shore of Lake

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Superior. Their claims, however, started the French push into the subarctic areas of the Canadian north. Whether or not Radisson and Groseilliers actually visited the area in 1660, they certainly did have an important influence on the region. It was they who were largely responsible for getting the English established in the Canadian north. Their claim that there existed a profitable northern route to the fur-bearing regions of the Canadian interior did not spark much interest among the French—but it did interest the English, who had been gathering quite a bit of information about Hudson’s Bay since 1509. For much of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the English had been interested in the area as a possible northwest passage to the Orient. Unlike the French, the English were not interested in the potential of the region for furs. To quote Rich (1967, 22), “their interests were in silks and a passage to the East, not in furs and possession of the frozen lands in which (if they were unfortunate) they were forced to winter.” This attitude began to change in 1629, when Huguenot refugees from France started a felting industry in England. At this time the economic potential of producing felt from beaver pelts, an activity that had been jealously guarded, became apparent. When Radisson and Groseilliers went to England in 1665 to promote their idea of a northern sea-based ­fur-trading venture they found an interested audience. It is interesting that the investors who backed Radisson and Groseilliers in their early voyages to Hudson’s Bay were not the people who would expect to profit from the fur trade. Despite the two French adventurers’ obvious fixation with Hudson’s Bay as a source of cheap furs, the people who came forward in a loose syndicate in 1667 to back them had a variety of interests. The advancement of science and of empire and a northwest trade route to the East were some reasons the initial investors sought support for the project. Despite these intentions, it was the quest for furs which quickly came to dominate their interests. In 1667 Radisson and Groseilliers received a royal commission, which gave them the control of trade in whatever lands they may discover. After some delay due to a war with Holland, the initial voyage into Hudson’s Bay set out in 1668. The crew was forced to spend the winter in James Bay at the mouth of the Rupert

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Chris Southcott

River, where they constructed a small post. They returned to England in 1669 with enough furs to ensure a profit for the original investors. In the meantime the loose syndicate of investors had solidified into a more closely knit company which included some of the more powerful men in England at the time. They sought and obtained in 1670 a royal charter that made them “true and absolute Lordes and Proprietors” of all the lands in the drainage basin of Hudson’s Bay (Rich 1967, 30). The newly formed Hudson’s Bay Company established itself at the mouth of a large river flowing into Hudson’s Bay and James Bay, where its oceangoing ships could find a safe harbor, and waited for indigenous people to bring furs via the interior river systems. This trading system had an immediate impact on the French trading system, as furs normally sent southeast were now diverted to James Bay as Natives sought out better prices and better goods for their furs. This led to a system of competition that was to last until the 1820s. Despite attempts by the French to oust the English from Hudson’s Bay and James Bay through the use of force, the Hudson’s Bay Company was able to maintain control of the more profitable northern trade routes. The French attempted to contain this trade by establishing an inland trade system stretching from the Great Lakes to northern Alberta. A series of posts was established to cut off the trade of furs going towards the posts on Hudson’s and James bays. Eventually, the Hudson’s Bay Company established rival posts inland to counter the French influence. Following the loss of New France to Britain in 1760, the French fur trade was taken over by a new rival fur-trading company, the Northwest Company, whose posts eventually stretched from Fort William on Lake Superior to the Mackenzie River delta in the Northwest Territories. The competition between these two trading systems dominated relations between Europeans and the indigenous people of northern Canada until the 1820s. Each system tended to favor a different strategy to ensure that it had continued access to the furs that were in such high demand. The French/Northwest system tended to favor the establishment of trading relations through close personal contact with the people who were actually harvesting the furs. They

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established forts inland close to the traditional lands of the harvesters and often established connections through marriage. The Hudson’s Bay Company preferred the less expensive system of having the furs brought to the posts on Hudson’s Bay and James Bay. Competition between the two companies eventually led to a forced merger in 1820, after which the new Hudson’s Bay Company expanded operations into the Yukon in order to deal with competition from the Russian-American Company based in ­Russian-occupied Alaska. No matter which company dominated trade in Alaska or the Canadian North, similar tactics were used to ensure that furs were harvested. The most important was the creation of a dependence on European goods, and later European foods, for the survival of these people (Innis 1961, 388). Progressively, the indigenous peoples of Canada’s northwest would spend more and more of their time harvesting furs to meet the demands of the international markets. This meant less and less time spent following the traditional subsistence activities upon which they had depended for their survival in the past. This was possible as long as European goods were available to replace these subsistence activities, but when the world market for such furs as beaver collapsed in the 1840s, the harvesters were faced with the stark reality that the world economy no longer had a demand for the commodity that supported them. This, combined with the inability of these peoples to easily return to their traditional activities, resulted in severe hardships (Innis 1961). While the Inuit of northern Canada escaped the earlier period of the Canadian fur trade relatively unscathed due to the market’s preference for furs from boreal forest–based animals, when the arctic fox became a fashionable fur in the first decade of the twentieth century, Inuit were exposed to the same changes as the indigenous peoples of the Canadian Subarctic (Dumas 2002). It should also be noted that while the Sami of northern Fennoscandia were less affected by the hunger for furs, they too had to alter their traditional ways of life to meet southern demands for furs. When the King of Sweden first imposed taxes on the Sami in the mid–sixteenth century, these taxes took the form of a tribute in fur or fish (Sköld n.d., 2).

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Preindustrial colonialism of the circumpolar region was not only based on the harvest of furs. Whaling was an important economic activity starting in the seventeenth century, when the world markets started to develop an increased demand for whale products. Prior to the development of petroleum-based goods, whale blubber was an important source of lamp oil and as a lubricant. Even more sought after was whale baleen, which, prior to the discovery of new rubberbased products, was used in such things as corsets. As more accessible whale populations were depleted, whalers started moving into the seas off Greenland and the eastern Arctic. Danish/Norwegian recolonization of Greenland starting in 1721 was linked to an increased interest by Americans and Europeans in whaling. Dahl (2000, 12) notes that it was this interest in whaling that ensured “from the early days of colonial history, the hunting economy of the Greenlanders became incorporated into the world market.” Caulfield (2000, 28) notes that the Inuit of Greenland had started trading with primarily Dutch whalers during the sixteenth century. Initially the trade was limited by the fact that the Greenlanders had no real need or desire for the merchandise offered for trade. As whaling increased during this period, the more easily accessible whaling grounds off the coast of Greenland were rapidly depleted of the larger bowhead whale population. This meant that the Danish trade became dependent upon the domestic production of the indigenous Greenland population. According to Dahl, Even before 1721, European whalers came to Davies Strait and Disko Bay every summer to hunt these large mammals and bring home blubber and baleen. Because of this ruthless exploitation, large-scale commercial whaling gradually came to an end, and consequently Danish merchants were left to trade blubber with Greenlanders, who operated near the vast coast of Greenland and only on a minor scale. They pursued a greater variety of whales and seals than the European whalers, who mainly hunted the large bowhead whale. (12)

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While the bowhead populations around Greenland were depleted early on, the whalers could still find whales in the eastern Canadian Arctic. Production started in the 1700s in the Davis Strait, but by the 1840s it was centered around the Cumberland Sound. By the 1860s American whalers had expanded into Hudson’s Bay. Whaling was never centered in any area for very long as whale stocks quickly became depleted and new areas had to be found. Initially, contact with the Inuit was sporadic. As was the case with Greenland, at first the Inuit saw little need for the goods that the whalers tried to trade. As time went on they began to learn how to use these products and developed a desire for them (Eber 1989, 11). By 1851 American whalers started to winter in the region, which had an important impact on the local population. According to Eber, The Inuit left their small scattered camps where bands of relatives lived together to gather at winter harbours and at the shore stations. They put at the service of the newcomers their knowledge of the land, their seamanship, and their labour in the whaleboats. They provided fresh country food and warm, handmade fur clothing. In return the whalers provided their astonishing firepower and their southern goods. Whaling became a mutual endeavour. (12) In the western North American Arctic, American whalers first arrived in the Bering Strait in 1848 (Bockstoce 1986), then slowly spread out across the area north of the Chukotka Peninsula and along the North Slope of Alaska. By the 1890s they had arrived at the grounds north of the Mackenzie Delta and had established a base at Herschel Island. Contact in the western Arctic was more constant, and while “it started later than did whaling in the east, the western Arctic whaling industry made up for in intensity for what it lacked in longevity” (Coates 1985, 137, 138). In the west an extensive and relatively constant cooperative relationship was established with the indigenous population. Despite this, the exploitive nature of the whaling industry meant that as one area was depleted, the Inuit had to abandon traditional areas and move with the whalers to

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continue these exchanges. As well, because of the intensity of contact, exchanges were sometimes more destructive to the Inuit in the west Arctic than those inhabitants in the eastern Arctic (140). The whaling boom in the eastern Arctic had started to decline by the last decade of the nineteenth century. The earlier efficiency of the whalers meant that it became harder and harder to find whales in the region. In the western Arctic, production continued until the first decade of the twentieth century, when synthetic products replaced whale baleen and petroleum replaced whale blubber. By 1907 whaling in the North American Arctic had collapsed. The impact on the Inuit was considerable, although it would have been worse had not an Arctic fur trade emerged at the exact time of the collapse of whaling. Coates (1985, 138–139) notes that whaling brought relations similar to that of the fur trade: The whaling economic system was not unlike the fur trade in its dependence on native labour, although non-natives obviously played a far greater role in the actual killing process. The Inuit greeted the expansion of whaling much as the Indians to the south welcomed the fur traders. From Hudson’s Bay to Herschel Island, Inuit groups reoriented their seasonal activities to incorporate whaling and ensure regular contact with the ships. In the period of preindustrial colonialism European peoples settled in the circumpolar region to engage in agriculture, what some call “homesteading” and others “colonization.” The extent of this settlement differed according to the region and the period. As already mentioned, the Finnish and Scandinavian peoples had begun to push progressively north starting as early as the tenth century. The colonization push into the provinces of Oulu and Lapland in northern Finland occurred primarily in the seventeenth century. In Siberia, colonization followed the conquest of the region starting in the seventeenth century, while in Alaska and in some parts of northern Canada, homesteading started toward the end of the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth century.

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The colonization process, carried out to add lands and wealth to European states, proved to be extremely harmful to the existing indigenous peoples. Their “sustainable” subsistence economy was made subservient to the interest of the European states. They were pushed out of areas that were suitable for agricultural activities, and traditional subsistence activities such as reindeer herding were progressively transformed into profit-oriented animal husbandry. Indeed, increased contact resulting from colonization steadily transformed the reindeer economy of many northern peoples. Ingold (1980, 217) discusses the change of reindeer exploitation from hunting to pastoralism, noting that the change to pastoralism occurred when the indigenous peoples were depended upon a subsistence economy or what Sahlins refers to as a “domestic mode of production.” He also notes that the traditional pastoral system was significantly altered by increased contact with agricultural-based settlement of nonindigenous peoples. Reindeer became increasingly important not only for subsistence but for products to be traded with nonindigenous peoples (250). Although reindeer production had not yet developed into the later system that Ingold refers to as ranching, it did start to introduce increasingly capitalistic exchange relations to the lives of indigenous reindeer herders. While reindeer herding had not yet become industrialized, the preindustrial colonial economic system started to significantly transform the lives of these people (Vitebsky 2005, 34). During preindustrial colonialism, communities in the circumpolar north were significantly transformed. This transformation was characterized by a shift from a subsistence-based economy to one which combined subsistence with a dependence on servicing the economic needs of primarily European populations. The activities that made up these services were not, however, foreign to these indigenous peoples, and in most instances did not require a radical transformation of their lifestyles. Trapping for the fur trade, whaling, reindeer herding, and associated activities such as clothes production were all extensions of traditional hunting and gathering activities. Dahl (2000, 12) describes colonial relations in Greenland as follows: “Merchants traded utensils, tea, tobacco, guns, and ammunition for

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blubber, ivory, skins, and baleen. But they never seriously intervened directly in the process of production. The hunter remained on his own, in control of his means of production.” The lifestyles did change as dependence was increased, but it was a fundamentally different situation from that brought about by industrialism, where these traditional activities became totally devalued. Vitebsky (2005, 35) summarizes well the impact of this change on the indigenous people of Siberia as the Soviet Union imposed industrialism and its cultural manifestations on the region:

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While tsarism had exploited casually with corrupt neglect, Soviet rule overrode the reindeer peoples’ self-sufficiency with a meticulous control and constraint, which made them dependent on State support. The Soviet approach was well meaning and brutal at the same time. Communist missionaries saw Siberian natives as primitive people who needed to be rescued from backwardness. They started to “civilize” the native peoples by building them permanent wooden villages and providing basic schooling and medical facilities, introducing State bureaucracy and teaching them Communist values. industria lism

The next type of economic system to be introduced into the circumpolar region was industrialism. This economic system first came into being in Great Britain at the end of the eighteenth century, and during the nineteenth century it spread throughout the European world. By the end of the nineteenth century it had started to spread to the circumpolar regions. Industrialism was the first of the economic systems to develop its own economic theories to support its development. Many of these theories used the term capitalism to describe the new system. The most prominent of these theories was classical liberalism. Classical liberalism has many forms, and as such it is

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dangerous to oversimplify it. This being said, the basic idea of the eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith is that wealth is produced by the increasing rationalization of the production process, which occurs through the increasing division of labor and the expansion of markets. Through the division of labor, more can be produced with fewer human resources. With the expansion of markets, more products can be sold, which produces more capital, which can then be invested back into developing technologies, which will produce more with fewer human resources. This process uses markets to find the most efficient means of producing and selling a product. As if done by “an invisible hand,” markets, if left unhindered, would find the best way of distributing products and wealth so as to maximize the benefits to everyone. Classical liberalism believed that if market forces were left unhindered, everyone would benefit. David Ricardo, a nineteenth-century British political economist, put forward a “law of competitive advantage,” according to which every region had a comparative advantage in the production of some good. The market would find out what this product was and in so doing allow each region to benefit from the production of wealth in the world. This logic is at the center of contemporary interpretations of economic globalization. For those who view it positively, contemporary globalization trends are fulfilling a logical conclusion that was sidetracked for various reasons in the twentieth century. Allowing the circumpolar region to benefit in the wealth produced by industrialism was not, however, one of the priorities. By the nineteenth century, the entire region was divided into northern peripheries of national states, with the aim of increasing wealth in the national centers. Rather than change this mentality, industrialism served to intensify it. Still, under industrialism, the circumpolar world and its natural resources became increasingly important for those nations that had a piece of it. The future of entire nations was linked to the North’s ability to supply the resources required by industrialism. It is important to point out that this was primarily natural ­resource–based industrialism. By the end of the nineteenth century, in the subarctic regions of North America and Fennoscandia,

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s­ awmills were established as timber reserves in the more southern regions became steadily depleted. The discovery of how to produce paper products from wood fiber led to the establishment of pulp and paper mills in these areas by the beginning of the twentieth century. Agriculture quickly became subservient to the demand of the forest industry, and reindeer herding moved from pastoralism to ranching (Ingold 1980). The subsistence or seasonal production that had characterized fishing in the circumpolar region until the early twentieth century was slowly transformed into an industrial activity by the middle of that century. The Yukon and Alaska gold rushes at the end of the nineteenth century showed the world for the first time the region’s potential mineral wealth. Exploitation of these circumpolar resources would not have been possible without a satisfactory transportation system, and indeed, industrialism brought new forms of transportation to the circumpolar world. The construction of railways in Canada, Siberia, and Fennoscandia helped integrate the region and allowed for the more intensive utilization of its resources. What is important to understand about the transportation and communication resources of the region is that they were almost always constructed to link the North to their southern centers. They rarely facilitated interaction between the different areas of the circumpolar world. The transportation systems served purely to keep the compartmentalized North linked to the south. While each nation considered the circumpolar world to be a storehouse of its own potential wealth, it is important to state that from the beginning of the twentieth century, the circumpolar world was linked to the demands of global capital. The early twentieth century saw Canadian capitalists building mines in what was then northern Finland. From the turn of the century, the pulp and paper industry in the subarctic regions of Canada was built by American capital. One of the best analyses of the intrusion of industrialism into the North from a historical perspective is that of Sverker Sörlin (1988), who describes how northern Sweden went through an enormous economic and population expansion in the latter part of the nineteenth century. This expansion was based first on the lumber industry and

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then on mining. Railroad and hydroelectrical construction followed, the Midland Line to Narvik being completed in 1903 and the first hydroelectric station being constructed at Porjus in 1910. Sörlin’s work on the social visions surrounding the industrial development of northern Sweden outlines the importance of that development to Sweden as a nation. At the same time he points out that the industrial development that took place there was very much linked to international market forces. The timber and iron ore were shipped primarily to consumers outside of Sweden. To quote Sörlin (1989, 2), “As a result of this remarkable boom, Sweden’s most isolated province suddenly became, one might say, its most international. Now, the family economy of even the tiniest cabin depended upon the state of the European markets.” Sörlin also notes that the type of industrialism that eventually became dominant in northern Sweden was somewhat different from the individualistic entrepreneurial capitalism that is often associated with frontier development following the ideas of the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner. It tended to be “obsessed with ­rationalism” and based on a very close cooperation between industrialists and the state (18). Similar observations about the international aspect of industrial development in the North, and its nonindividualistic nature, have been made for other northern regions. In his discussion of the industrial development of subarctic Canada, historian H. V. Nelles (2005) has pointed out how rational planning and close government-industry cooperation were utilized to ensure that both the government and industry would maximize benefits. Nelles also points to the importance of American capital and industrialists in these regions. Morris Zaslow (1971) outlines how the construction of railways in Canada from the 1870s onwards started to open up the northern regions of what are now Ontario, Quebec, and the western provinces. Mining and forestry operations started to develop when American and other international markets opened up for these raw materials and when foreign capital became available to develop these operations. Both the federal and provincial governments played a major role in coordinating these developments.

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From a symbolic perspective, the Klondike Gold Rush is probably the most well-known mining development in Canada’s North. It certainly followed Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier model of development at the beginning. When gold was discovered in the Dawson area of the Yukon in the 1896, it brought a rush of at least thirty thousand nonindigenous people into the region in just a few years. Canadian historians have tended to highlight not the mining of the gold itself but the attempts by the Canadian government to control what was largely an American development. According to Zaslow (1989, 134), “In the Yukon Territory we see the interaction between official Canadian policies and Canadian institutions and a community largely comprised of Americans and expressing the American frontier ideology.” While the rush resulted in a short-term mining development based on individually owned stakes, after a few years this initial “American frontier” situation had changed considerably. “By 1900 Dawson was a suitable place for orderly family living, and by 1902 it was reported to be as Canadian as Toronto” (147). While Zaslow and other historians refer to the changes after the initial gold rush as the Canadian government’s attempt to Canadianize the Yukon, Zaslow also points out that little effort was expended to keep international capital out of the region: No effort was made to prevent an ­American-controlled company, the White Pass and Yukon Railways (financed largely in Britain), from building the only railway link into the area from the port of Skagway, or to keep American capital from playing an important role in integrating gold mining operations in the highly successful Yukon Gold Company, organized by the Englishman A. N. C. Treadgold but financed by the Guggenheim mining interests of California. (146) Indeed, the Yukon Gold Rush can be seen as a good example of the inefficiencies of the earlier frontier-type of industrial development in the North. Coates and Morrison (2005, 157) describe how the Yukon goldfields had started to change in the first decade of the twentieth century:

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[By 1909] the days of the individual prospector and the mining methods that produced the gold rush were finished as an important economic force. . . . Now the symbol of the goldfields was not the pan but the dredge. . . . Dredges processed tons of gold-bearing gravel each day and could make a profit on a trace of gold in each cubic yard—pay dirt that could not support a miner working with simpler techniques. This need for new technology to rationalize the production process meant that the government had to work closely with the American and British investors. The groups that had the capital to purchase and utilize this technology had to ensure that conditions would allow them to make a sufficient return on their investments. This meant granting a “virtual monopoly” over many of the resources to run their operations (Coates and Morrison 2005, 158). Less than ten years after the initial discovery of gold, industrial activity in the Canadian North was dominated by a new logic based on close cooperation and planning between the national government and international capital. The distances and conditions in the North meant that the long-term interests of both investors and the government could only be met by long term-planning and a rationalistic exploitation of natural resources. These types of relations now characterized resource development of frontier areas.3 This was the logic followed in later industrial developments in the Canadian North such as silver and lead mining in the Mayo-Keno region of the Yukon starting in 1906, radium mining in the Great Bear Lake area in the 1930s, and gold mining in the Yellowknife area starting in the 1930s. This logic became even more prevalent following World War II, when American government actions, with some help from Canada, had rapidly established new transportation systems in the Canadian North, such as the Alaska Highway, and a series of northern landing strips and airbases. For many people, these projects legitimized the superior nature of ­industrial ­developments planned by both government ­officials and industrial interests. Following the war, industrial activity in the

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Chris Southcott

territorial North of Canada became almost entirely controlled by federal government as the region became “the bureaucrat’s north” (Coates 1985, 191). The 1950s and early 1960s saw an increased pace of highway construction, a railway to Great Slave Lake, and the opening of a new lead/zinc mine at Pine Point and several other mining developments. In the 1960s, when it became apparent that large oil and gas deposits existed in the Mackenzie Delta region, the government ensured that development would be largely controlled from Ottawa. While the Yukon often tries to portray itself as the product of frontier development for tourism purposes, it is in Alaska that the frontier model of development is most favored and glorified (Kollin 2001; Hogan and Pursell 2007). While many of the cultural attributes of the frontier continue to exist in Alaska, the industrialization of its economy was in large part due to forces outside the state. Following the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia, little development took place until the gold rush of 1899 and the first decade of the twentieth century (Naske and Slotnick, 1987). Gold mining followed similar frontier patterns to those found in the Yukon, but by the first decade of the twentieth century, copper mines had been established by financiers such as the Guggenheim brothers and J. P. Morgan. As well, fishing and canning became important industries, but people in Alaska benefited little, as many canneries were established by, and hired, nonresidents. The population of the state was relatively stable at approximately sixty thousand until World War II. The sudden realization of the strategic importance of Alaska led to a range of developments, organized and funded by the federal government, that would set the stage for the region’s postwar economy. Following the war, forestry replaced mining and fishing as the most important industry. The forest industry in Alaska during the 1950s was heavily dependent on foreign markets and interests: Japanese investors built sawmills to supply the domestic needs of Japan, and pulp produced in Alaska was sold worldwide. With these developments, the population of Alaska increased to 226,000 by 1960. The biggest boom in the Alaskan economy, however, was the development of the oil and gas industry. The development of the Prudhoe oil field

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by American and international oil companies and the construction of the oil pipeline to Valdez resulted in Alaska’s population increasing to 550,000 by 1990. Industrialization of the Russian North had started prior to the foundation of the Soviet Union, but these developments were very limited. Gold mining existed in the Yenisey and Lena river basins of Siberia in the 1840s, but most of the exploitation was done by hand using primitive mining techniques and an unskilled labor force (Armstrong 1965, 95). By the first decade of the twentieth century many of these mining interests were being run by British corporations. One of the biggest obstacles to the industrial exploitation of natural resources in the Russian North was access. More adequate means of transportation were needed to ensure that exploitation was both efficient and profitable. The southern area of Siberia experienced some development following the construction of the TransSiberian Railway, but its impact on the more northern areas was limited until the Soviet period. The extension of the railway system to Murmansk also provided opportunities for industrial expansion in the North, but these too were primarily developed during the Soviet period. Almost all the large-scale industrial exploitation in the Russian North was developed by the Soviet Union. The international hostility to the Revolution of 1917 and the ideology of the Communist Party meant that industrial development would be managed differently than in other parts of the circumpolar north. Global capital first boycotted these developments and, in later years, was heavily restricted. As such, the Russian North was not exposed to the economic forces of international markets until the fall of the Soviet Union. Under the Soviet Union, natural resources in northern Russia were developed not to meet the needs of international markets but to provide the necessary materials for an isolated Soviet Union to industrialize. At the same time it is important to note that while international markets did not play a key role in the industrial development of the Soviet North, both the technology and the logic governing the rational exploitation of this technology were quite similar to that used in other parts of the circumpolar north. The major difference is that

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in Soviet times the interests of the state were primary, while elsewhere ­development was based on the interests of both capital and the state. Mining was the most important new activity in the Soviet North. The need for reliable national sources of minerals meant that the new Soviet Union had to create new mining centers relatively quickly. The railway extension to the Kola Peninsula allowed the easiest access to new northern deposits. Communities were created to mine apatite starting in 1929—Monchegorsk in 1935 to mine nickel as well as copper and cobalt, and Noril’sk in the late 1930s to supply nickel and copper. Coal mining was expanded in Vorkuta to meet war needs in the early 1940s. The Soviet need for foreign currency led to the expansion of gold-mining activities in several locations in the Sahka Republic starting in the 1920s. Gold mining expanded into the upper Kolyma basin by the 1930s. Finally, diamond mining in the Sahka Republic started in the 1950s. Transportation systems to service mining and other activities were also important sources of employment. Many of the workers in locations such as Murmansk and Archangelsk were employed in the port or fishing industry, or worked for the extensive river transportation systems of the Northern Sea Route that were the lifeline for many northern communities. Forestry took longer to develop in the Soviet North, since there were still forest stands in more available locations farther south, but started to increase by the 1950s (Armstrong 1965, 44). By the 1960s, oil and gas developments in western Siberia were becoming an important part of the northern economy. This is the industry that would emerge as dominant following the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the Russian Federation. Other than in Russia, the history of industrialism in the circumpolar north has shown that the region was very much linked to international markets. Indeed, it is very difficult to see that there has been any fundamental change in the international aspects of industrialism in the Canadian North if we do not properly understand the type of industrialism that became dominant in the region. How can this type of industrialism best be characterized? The Fordist model of industrialism developed by the Regulation school theorists has several advantages in studying northern industrial development. Fordism differentiates a

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period when capitalism was “competitive” and entrepreneurial from one in which capitalism was planned (Jenson 1989). This planning was in large part due to capitalists’ striving for efficiency by investing large amounts of money in a more capital- and technology-intensive system of production. In order to allow the safe investment of this capital, the social and economic environment had to be made secure and stable. This required the development of a close relationship between the state and capital. On a secondary level the workers in this new system of production had to be given certain rights and social conditions to ensure stability. In other words, capitalism became more organized. In northern regions the resource-based Fordist industrialism became the dominant model of industrial development for several reasons, chief among them the need to become as efficient and as technologically dependent as possible because of geography. Distances and lack of local labor usually required large capital expenditures, but capital could not be raised unless there was a certainty of sufficient returns. In addition, the Fordist model fit with the colonial interests of the national states. Close cooperation between state and capital meant that the national states could continue to exercise close control of developments and so ensure the success of national objectives. conclusion

The primary objective of this chapter is to provide the historical background for discussions of the impact of globalization on the circumpolar north. Remaining chapters look at the current impacts of globalization on the region, but this chapter aims to draw attention to past relations between northern communities and other regions. The North has long been involved in the world outside the circumpolar region, and contact with these other regions has always existed. What has changed is the nature of this contact. The period in which the traditional hunting and gathering economy was dominant was characterized by sporadic contact largely determined by the needs of the circumpolar peoples themselves. While empires influenced these communities, relative self-sufficiency and

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geographic obstacles combined to allow northern peoples to largely ­determine when, how, and on what basis to interact with these outside influences. With preindustrial colonialism, contact became much more regular and continuous. Autonomy was significantly reduced as northern communities altered their traditional activities to meet the needs of outside market demands. At the same time, communities continued to depend on traditional hunting and gathering activities, albeit altered. Industrialism significantly transformed communities in the north. New settler communities were established as peripheral outposts of an industrial center. Islands of industrialism were created in order to meet the natural resource demands of a rapidly expanding industrial mainland. Traditional activities became marginalized and devalued. Northern indigenous communities became subsumed by Western industrial society. Under industrialism, the north as a distinct society became threatened with elimination. If globalization represents either a subsequent or new stage of industrialism, it could represent a further intensification of this process of marginalization. On the other hand, if it represents a fundamental change in past historical developments, it could represent a lessening of the negative impacts of industrialism and the emergence of new possibilities for northern communities. notes 1. Horse and cattle breeding were practiced in early Eurasia and Siberia. According to Golovnev (n.d., 5) horse breeding in Siberia had been introduced by Indo-European and Turkic steppe nomads. It is the closest to agricultural activities and some may question whether it is indeed a form of subsistence hunting and gathering. In many areas it only became important in the eighteenth century. 2. Another term that might be just as appropriate is mercantilist colonialism. The term preindustrial colonialism is used primarily to note that the political aspects of the relationship between northern communities and national powers did not undergo any rapid changes with the rise of industrialism while the economic relationships did. Until recently, it was

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these economic relationships that could be held primarily responsible for changes in these relationships. 3. See Lee Huskey’s description in chapter 3.

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r efer ences

Armstrong, Terence. 1965. Russian Settlement in the North. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beach, Hugh. 1993. A Year in Lapland: Guest of the Reindeer Herders. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Bell, D. 1973. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books. Bockstoke, John R. 1986. Whales, Ice, and Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Brody, Hugh. 1973. The Other Side of Eden: Hunters, Farmers and the Shaping of the World. Repr., New York: North Point Press, 2001. Caulfield, Richard. 2000. Greenlanders, Whales, and Whaling: Sustainability and Self-Determination in the Arctic. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Coates, Kenneth. 1985. Canada’s Colonies: A History of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Toronto: James Lorimer. Coates, Kenneth, and William Morrison. 2005. Land of the Midnight Sun: A History of the Yukon. Kingston and Montreal: McGillQueen’s Press. Collinder, Bjorn. 1949. The Lapps. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dahl, Jens. 2000. Saqqaq: An Inuit Hunting Community in the Modern World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Damas, David. 2002. Arctic Migrants/Arctic Villagers: The Transformation of Inuit Settlement in the Central Arctic. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Eber, Dorothy. 1989. When the Whalers Were Up North: Inuit Memories from the Eastern Arctic. Kingston and Montreal: ­McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Forsyth, James. 1992. A History of the Peoples of Siberia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friedman, T. 2000. The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization. New York: Vintage Anchor Publishing. Giddens, Anthony. 2000. Runaway World: How Globalization Is Reshaping Our Lives. New York: Routledge. Golovnev, Andrei. N.d. BCS 331, Module 8: “Reindeer Herding and Traditional Resource Use,” http://www.uarctic.org/bcs/ BCS331/module_8.pdf (accessed February 10, 2005). Hogan, Maureen P., and Timothy Pursell. 2007. “The ‘Real Alaskan’ Nostalgia and Rural Masculinity in the ‘Last Frontier.’” Men and Masculinities Online, first published March 9, 2007, as doi: 10.1177/1097184X06291892 (accessed December 4, 2007). Ingold, Tim. 1976. The Skolt Lapps Today. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 1980. Hunters, Pastoralists and Ranchers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Innis, Harold. 1961. Fur Trade in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Orig. pub. 1930.) Jenson, Jane. 1989. “Different But Not Exceptional: Canada’s Permeable Fordism.” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 26:69–94. Kollin, Susan. 2001. Nature’s State: Imagining Alaska as the Last Frontier. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Krupnik, Igor. 1993. Arctic Adaptations: Native Whalers and Reindeer Herders of Northern Russia. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. McGhee, Robert. 2004. The Last Imaginary Place: A Human History of the Arctic World. Toronto: Key Porter. McMichael, P. 1996. “Globalization: Myths and Realities.” Rural Sociology 61(2):25–55. Naske, Claus-M., and Herman E. Slotnick. 1987. Alaska: A History of the 49th State. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Nelles, H. V. 2005. The Politics of Development: Forests, Mines, and Hydro-Electric Power in Ontario, 1849–1941. Montreal: ­McGill-Queen’s Press. (Orig. pub. 1974.)

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Nute, Grace Lee. 1978. Caesars of the Wilderness: Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers and Pierre Esprit Radisson, 1618–1710. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press. Rich, Edwin Earnest. 1967. The Fur Trade and the Northwest to 1857. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Sassen, S. 1998. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: New Press. Sköld, Peter. N.d. “Life and Death in Sápmi. Demographic Aspects on the History of the Sami in Northern Sweden,” http:// www.hss.caltech.edu/Events/Archives/EPP/Sami.PDF (accessed October 29, 2007). Slezkine, Yuri. 1994. Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Sörlin, S. 1988. Framtidslandet. Stockholm: Carlsson. ———. 1989. Land of the Future: Norrland and the North in Sweden and European Consciousness. Umea: Centre for Arctic Cultural Research, Miscellaneous Publications, No. 8. Southcott, C. 2003. “Spacially-based Social Differentiation in Canada’s Future: Trends in Urban/Non-Urban Differences in the Next Decade.” In Social Differentiation Patterns and Processes, ed. D. Juteau. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Thuen, Trond. 1995. Quest for Equity: Norway and the Saami Challenge. St. John’s: Institute of Social and Economic Research. Vitebsky, Piers. 2005. The Reindeer People: Living with Animals and Spirits in Siberia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Weber, Max. 2001. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge. (Orig. pub. 1904.) Wolf, Eric. 1982. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zaslow, Morris. 1971. The Opening of the Canadian North: 1870– 1914. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. ———. 1989. “The Yukon: Northern Development in a CanadianAmerican Context.” In Interpreting Canada’s North: Selected Readings, ed. Kenneth S. Coates and William R. Morrison. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd.

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globalization

and the

3

economies of the north

Lee Huskey

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introduction

There are two economies in the circumpolar north: the international economy and the local economy. The international economy consists of large-scale resource producers serving worldwide markets. Resources such as diamonds, gold, zinc, oil, and fish are produced in the international economy for export out of the North. The local economy is also centered on resource production, but production is for local consumption. Fishing, hunting, herding, and gathering activities provide the foundation for the local economy. These two economies are not isolated from one another; connections between the two extend at least to the beginning of the northern fur trade in the ninth century. Economic connections provide one path through which globalization operates in the North. The story of the northern economy can be told as a story of contrasts, conflicts, and change. The structure of production provides one dramatic point of contrast. The North supports modern, large-scale, capital-intensive resource production in the international economy. In contrast, local economic activity, such as hunting or herding, often occurs in individual or family groups using traditional methods of 57

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Lee Huskey

production. This contrast can be seen in the economic geography of the two economies. The North’s small, scattered communities are efficient when natural resources are harvested by small groups for their own consumption. The concentration of resource production activity found in the international economy reflects the importance of scale and capital. The international and local economies provide contrasting pictures of economic performance. In most cases, northern regions produce less per capita than their national economies; exceptions exist in Alaska, Canada, and Russia. Economic performance also differs significantly across northern regions with both relatively poor and wealthy regions in the North. Even within the relatively rich regions of the North there is a contrast between the value produced in the international economy and the persistent poverty that often describes the local economic experience. Conflict is another important theme in the story of the northern economy. Conflicts occur over the best use of northern resources: timber production, reindeer pasture, and wild land recreation might all be possible in one place but not at the same time. In other cases, the use of one resource might damage the value of another; the runoff from gold mining might reduce an area’s fisheries resources. The current debate over development of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife refuge has drawn national politics into the debate between subsistence, wilderness, and industrial users about the best use of northern resources. When resource use is decided by legislation or judicial decisions there are few mechanisms to compensate the losers, which results in hard-fought battles by all sides to secure favorable results. The North is also a region of change. International resource markets affect activity in the North’s industrial economy; recent increased northern production reflects the increased international demand for natural resources. Change may also result from the connections between the local and international economies. Historically, changes in community structure, the technology of local production, and the role of money in the local economy were a result of connections between the two economies. Change will also result from changing environmental conditions; higher temperatures in the North may result

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in changes in the location and cost of northern resource production. Finally, the transformation of the role of various levels of government in the North is an important ongoing source of change. This chapter recognizes the variety of northern economic experience. The North comprises nine countries with separate laws, traditions, and institutions, resulting in differing economic experiences. The regions have also been affected by differences in national economic experience, physical environment, and resident arctic people groups. In spite of these differences, northern economies have much in common, and this chapter focuses on these commonalities. This chapter’s organization reflects the contrast, conflict, and change found in the North’s economies. The next section provides an overview of the two economies of the North, describing the contrasting pattern of activity and the factors influencing these economic outcomes. It is followed by a discussion of conflict in the North and the institutional change which is affecting the northern economy.

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the econom y of the north

The money economy in the circumpolar north is surprisingly large. In 2003 Duhaime and Caron (2006) estimated the region’s gross domestic product to be almost $225 billion, which makes the GDP of the circumpolar economy comparable to that of Malaysia. The region accounted for slightly less than 0.5 percent of the world’s GDP— more than twice its share of the world’s population. The northern economy’s value is even greater than this measure. Government transfers and jobs, sales of local products into the international economy, and purchases of products produced outside the North are part of the local economy that can be measured in monetary terms. The local economy of the North is bigger than its monetized part; traditional or subsistence activities are produced and traded outside the money economy. The production from this sector is not counted in the region’s GDP; the size of the northern economy is greater than its measured GDP by the real income produced in the traditional sector of the economy. The

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following two sections provide an overview of the two economies of the North.

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t h e i n t e r n at i o n a l e c o n o m y

The international economy produces natural resources for export. This sector contributed almost 31 percent of circumpolar north’s GDP in 2003. Duhaime (2004) estimated that resource production in the circumpolar north was equivalent to the value of the exports of Brazil or Saudi Arabia. The circumpolar north provides a significant share of the world’s natural resource production. The most significant resource in current value is petroleum, both oil and gas. In 2002, the North produced 16.2 percent of world petroleum. The region played a larger role in the production of natural gas, producing 10.5 percent of the world’s oil and 25.5 percent of its natural gas. The circumpolar north also contains a significant share of the world’s proven oil and gas reserves, ensuring that the region will remain important in the world’s petroleum economy (Lindholt 2006). In 2002 many types of minerals were produced in the North. Northern production accounted for over 10 percent of the world’s production of nickel, cobalt, palladium, apatite, and platinum. Recent discovery and development of diamond mines in northern Canada have expanded the region’s role in the production of gem and industrial diamonds. Northern Russia and Canada produced over 20 percent of the world’s industrial diamonds and 25 percent of its gemquality diamonds (Lindholt 2006). Renewable resource industries are also an important part of the circumpolar international economy. In 2002, arctic fisheries produced approximately 10 percent of the world’s catch of wild fish (7.26 million tons) and 5.3 percent of the world’s catch of crustaceans (360,000 tons). The region has significant aquaculture production. The Arctic possesses a significant share of the world’s wood reserves (8.2 percent). The Arctic’s share of yearly removal of timber is less than half of its share of reserves. Environmental restrictions, inaccessibility, and the high cost of arctic production—which are

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g­ eneral conditions ­facing all northern resource production—limit the production of wood resources in the region (Lindholt 2006). Economic activity is not evenly distributed throughout the circumpolar region. The importance of petroleum production in northern Russia and Alaska, and the high value of petroleum in 2003, meant these two regions accounted for 75 percent of all economic activity in the circumpolar region. Northern Russia itself accounted for two-thirds of the circumpolar economic activity. Within northern Russia there are also disparities; almost half of Russia’s arctic production took place in one of the thirteen regions of circumpolar Russia (Duhaime and Caron 2006). The distribution of natural resources, the cost of development, and the value of the resources produced vary over time and space and affect the distribution of production. Inaccessibility and high costs limit the extent to which the region’s known resource reserves are exploited. Development of resources in the North has followed a pattern of frontier development. Resources developed in remote, frontier regions for the international market face enormous expense. The cost of development on frontiers is high since usually only the natural resource input is available on the frontier. Housing, transport, and utility infrastructure must be developed. Other material inputs must be brought into the region, adding the cost of shipping and inventory to their cost in a more developed market. Since frontiers are lightly populated with skilled labor, workers have to be lured from the more settled areas with high wage premiums. These additional costs make natural resource production on the frontier expensive, and they also limit the extent of processing or production of local natural resources. In addition, resources produced on the frontier must be shipped to markets out of the region and often far away. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline took three years and $8 billion to construct (Palmer 2005). Similar lines to transport natural gas from Alaska and Canada to market will cost between $15 billion and $20 billion (Mason 2005). Resources produced in the North and other remote regions must be valuable enough to cover the high cost of production and transport to market. Without subsidy or other assistance, only the most valuable or productive resource deposits will be able to cover these costs. One

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characteristic of the international economy in the circumpolar north is that the first resources developed are from “bonanza” resource deposits. Bonanza deposits may include highly valued resources which can overcome the high costs. They may also include high-grade deposits for which the size and quality are great enough to lower perunit production costs. These deposits produce a profit even in the face of the high costs of production on the frontier (Huskey and Cole 1997). In Alaska, Prudhoe Bay oil fields were rich enough to overcome the high cost of development in the Arctic. In an earlier time, the extremely rich copper deposit at Kennecott in interior Alaska was developed in the middle of a wilderness. Gold mining in the Yakutia region of Russia is more highly concentrated in the larger types of deposits than in other gold-mining regions of the world, suggesting that the high-grade deposits also opened this northern development (Nikitin 2005). Throughout the history of the North, resource frontiers were also opened when resource prices rose and increased the value of northern resources. The Klondike gold discovery in the late nineteenth century and the expansion of Alaska mining that followed came in a period of general depression, which reduced both costs and increased the real value of gold (Huskey and Cole 1997). Coal was developed in the high Arctic on Svalbard Island, with investment in the mines intensifying during the period of high coal prices associated with World War I (Capelotti 2005). The current development of arctic oil and gas is also a response to high world energy prices. Without a change in the northern cost relation, northern resource production faces the condition described as “last in, first out” suffered by all high-cost producers; northern production in this case will be sensitive to price fluctuations (Duhaime 2004). Northern cost relations may be changed by the initial resource production in the circumpolar north. Development of bonanza resources introduces infrastructure and resources into the region, which lowers the cost of future development. Jack London identified this type of effect in Alaska and the Canadian Yukon as a benefit of the Klondike gold rush (Huskey and Cole 1997). Another example of the change in

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costs is on Alaska’s North Slope, where production of the rich Prudhoe Bay reserve lowered the cost of production in much smaller fields in the surrounding region. Economic activity in the north’s international economy is not always driven by market forces. Government regulations and prohibitions may limit resource development. The creation of wild areas and parks will curb particular types of industrial activity. In 1980 the United States government passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which placed millions of acres of land in Alaska in wilderness status, limiting resource development in these areas (Maas 2005). Governments also support resource development throughout the North with subsidy, tax advantage and price supports and by sharing the cost of developing infrastructure. The state of Alaska helped finance the construction of the port and road into the Red Dog mine in part to foster future mine development in the region. Governments may support resource production to provide a stable economic base for local residents involved in the international economy. The distribution of production also reflects the economic system under which these resource deposits were developed. Since the Soviet Union had a more aggressive state role in development, more northern production takes place in Russia than in more market-oriented economies. Greenland provides an example of the role of subsidies in the northern economy. The money economy of Greenland’s communities is based on the production and processing of renewable natural resource products. Commercial hunting, fishing, and sheep herding are the primary market activities. Shrimp production is the dominant resource for export. In 1996 the total subsidy paid to these industries amounted to approximately $6,400 per person involved in the activity, or a subsidy of twelve cents for every dollar of product exported. Subsidies allow Greenland resources to compete in the market even with the high costs of production resulting from remoteness (Rasmussen 2000). Governments support northern resource development for strategic or sovereignty purposes, a practice that was widespread in the former Soviet Union (Hill and Gaddy 2003). Russia provides an

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e­ xample of the consequences of removing these regional subsidies after the end of the Soviet Union. The reduction of subsidies for labor benefits and freeing of prices for transportation and energy in the early 1990s resulted in massive population movement from the Russian North (Heleniak 1999). About one-fourth of the population of Russia’s Arctic left the region between 1989 and 2002 (­Bogoyavlenskiy and Siggner 2004). In the North, high-valued resources are produced for the international economy. This often contrasts with the low incomes of local residents. In part this reflects the differences in population densities in northern regions. Of the three relatively richest northern regions, Alaska and Canada’s northern territories have the highest GDP on a per capita basis, while northern Russia had the lowest in 2001 (­Duhaime 2004). While Russia produces the dominant share of northern resources, the Russian North also has a significant population. High regional GDP does not always directly relate to high levels of local personal income. Incomes for local residents may be higher than per capita production because of transfers from regional or national governments. Alternatively, resource rents from production in the region are likely to flow from the region in the form of tax revenues to higher regional or national governments and as payments to outside owners of labor and capital resources used in production of the natural resource. Measured in terms of per capita personal income, the Russian standard of living was the lowest in the Arctic in 2001, although there were wide differences among Russian regions (Duhaime 2004). The effect of production in the international economy on the personal incomes of local residents is limited by three factors. First, the vast areas and limits to transportation found in the North often result in northern resource production occurring in enclaves “decoupled” from local communities (Duhaime 2004). Second, local residents may not possess the skills or tastes for work in northern resource enclaves, which limits the share of resource production jobs going to northern residents. Finally, limited local government authority minimizes residents’ ability to tax resource production and keep tax revenues in the region. The local connections with the inter-

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national economy are more likely for those activities, like fishing and herding, that are similar to traditional activities than for mineral or petroleum production, which are likely to occur far from local communities and use unfamiliar technology.

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t h e loc a l econom y

The circumpolar north contains both large and small communities. At least five cities have over one hundred thousand people, and approximately two-thirds of the arctic population lives in settlements of more than five thousand. The urban density varies across northern regions; the majority of the population in the Russian North, Alaska, and Iceland lives in big settlements (Bogoyavlenskiy and Siggner 2004). The cities and larger settlements in the North reflect the economic geography of the international economy or government service centers. The North’s local economy is found in the smaller communities. Small communities are important in the North. Over 83 percent of the settlements in Alaska, the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, Greenland, and Iceland have fewer than one thousand people. These communities account for 15 percent of the population in these regions. Ignoring the three largest communities in Alaska, the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, Greenland, and Iceland, over a quarter of the region’s population lived in these small places (Rasmussen 1999). In spite of many differences, the local rural community economies of the Arctic have much in common. As rural economies, they are dependent on the local natural resource base. With few exceptions, these economies rely on resources used by indigenous people throughout their history. Like rural economies everywhere, northern community economies are small places in regions with low population density. The small communities share similar economic outcomes. Based on a number of economic indicators, these communities lag behind the economies of the larger nation. They have relatively low money incomes and relatively high levels of unemployment. In predominantly Alaska Native communities of remote rural Alaska, recent

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unemployment rates were more than twice the rate of the state’s major urban area. Unemployment would be even higher if those people who had given up looking for work were counted (Goldsmith 2008). Unemployment rates of 40 percent were predicted for Natives in the Canadian Arctic in 2000 (Stabler and Howe 1990). Russian communities may provide the extreme case of economic distress. In 1998 most Evenki villages in central Siberia had unemployment rates of over 90 percent following the collapse of the state-supported economic structure of the Soviet days (Anderson 2000). Northern local economies are mixes of three parts: the traditional or subsistence sector, the market sector, and the transfer sector. In the traditional or subsistence sector, local production of natural resource products is primarily for personal consumption. The traditional sector includes hunting, fishing, and gathering activities in North America and pastoral activities in Scandinavia, Finland, and Russia. The other sectors of the economy bring cash into the community. In the market sector, locally produced of goods and services are sold to others. The transfer sector also brings cash into the community. Transfers include cash, goods, and services provided by other levels of government. Transfers do not result from trade but from political activity. These three sectors are not independent, and changes in one will affect the others. Transfers may provide subsidies for market activity or the public services that make market production possible. For example, air transportation to rural areas may be subsidized by government provision of airports; air travel is a necessary ingredient for a tourism business. Growth of the market or transfer economies may provide cash for purchasing subsistence capital or inputs that allow it to grow. There may also be negative effects; for example, market activity may damage subsistence resources or increase population pressure on limited resources. The subsistence economy may limit market activity if resources are closed to market production to protect subsistence. The relative size of these sectors varies across communities. Quigley and McBride (1987) estimated the relative importance of these sectors in the small community (435 people) of Sanikiluaq in

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the Northwest Territories of Canada. The traditional sector provided almost 63 percent of the community’s real income, which included both funds earned from carving and the imputed value of country food. The transfer sector contributed over 30 percent to the community’s income. Government employment accounted for almost onequarter of income. Huskey (1992) estimated that the transfer sector accounted for almost 60 percent of cash income in western Alaska in 1989. When government subsidies for services like schools, housing, and power were considered, this added an amount of real income equivalent to 20 percent of villagers’ per capita income. The traditional sector of the local economy is built around the production of goods for local consumption from local resources that have traditionally been used for subsistence. Production techniques are similar to historical approaches but may incorporate more modern technology. Today these local resource goods may be consumed by the household, shared, or traded in a wider market. The market may be the local market for country foods or the wider international market. There are two general types of traditional activities in the north. The reindeer pastoralism of the Sami and various indigenous groups in Russia represents one type, which depends on access to large areas for pasture and the movement of herds. Hunting and fishing are the dominant activities for the indigenous communities of the North American Arctic and coastal communities of the Russian Far East. Subsistence communities throughout the north do not practice exclusive production but produce a variety of products. Subsistence hunting, fishing, and herding provide real income to northern communities. Gardner (1994) found that in the mid-1980s the real income provided by harvesting and trapping was more important than employment income in the low-income indigenous communities of the Northwest Territories (NWT). In the eastern NWT in 1986, the traditional economy provided an average of $11,000 in imputed value per Native household, and over 70 percent of the households participated in this economy (Myers 2000). A significant portion of Alaska Native households continued to get the majority of their meat through subsistence hunting (Kruse 1986).

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Recent surveys (2001–2006) of the Inuit population in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Chukotka found that half the households reported they harvested half or more of their family’s meat consumption. For two-thirds of the households, traditional food accounted for half or more of their consumption. The continued importance of sharing subsistence foods accounts for the difference in these proportions (Poppel 2006). Even when the traditional activity is less important in providing income, traditional pursuits maintain cultural significance. According to Beach (2000), even though reindeer herders constitute a minority of Sami, reindeer management is important in defining the legal status, state policy, and culture of most Sami. Cash is important in the pursuit of traditional economic activity today, and maintaining a future source of cash is a requirement for a healthy traditional sector. Traditional production relies on adequate cash to purchase necessary equipment and to operate the equipment. The level of traditional production is often dependent on the ­level of cash invested in production. Technology allows producers to make better use of time and to pursue game and fish over a larger area. Households and individuals with access to relatively high-cash incomes are often the most productive in the traditional economy (Elias 1995). Gardner (1994) has suggested that one economic strategy for small communities would be to support the harvesting of subsistence fish and game by providing cash grants. He suggests a wildlife harvester support program based on the Income Security Program of the James Bay Cree would be one way to provide the needed cash. These programs provide cash support to those involved in traditional pursuits. Such a program would be similar to job support programs offered by governments in industrial communities. Efforts to promote the sale of country food within the region would also provide cash for traditional economic activities. In the local economy’s market sector, income is created through the exchange of resources, goods, and services for cash. Market transactions reflect the relative costs of production. Producers can sell their products only when they can provide what people want at the lowest

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cost. The market economy in a community includes sales to residents of the community as well as outside the community. In northern communities, sales outside the community comprise primarily natural resource products: fish, furs, and reindeer products. Resources are harvested and may even be processed locally. The export sector in most indigenous communities is small. This does not mean villages do not have important external market connections. Fish, such as salmon in Alaska, and reindeer are examples of traditional sector products that are sold in the world market. Tourism in the Arctic is another example of a resource-based industry. This part of the local economy provides a connection with the North’s international economy. The local northern market economy also provides goods and services to local residents. This sector includes food stores, transportation companies, and other goods and services purchased by community members. This support sector in most communities is small, reflecting the size of the market. The support sector plays an important role in the growth of communities; it is the sector that influences the cost of living and, therefore, the cost of production. In Alaska communities private-sector earnings accounted for less than half of the total personal income in 1989 (Huskey 1992). This probably overestimated the size of the market sector since the cash provided by the transfer economy generated some of this activity. Quigley and McBride (1987) found the market economy generated personal income approximately one-fifth of the amount imputed to the traditional sector. There are three general explanations for the limited market economy in local indigenous communities. The first is that residents do not have access to the market jobs created in the north. Technical jobs in the resource industry may require skills that local residents do not possess. Wages set artificially high by government or union contract also make local workers too expensive to train for particular jobs. Village residents may not take available jobs because of conflicts with subsistence or the requirement to be away from home. In Alaska, resource industries have a relatively high share of nonresident workers; in 1988, for example, over 35 percent of employees in the

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fish-processing, logging, and hunting and guiding industries were not residents of the state. Similarly, Quigley and McBride found jobs in the private sector in Sanikiluaq went disproportionately to non-Inuit. Pika (1999) describes the process of “lumpenization” of the indigenous labor in the Russian Arctic. Through rationalization of the reindeer herding and the resettlement in larger villages indigenous people lost their access to traditional activities but were not able to take the new jobs created in the settlements. The result was unemployment and participation in the low-skilled sector of the economy. A second explanation for the limited market activity in the local economy is that high costs limit the growth of market activity. Indigenous community economies in much of the Arctic are good examples of what Leven (1986) has called remote economies. Remoteness results in the high cost of production and trade because of the cost of bringing produced inputs from their source. The small size of the local market denies them scale economies in production, which makes imported goods competitive with the local support sector. Wages higher than appropriate, such as those set by minimumwage laws, make economic activity artificially expensive. The third explanation for limited market development in arctic indigenous communities is limited access to markets and resources. The establishment of preserves, such as wilderness areas in the United States, which restrict types of production, may limit access to market resources. Laws like the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 limit the commercial use of resources readily available to villages. This law, as well as worldwide crusades against seal hunting eliminated the sealskin export market throughout the north. Petterson (1988) offers an extreme example of how laws established by national governments, often responding to international concerns, have affected the local community economy. The economy of St. Paul Island in Alaska’s Pribilof Islands depended on U.S. government support of local seal harvesting. The seal harvesting operation provided not only income but also funds to support the village public services. In 1985 the U.S. Congress’s failure to ratify the Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals resulted in the suspension of the commercial seal harvest. Local residents now can

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harvest seals only for subsistence under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The change in the international legal structure eliminated the primary resource of the market economy of the island. What can be done to improve the market economy in the arctic communities? Myers (2000) has identified a number of successful market activities among the Nunavut which are based on renewable resources. Myers found successful businesses in the local processing and sale of country food, small-scale fisheries, craft production, and tourism, sport hunting, and sport fishing. Based on her review, Myers isolated four factors in the success of Nunavut businesses. The first factor was the ability to blend tradition and innovation. The second factor was operation by community-based groups to conserve on management and business talent. Third, small projects were more successful than large ones. The fourth factor was the location of the market; small businesses had more success serving local markets. This last factor may suggest that one opportunity for expanding community economies would be in “import-replacing” activities that would expand the community’s support sector. Another set of success stories reflects the increased access to resources through ownership. Indigenous land claims settlements in the United States and Canada have given people access to potential market resources through development corporations. In addition, ownership gives the incentive to do whatever it takes to put their resources to the best use. Ownership will result in certain resources being preserved for traditional activities and others being promoted for market activity. Development of nonrenewable resources by Alaska and Canadian Native corporations may have little impact on community economies if the resource site is far away and imported workers are used to produce the resource. The development of the Red Dog zinc mine in Northwest Alaska by the NANA Regional Corporation provides one example of how resource development added to the community economies. NANA reached an agreement with the mining firm Cominco to develop the world-class zinc mine in 1982. The mine was developed with the cooperation of the mining company, NANA, and the state. NANA’s ownership of this valuable resource allowed it

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to negotiate requirements for the recruitment and training of regional residents as well as to take precautions to protect subsistence resources. The mine jobs will allow village residents to commute to work on long-term shifts and bring the income earned home to the village. The United States government created the Community Development Quota (CDQ) program to provide for economic development in Alaska’s Native communities along Alaska’s western coast. This program allocates a proportion of the total allowable catch of certain fish resources in the Bering Sea to a group of corporations representing collections of villages. This is not true ownership since the corporations have to reapply periodically for the right, but it does give indigenous communities access to valuable market resources. Much like at Red Dog, ownership of the valuable fish resource allowed the village corporations to negotiate with fishing companies to exchange the right to fish their quota for training and employment opportunities for village residents. Red Dog Mine and the CDQ program are two examples of using ownership of valuable resources to overcome the skills gap that in the past has limited the participation by locals. In both cases commuting is used as the way to bring economic activity to the communities. The transfer sector of indigenous arctic communities is based on money and services provided by government. Governments at all levels are agents for transferring resources from one person to another. Transfers are brought into a community, not in exchange for local resources, but as a right of citizenship. In some countries the indigenous population also receives transfers as a result of their special relationship with national governments. According to Duhaime and Caron (2006), in most regions of the circumpolar north, the public sector accounts for between 20 and 30 percent of GDP. The share increases to 45 percent in Nunavut Territory of Canada. The transfer economy provides income for community residents in three ways. First, government provides direct income transfers to people. Welfare payments and unemployment compensation are examples of this type of transfer. Second, transfers can be used to create jobs in the community. Jobs can be created in local government, social service agencies, or directly for national governments. The sub-

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sidies for local production of goods for market, which were discussed above, may be considered another type of transfer. Finally, transfers may provide real income by directly providing goods and services to residents. This could be food assistance, as in some Russian indigenous communities, or public services such as schools or housing. Transfers introduce problems as well as incomes into the local economies. First, the transfer sector increases a community’s dependence on the outside. As transfers grow, decisions affecting community life are increasingly made outside the community. Laws, regulations, and programs implemented at the provincial or national levels have important implications for community welfare, and residents have little control over those decisions (Morehouse 1989). Since indigenous communities represent minority interests both nationally and sometimes in their home regions, they have only limited political power to effect change. In addition, seeking a share of public resources, rent seeking, may divert limited community entrepreneurial resources from efforts to promote long-term community development. In communities where migration is one response to limited economic opportunities, transfers may limit this adjustment. Transfers associated with income maintenance programs limit the benefits achieved by moving to a community with available jobs. The net gain in income from moving will be limited because the migrant must give up the transfer income. Transfers that reduce the cost of public services in these communities would also add to the cost of moving to urban centers where taxes pay for these services. These transfers amplify the limits to mobility that subsistence creates. Knapp and Huskey (1988) estimated the population of one region of Alaska was as much as three times as big as it would have been without transfers. The most important problem with a transfer economy is that transfers do not provide a certain economic base. Changes in policy or fiscal trouble at higher levels of government may result in a decrease in transfers and a resulting decrease in the size of the local economy. The transfer economy may be no more sustainable than the large-project, nonrenewable resource economy of the industrial

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north. In fact, it suffers the same problems with its own boom-bust nature and lack of local control. To better understand the role of transfers in an arctic community we present two case studies. The first describes what might be thought of as a highly successful arctic transfer economy, the North Slope Borough in Alaska. The second examines the growth and collapse of the transfer economy of the two far eastern provinces in Russia. These cases provide helpful insights into the role of transfers in a community economy. The North Slope Borough was created in 1972. At the time it was unique as a Native-controlled local government in the north. The borough was the vehicle the North Slope Inupiat population used to capture and use the oil wealth created by Prudhoe Bay oil production for the local population. Native leaders on the North Slope also saw the creation of the borough government as a mechanism for moderating the environmental impacts of oil development. Knapp and Morehouse (1991) provide an overview of the economic effects of this government. While the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act allowed the North Slope Natives to claim only a portion of the land in the region, the borough was allowed to tax activity even on the state land at Prudhoe. Both the state and oil companies challenged the borough’s incorporation, but the courts upheld the borough’s authority. Borough tax revenues were used to fund a significant ­capital-improvement program, which brought schools, housing, water, sewers, and other amenities to the villages. The capital improvement program created jobs for community residents. Jobs were also created in government operations. About two-thirds of the jobs in the villages were government jobs, most of which were boroughcreated jobs. Borough spending became the most important source of economic growth in the region. Borough spending was primarily responsible for an increase of about 50 percent in employment in the villages during the 1980s. The effect of this job-creation program was to increase participation rates among working-age Natives and reduce unemployment rates. According to borough estimates, unemployment fell from 24 percent

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in 1980 to approximately 5 percent by 1988. Residents enjoyed a virtually full-employment economy. The Borough used its tax revenue to support the traditional economy and was able to create jobs that supported subsistence with policies that allowed for subsistence leave. The borough also supported subsistence through its regulatory and political efforts and has aggressively supported whaling in the region against international opposition. This looks like a transfer economy that works. Having access to the large tax base at Prudhoe Bay allowed the borough to provide jobs, to improve services, and to protect the traditional economy. Unfortunately, this spending-led economic growth was challenged at the end of the 1980s by the decline in the tax base, revenues, and spending. Borough property values peaked in 1987; projections are that they will decline continually with oil production. The investment in public facilities has also increased the need for cash to operate them. It seems as if the borough’s spending program failed to create a selfsupporting economic base in the region. Like all transfer economies, the North Slope Borough’s future will depend on its ability to maintain government spending and create jobs in the face of increased population growth. The story of the indigenous communities in the Russian Far East described by Ainana et al. (1999) tells a common tale for the indigenous communities of the Russian north (see Pika 1999). They examine the changes in the Chukotka Native economy from the 1950s through the 1990s. The history of this region shows, in the extreme, how transfers can be used to create an artificial economy and how that economy can unravel when the transfers disappear. The Soviet-style transfer economy was created in the region during the 1950s. During this time, state farms were created in the region. On these farms the traditional economic activities of reindeer herding and marine mammal hunting were conducted with a management style that separated the indigenous herders and hunters from decision making. At this same time, small Native villages were merged into bigger ones to improve social conditions and life for the Native population. However, this concentration limited the number

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of hunting and fishing sites and helped remove the population from the traditional economy. Subsidies supported a number of activities on state farms that operated with “planned losses.” These included fur farming, dairy farming, and a chicken broiler factory. The primary traditional economic activity of the region, hunting marine mammals, was relegated to a lower place, providing meat for the fur-raising operations on the state farms. The subsidies of the transfer economy allowed the creation of this hollow economy in the region. This new economy minimized the role of the traditional sector. Beginning in the early 1990s Russia dismantled this transfer economy as it switched to market organization. With the end of subsidies the artificial production activities of the transfer economy disappeared. Reduced subsidies for transportation increased the cost of fuel, material, and equipment, which led to increased unemployment among the Native population. Although subsistence resources were available, the unemployed did not have access to the boats, motors, and rifles required for harvest. These now-expensive items belonged to the state farms. These economic changes led to further concentration of the indigenous population in the larger communities. The larger communities had better living standards, more dependable supplies, and more jobs. Production of traditional food reappeared in these large communities to serve these populations. The concentration may result in another type of problem if the population pressure leads to the exhaustion of the marine mammal resources. Economic change in these two cases had a common cause. Both economies were built on the basis of government spending, and in neither case was the level of economic activity sustainable without government funds. One primary difference was the source of the government funds. The North Slope depended on its own property tax, while the Russia village economies depended on transfers from the central government. Another difference was the extent to which the Russian transfer economy changed the traditional indigenous economy, whereas the North Slope Borough government worked to maintain the important traditional economy.

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t h e f u t u r e of t h e nort h er n econom y

The economic welfare of communities in the Arctic depends on the health of the traditional, transfer, and market economies. The traditional economy provides the historic rationale for northern communities. However, communities cannot rely solely on this sector because in most regions, it does not offer many opportunities for growth. If the population of local communities is growing, traditional endeavors are not the likely to expand enough to increase community economic welfare. One exception may be in the reestablishment of traditional activities among the indigenous communities of Russia. In addition, traditional activities and the provision of modern public services require cash. Cash is provided by the transfer and market sectors. The transfer sector is the most important component of the cash economy in the typical arctic community, but transfers and government spending cannot be considered a source for the expansion of community welfare. With a transfer economy the community increases its dependence on decisions made by others. Government transfers may create their own boom-bust economy as they fluctuate. One approach to stabilizing transfers and reducing the dependency they introduce is found in the structure of North American land claims settlements. Land claims provide a cash settlement, which if properly managed may provide a stable flow of funds. The economic welfare of local communities centers on the market sector and the integration of the local and international economies. Developing a sustainable economy is a difficult task for small communities everywhere. A sustainable economy must provide its residents with adequate real income and be able to adjust to changes in the economic environment. Northern resource production can provide income as long as the connections between the international and local economies are expanded. However, nonrenewable-resource development alone will not meet both of these conditions. Conflicts between market development and traditional uses may also limit the role of resource production for export in improving community economic welfare.

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Decisions by state, national, and international government b­ odies will affect the northern economy. Beyond transfers, higher levels of government often determine how local resources will be used. These choices will determine the future of the market and subsistence economies in the North.

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a r egion of conflict a nd cha nge

The fur trade was one of the earliest forces integrating the North into the world economy. Its history illustrates the causes and consequences of change in the northern economy. The North was incorporated into the world fur trade by the ninth century. Early trade in Russia and Fennoscandia with Norse and other middlemen used fur as payment of taxes and tribute. Early exchange of European commodities was also part of this fur trade. The expansion of the northern fur trade into frontier regions was driven by the increased value of furs in the international market (Robinson 2005). Northern fur resources became more valuable as agriculture spread in Europe and the number of fur-bearing animals in Europe declined. The European demand for furs was an important reason for the Russian expansion into Siberia (Willerslev 2005). The expansion of the trade into the North American frontier followed the change in fashion which increased demand for beaver skins for felt hats. The fur trade changed the northern economy. In certain cases the changes were made through force, as when the Russian traders enslaved the hunters of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. Less drastic were the changes introduced by new settlement patterns, changed seasonal subsistence rounds, and the use of new products and technologies as local residents adapted to the trading opportunities. The external demand for a northern resource also led to declines in the number of fur-bearing animals, making them more expensive to harvest. The northern indigenous population engaged in the fur trade and became more integrated into and dependent on the international economy (Robinson 2005).

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One consequence of the connection with the world economy was that a significant component of the local northern economy was affected by decisions made outside the region. Changes in markets because of changing tastes and the introduction of substitutes, such as farmed furs, affected the income earned from trapping. The environmental movement in the 1970s and 1980s in the south resulted in declines in demand because of change in tastes. Regulations, such as the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the European seal skin initiative of 1983, also restricted local residents’ ability to sell furs. These external changes in the market for furs resulted in a decline in the income produced by trapping. Revenues from seal hunts fell by almost 80 percent between 1981 and 1983 throughout Newfoundland, Greenland, Northwest Territories, and northern Quebec. In eighteen out of twenty Inuit villages in the Northwest Territories, community income was reduced by 60 percent (Myers 2005). The story of the fur trade illustrates the process of external introduced change in the north’s economy. Rasmussen (1999) suggested that the sustainability of arctic communities has been made harder by a number of changes since traditional times. He calls these changes conflicts. The first of his conflicts is the centralization of the population in larger settlements. Traditional communities were small, dispersed, and often mobile to match the resource condition. The small size and remoteness of indigenous communities is the best pattern of population when depending on the local natural resources, since it puts less pressure on the environmental resources. However, this economic geography increases the costs of many modern activities, including market production and the provision of public services. In order to reduce these costs, most national governments in the Arctic have used both force and persuasion to encourage the growth of larger settlements. For example, in the Russian regions of Provideniva and Chukotka, seventeen Native villages were closed down as “unpromising” communities between 1930 and the 1960s. The effect of the relocations was to separate the Native populations from their traditional subsistence resources (Ainana et al. 1999). Similar resettlements took place in Greenland during the 1950s and 1960s (Caulfield 2000).

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While concentration reduces the cost of providing modern services, it also puts added pressure on the surrounding natural resources. Another of Rasmussen’s conflicts is between renewable and nonrenewable resources. Traditional communities were sustainable because they relied on local renewable resources; proper resource use ensured the survival of the community. Modern development in the Arctic is focused in large part on the development of nonrenewable resources. Since nonrenewable resources have a limited life, dependence on these resource rents places a limit on the sustainability of communities supported by this type of resource. Resource production in the international economy might also challenge the local community by providing an alternative way of life for residents of the North. What would the effect of increased opportunities for earning money income be on traditional pursuits? Employment might limit subsistence participation if the jobs are away from the village at some industrial enclave. Workers may not be able to hunt or fish when the resources are available. Some question whether this mixed economy and particularly the role of the traditional sector will be stable or whether the traditional sector will be replaced with access to more market jobs. As jobs become available, the value of traditional activities may decline and community residents will turn to market work (Elias 1995; Stabler 1990). The Alaskan experience does not support this conclusion. The availability of jobs and wage income may actually improve subsistence harvesting. In most communities there does not seem to be a tradeoff between market income and subsistence as the replacement hypothesis might suggest (Wolfe and Walker 1987; Kruse 1991; Langdon 1991). At the household level there may be a positive association between income earned and subsistence harvests. According to Langdon (1986), the modern village economy represents a complex response to contacts with external markets and governments. Subsistence hunters have not simply changed into wage workers, but village residents have incorporated jobs, subsistence, and transfers into their economic life. Resource production for the international economy may change the local economy by limiting the resources available for local pro-

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duction. Ownership and access to resources provide limits to the traditional economy. Competition with other users for those resources that are important in the production of traditional products restricts the traditional economy. For reindeer herding in Scandinavia, Finland, and Russia the most important resource is the land. Herding requires extensive territories. Access to land and its environmental health will determine the ability of the land to support the indigenous population. In the Sami regions and Russia the increase in industrial activity for export to the south has been responsible for diminishing the resource base of these activities. In these regions, industrial activity has been responsible for the migration and settlement of other people. Indigenous people have become minorities in their home regions (see Beach 2000 and Pika 1999). Land resources were lost to other uses such as farming or oil development. The increased population put additional hunting and fishing pressure on the land. Finally, development for the world market may result in pollution, which destroys the productivity of the land. Russian oil development in Siberia has polluted streams and torn up the fragile land. Pressure on the resource base may also result from increased sports hunting and fishing as the indigenous communities become linked with the outside world. Control of the land base is vital for the stewardship that would allow the continuation of traditional economic production. The Sami people and the indigenous groups of Russia have realized this but have been unsuccessful in securing certain rights to important land areas. The indigenous people of the Russian north have the national legislation that establishes and protects the land base for traditional activities (Fondahl 1997). Russian law calls for the establishment of protected zones excluding industrial activities and the allocation of land to groups of individuals or families (an obshchina) for traditional use. Land is supposed to be given in perpetuity. Problems occur with the implementation of these laws at the county level. Land allotments have been too small and given for too short periods of time to provide the incentives for stewardship of the land for herding and other traditional uses. In addition, county administrators granted licenses for subsurface mining on these allotments. Similar problems arose with

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the creation of the protected zones that were approved by national legislation but never implemented. Although the use of pasture land has long been established in Scandinavia and Finland, stewardship rights to Sami reindeer land are still contested. Beach (1997) describes the conflict in Sweden over the definition of the Sami rights to traditional herding territory. The loss of exclusive hunting and fishing rights to these lands in 1993 is one example. The basic question is whether these land rights are simply the right to use the land or the right of ownership. This decision will determine both who makes the decisions about the way the land is used as well as how the land will be used. Disagreement over the best way to use the land results in government regulation of its use (Beach 1997). The indigenous people of Canada and Alaska have done better in establishing land ownership rights through the process of land claims. The earliest land claims settlement was the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act passed by Congress in 1971. This act created thirteen regional and over two hundred village for-profit corporations and distributed almost $1 billion and almost eighteen million hectares of land among them. For the first time, villages through their corporations were able to own land and decide its use for both market and subsistence uses. In certain cases, Alaska villages have used this ownership to enter into joint game management arrangements with state and federal officials. Canadian land claims settlements, such as the Inuvialuit Final Agreement of 1984, provide money and fee simple title to land as in Alaska, but they add rights related to participation in resource development, renewable resource harvesting, and management of renewable and nonrenewable resources. These additional rights reflect the fact that wildlife resources that traditional economies depend on do not respect property lines, so that things that happen off owned land affect the traditional economy. These agreements established procedures for Native co-management of wildlife resources with government officials. However, these co-management schemes fall short of complete stewardship rights since they do not allow true ­self-regulation by the Native groups (Notzke 1995).

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i nst it u t iona l ch a nge

The struggles and successes of the indigenous local economies remind us of the importance of institutions to economic development, especially the institutions that establish ownership rights. Disputes over access to reindeer pastures in the European and Russian north are questions of ownership. The land claims movement in North America is also a movement toward increased ownership. In Alaska, Red Dog Mine development is a case where ownership allowed a regional Native corporation to pursue market development of resources, minimizing the conflict with subsistence uses. Ownership allows choices to be made about the use of resources. It also allows the owner to practice good stewardship, since these rights allow owners to gain the rewards from taking care of their resources. Most importantly, true ownership minimizes conflict with other potential users. Acemoglu (2003) includes property rights along with constraints on the actions of powerful groups and equal opportunity in the set of good institutions that encourage economic development. Ostrom (1990) has shown that ownership doesn’t have to simply follow the individual private property rights model. Establishing good institutions is an important step in developing a sustainable economy in indigenous communities of the Arctic. The most important institutional condition in the north has been the significant role of government in the economy. According to Duhaime and Caron (2006), in most regions of the circumpolar north the public sector accounts for between 20 and 30 percent of GDP. In most northern regions the government is also a major resource owner and controls most production through rules and regulations. In Alaska 87 percent of land is under the direct control of state or federal government. The control of northern resources by regional and national governments produces conditions where decisions about resource use generate conflict. Conflict arises for two reasons. First, unlike market exchanges in which losers are compensated, government decisions create uncompensated losers. This means decisions about public resource use are often contentious, ending up in court or the legislature. This not

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only increases the cost of resource use, it increases the uncertainty of the outcome. Only the most valuable resource prospects will support the high costs and uncertainty of these public transactions. The second reason for conflict is that control of resources by ­nonlocal governments means there are external participants in any decision. National government participation in resource decisions help bring outside interests into the discussion of local resource use. Decisions affecting local residents may be made by government officials or legislatures with limited interests or understanding of the North. Southern organizations supporting their own goals may challenge the welfare of northern communities. Campaigns against the harvest of seals, whales, and furs and debates over the management of reindeer land often pit southern interests against the residents of the North (Rasmussen 1999). Fortunately there have been dramatic changes in northern institutions which have moved the north toward the type of good institutions suggested by Acemoglu (2003): property rights, constraints against expropriation, and equal opportunity. Institutional change has taken place in three areas. There has been an increase in self-government in the circumpolar north. The creation of the State of Alaska in 1959 was an early example of the introduction of institutions to increase resident control of resource use in the north. Local indigenous-majority governments in the North Slope Borough in Alaska in 1972, home rule in Greenland in 1979, and the recently created Nunavut Territory in Canada all provided more opportunity and control for local residents (Fox 2005). In 1971 Alaska Natives became owners of forty-four million acres of Alaska and the subsurface resources with the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The Alaska land claims settlement was a first step to introducing ownership rights in the North American North. Alaska Native regional corporations could make development decisions facing all the consequences of ownership. Since 1971 indigenous land claims agreements have been negotiated in Canada. In general, Native land claims settlements have been necessary to pursue development of high-valued gas, hydropower, or mineral resources in the region. Land claims have changed over time with more recent

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settlements emphasizing broader resource governance rather than simply land ownership (Fox 2005). Ownership institutions have also been adopted in Norway; the 2005 Finnmark Act in Norway established a local institution with representatives appointed by the Sami Parliament to own and manage land that had formerly been managed by the Norwegian government (Grimstad and Sevatdal 2007). Other types of local ownership institutions that are not related to land ownership have also been introduced. Individual fishing quotas allow holders to make ownershiplike decisions; quota systems have been introduced in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Alaska. The 1992 Community Development Quota program gives these ownership rights to communities, not individuals. Quota ownership arrangements have also been instituted for Canadian polar bear harvests, which allow villages to sell their quota to outside sportsmen (Wenzel 2004). In 1981 the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) took over the management of the arctic subsistence whaling harvest from the federal government. The AEWC received these rights after challenging the federal government’s assumptions about the population of bowhead whales in the Arctic (Freeman 1989).

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conclusion

The North has a surprisingly large economy which uses northern natural resources to produce for both the international and the local market. The international economy produces for export, and this is one way that globalization affects the northern economy. World markets determine the extent of production in the North, and capital and labor resources from outside the North are often used to produce northern resources. Production in the international economy will also be affected by rules, laws, and national interests in northern settlements. In this case, economic activity in the North will be affected by the actions of governments from outside the region. Historically there has been little local control in the North of these two strands of external influence, periods of booms and busts have been one result.

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The local economy of the North includes its traditional ­component which produces resources that have always been used primarily for local consumption. The traditional sector provides the reason for the existence and pattern of the North’s small communities. ­Production for the international economy may impose costs on or limit the resources available to the local economy. Rules and regulations affect local production. National and regional governments influence the local economy through the provision of transfer income and services. Transfers are the primary source of cash in much of the rural North. Rules, regulations, and transfers are not guaranteed and can be changed by the actions of external governments. Dependence on the support of external governments has produced another source of instability in the North. Recent institutional changes in the North will increase local control of resource production in both the international and local economies. Institutions of ownership have been created among fisheries, subsistence, and land resources. Relatively new institutions of self-government also increase local control. These institutions should help moderate many of the problems resulting from external decision making for the northern economy.

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r efer ences

Acemoglu, D. 2003. “Root Causes: A Historical Approach to Assessing the Role of Institutions in Economic Development.” Finance and Development (June):27–30. Ainana, L., M. Zelensky, V. Bychkov, and I. Zagrebin. 1999. Preservation and Development of the Subsistence Lifestyle and Traditional Use of Natural Resources by Native People in Several Coastal Communities of Chukotka in the Russian Far East. ­Anchorage: U.S. National Park Service. Anderson, D. 2000. “The Evenkis of Central Sibeira.” In Endangered Peoples of the Arctic: Struggles to Survive and Thrive, ed. M. Freeman. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Anderson, T., and D. Leal. 2001. Free Market Environmentalism. New York: Palgrave.

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Beach, H. 1997. “Negotiating Nature in Swedish Lapland: Ecology and Economics of Saami Reindeer Management.” In Contested Arctic, Indigenous People, Industrial States, and the Circumpolar Environment, ed. E. Smith and J. McCarter. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ———. 2000. “The Saami.” In Endangered Peoples of the Arctic: Struggles to Survive and Thrive, ed. M. Freeman. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Berman, M. 1984. “Renewable Resources.” In Alaska Resources Development: Issues of the 1980s, ed. T. Morehouse. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Bogoyavlenskiy, D., and A. Siggner. 2004. “Arctic Demography.” In Arctic Human Development Report. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Buchanan, J., and Y. Yoon. 2000. “Symmetric Tragedies: Commons and Anti-Commons.” Journal of Law and Economics 43:1–13. Capelotti, P. 2005. “Coal Mining.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, ed. M. Nuttall. New York: Routledge. Caulfield, R. 2000. “The Kalaallit of West Greenland.” In Endangered Peoples of the Arctic: Struggles to Survive and Thrive, ed. M. Freeman. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Duhaime, G. 2004. “Economic Systems.” In Arctic Human Development Report. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Duhaime, G., and A. Caron. 2006. “The Economy of the Circumpolar Arctic.” In The Economy of the North, ed. S. Glomsrod and I. Aslaksen. Oslo: Statistics Norway. Elias, P. 1995. “Northern Economies.” In Northern Aboriginal Communities, Economies and Development, ed. P. D. Elias. York, Ontario: Captus Press. Fondahl, G. 1997. “Environmental Degradation and Indigenous Land Claims in Russia’s North.” In Contested Arctic, Indigenous People, Industrial States, and the Circumpolar Environment, ed. E. Smith and J. McCarter. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Fox, S. 2005. “Land Claims” and “Self-Government.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, ed. M. Nuttall. New York: Routledge.

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Freeman, M. 1989. “The Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission: Succesful Co-Management under Extreme Conditions.” In Cooperative Management of Local Fisheries, ed. E. Pinkerton. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Gardener, P. 1994. “Aboriginal Community Incomes and Migration in the NWT: Policy Issues and Alternatives.” Canadian Public Policy 20(3):297–317. Goldsmith, S. 2008. “Understanding Alaska’s Remote Rural Economy.” Understanding Alaska Research Summary. Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage. No. 10. January. Grimstad, S., and H. Sevatdal. 2007. Norwegian Commons, a Brief Account of History, Status, and Challenges. Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Noragric Working Paper No. 40. Heleniak, T. 1999. “Out-Migration and Depopulation of the Russian North during the 1990s.” Post-Soviet Geography and Economics 40(3):155–205. Hickel, W. 2002. Crisis in the Commons: The Alaska Solution. Oakland, CA: Institute for Contemporary Studies. Hill, F., and C. Gaddy. 2003. The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Huskey, L. 1992. The Economy of Village Alaska. Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage. Huskey, L., and T. Cole. 1977. “Searching for Bonanza: Economics and Alaska History.” Presented at the Western Regional Science Association Annual Meetings, Hawaii. Knapp, G., and L. Huskey. 1988. “Effects of Transfers on Remote Regional Economies: The Transfer Economy of Rural Alaska.” Growth and Change 19(2):25–39. Knapp, G., and T. Morehouse. 1991. “Alaska’s North Slope Borough Revisted.” Polar Record 27(163):303–312. Kruse, J. 1986. “Subsistence and the North Slope Inupiat: The Effects of Energy Development.” In Contemporary Alaska Native Economies, ed. S. Langdon. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. ———. 1991. “Alaska Inupiat Subsistence and Wage Employment

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Patterns: Understanding Individual Choice.” Human Organization 50(4):317–326. Langdon, S. 1986. “Contradictions in Alaska Native Economy and Society.” In Contemporary Alaska Native Economies, ed. S. Langdon. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. ———. 1991. “The Integration of Cash and Subsistence in Southwest Alaskan Yup’ik Communities.” In Cash, Commodities and Changing Foragers, ed. N. Peterson and T. Matsuyama. Osaka: National Museum of Ethology. Leven, C. 1986. “A Note on the Economics of Remoteness.” In Regional Dynamics of Socio-Economic Change: The Experiences and Prospects in Sparsely Populated Areas, ed. E. Bylund and U. Wiberg. Umea, Sweden: CERUM. Lindholt, L. 2006. “Arctic Natural Resources in a Global Perspective.” In The Economy of the North, ed. S. Glomsrod and I. Aslaksen. Oslo: Statistics Norway. Maas, D. 2005. “Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, ed. M. Nuttall. New York: Routledge. Mason, A. 2005. “Gas Exploration.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, ed. M. Nuttall. New York: Routledge. Morehouse, T. 1989. Rebuilding the Political Economies of the Alaska Native Villages. Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage. Myers, H. 2000. “Options for Appropriate Development in Nunavut Communities.” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 24(1):25–40. National Research Council, Committee to Review the CDQ Program. 1999. The Community Development Quota Program in Alaska. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Nikitin, V. M. 2005. “Gold Mining.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, ed. M. Nuttall. New York: Routledge. Notzke, C. 1995. “The Resource Co-Management Regime in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.” In Northern Aboriginal Communities, Economies and Development, ed. P. D. Elias. York, Ontario: Captus Press. Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Palmer, A. 2005. “Oil Exploration.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, ed. M. Nuttall. New York: Routledge. Petterson, J. 1988. Village Economies in Rural Alaska. U.S. Department of Interior, Minerals Management Service, Technical Report No. 132. Pika, A. 1999. Neotraditionalism in the Russian North. Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute and Seattle: University of Washington Press. Poppel, Birger. 2006. “Interdependency of Subsistence and Market Economies in the Arctic.” In The Economy of the North, ed. S. Glomsrod and I. Aslaksen. Oslo: Statistics Norway. Quigley, N., and N. McBride. 1987. “The Structure of an Arctic Micro Economy: The Traditional Sector in Community Economic Development.” Arctic 40(3):204–210. Rasmussen, O. 1999. “Conditions for Sustainable Development in the Arctic: A General Perspective.” In Dependency, Autonomy, Sustainability in the Arctic, ed. H. Petersen and B. Poppel. Aldershot: Ashgate. ———. 2000. “Formal Economy, Renewable Resources and Structural Change in West Greenland.” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 24(1):41–78. Robinson, D. 2005. “Fur Trade.” In The Economy of the North, ed. S. Glomsrod and I. Aslaksen. Oslo: Statistics Norway. Stabler, J. 1990. “A Utility Analysis of Activity Patterns of Native Males in the Northwest Teritories.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 39(1):47–60. Stabler, J., and E. Howe. 1990. “Native Participation in Northern Development: The Impending Crisis in the NWT.” Canadian Public Policy 16(13):263–283. Wenzel, G. 2004. “Polar Bear as a Resource: An Overview.” Position paper for the 3rd NRF Open Meeting. Yellowknife. Willerslev, R. 2005. “Fur Trade, History of Russia.” In The Economy of the North, ed. S. Glomsrod and I. Aslaksen. Oslo: Statistics Norway. Wolfe, R., and R. Walker. 1987. “Subsistence Economies in Alaska: Productivity, Geography, and Development Impacts.” Arctic Anthropology 24(2):56–81.

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changing forms of governance in the north

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Jerry McBeath

This chapter examines the growth of new political structures in the circumpolar north, with an emphasis on the last two decades of the twentieth century and entry into the twenty-first. It begins with definitions of central terms and concepts, such as self-government and new politics. Then, we examine seven nation-states of the North, and describe some of the important political changes occurring at subnational levels. (We do not treat the eighth arctic nation—­ Iceland—once a self-governing part of the Danish empire. Iceland became independent in 1944 and thus has a national government without any subnational governments that compare well to the states, provinces, and autonomous regions of the other arctic states.) We begin in Alaska, focusing on the North Slope Borough, which covers one-fifth of the Alaska region. Then we consider northern Canada, and discuss the Yukon, Nunavut, and Northwest Territories, which comprise 40 percent of the Canadian landmass. Next we discuss development of home rule in Greenland and the Faroe Islands and briefly treat the Sami populations found in Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia. Our last subject is the northern regions of the Russian Federation, where developments are murky as compared with other parts of the circumpolar north. The chapter concludes with several tentative explanations of the process of establishing self-governing institutions. 91

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the concept of self - gov er nment

Throughout the North, communities encounter threats to their capability for self-government. Lying at the periphery of powerful ­postindustrial states, they cannot autonomously chart the course of their future, because governments to the south curb their authority and most northern communities are economically dependent on them. Multinational corporations and global market forces envelop them in complex webs of economic dependency as well. Increasingly drawn into modern market and state systems, northern communities face challenges to subsistence ways of life and threats to the preservation of their language, culture, and societies. The approach of this chapter is optimistic, for northern peoples have significantly improved their political capabilities in the last three decades. We will see this as we review recent political changes in the American and Canadian North, northern Fennoscandia, and the Russian North. (See also Broderstad and Dahl 2004 and Caulfield 2004.) First, however, let us discuss some key terms and concepts and then illustrate the broad nature of political, social, and economic changes.

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s e l f - g ov e r n m e n t

The concept self-government has a number of definitions, but its essential meaning is the ability of a people to make decisions on its own affairs without the interference or direction of external forces. The best example of self-government is found within powerful nations, such as the United States, which seem to possess fully all the attributes of sovereignty. The American government would appear to be independent and absolute, until we consider the events of September 11, 2001, which show that sovereignty today is nowhere absolute. When we look within the eight circumpolar nation-states, we find that all communities (including states or provinces, cities, towns, and villages) work within limits established by the nation-state. Thus, the self-government we will be discussing is relative and comparative. In some areas, such as the Russian North, it is emerging slowly because of uncertainties in the nation-state. In the overseas territories

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of the Danish kingdom, on the other hand, the march toward selfgovernment has been rapid. In treating northern communities and peoples, we ask: How able are they to make decisions on local affairs without external interference, compared with communities in the south? (For a good discussion of the limitations of self-government powers of subnational units, see Peterson 1981.) We emphasize throughout the critical importance of the economic basis to self-government because with the exception of the North Slope Borough, all other northern communities (as of late 2009) rely on grants and transfer payments from nation-states for their survival.

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c h a n g e s i n p o l i t ic a l c a pa b i l i t y

In the last three decades, northern communities have improved their ability to govern themselves, which we call their political capability. Several factors explain this important trend. First, indigenous peoples of the circumpolar north have organized themselves for collective action and mobilized to fight for their communities. Indigenous peoples were the first to occupy seven of the eight circumpolar northern states. (Only Iceland lacks an indigenous population.) In the American, Canadian, and Russian Norths and Greenland, indigenous peoples occupy lands with significant resources. Threats to their lands in most cases prompted organization and political mobilization, beginning in the 1960s. An outgrowth of this political mobilization was a local source of pressure on the state and its subnational units to create responsive local political structures. Second, constitutional changes and interpretations in northern nations have become more supportive of increased power for subnational units. For example, the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982 and its Charter of Rights and Freedoms gave legal and constitutional support to settlement of Native claims. In turn, settlement of Native claims in Alaska and Canada provided an important economic basis for increased autonomy. Third, the global democratization and human rights campaigns have increased the currency of

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self-government movements, while popularizing their aims (Dickerson 1992; Cameron and White 1995). c h a n g e s i n e c o n o m ic opp o r t u n i t y

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Prior to contact with Western traders, missionaries, and government officials, indigenous communities of the circumpolar north relied on fish and game resources for their subsistence. Today, subsistence foods remain an important part of the diet in most regions, but many fish and game resources are threatened. Few northern communities are economically self-reliant. Those with marketable resources are subject to high degrees of volatility in prices for oil, gas, minerals, and other natural resources. As communities have become integrated into the national and increasingly the global economy, they have become reliant on cash exchanges without local means to raise cash. Transfers from external governments make up a large part of subnational government budgets. It is with respect to their economic opportunities that these regions most resemble the model of colonialism. Economic dependence on external governments is the most powerful limitation on selfgovernment opportunities. r i s e of t h e n e w p o l i t ic s

Survival issues—both economic and ethnic—dominated discussion of northern communities in the post–World War II era up to the 1970s and 1980s. Since that time, a new set of issues has enlivened debate: environmental threats, gender relations, and a focus on individual rights, among others. The latter two issues do not directly impinge on community survival. Since the 1970s, they have manifested themselves throughout postindustrial nations, including their northern peripheral regions (see Inglehart 1997). Individual and communitarian values increasingly come into conflict, worsened by intergenerational differences. Gender issues in northern communities express themselves in terms of greater attention to spousal and child abuse as well as continued attempts to

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eradicate discrimination against women. Proposals of affirmative or preferential programs to benefit women are less common. However, environmental issues do directly affect community survival. Increased severity (as well as awareness) of environmental problems such as groundwater contamination, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and threats to subsistence species from mining and oil/gas development have brought environmental issues to the agenda in all northern regions. The latest environmental issue with the most comprehensive impact is climate change, already evident in sea ice thinning, melting of glaciers and ice sheets, and storm surges, among other effects (see ACIA 2004). In this chapter, we will observe how these changes and conflicts play out in different parts of the circumpolar north. We start with the farthest north communities and peoples of North America.

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north a merica n patter ns

In both the United States and Canada, development of political structures followed the political mobilization of indigenous peoples and resolution of Native land claims. However, in the United States, northern communities used the liberal local government provisions of the state constitution to secure a broad range of local government powers. (Article X of the Alaska Constitution provides that “A liberal construction shall be given to the powers of local government units”; see McBeath and Morehouse 1994.) In Canada, northern communities (which comprised 40 percent of the total land area of Canada) took advantage of provisions for territorial government. Also, in the United States, northern communities formed new structures earlier than in Canada, because of the discovery of oil and gas at Prudhoe Bay in 1968, the extinguishment of land claims in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA), and the discovery of valuable hardrock minerals in the northwest Arctic in the 1980s. We examine briefly the development of the Alaska North Slope Borough and then treat the more recent changes in the Yukon Territory, the creation of Nunavut, and reformation of the Northwest Territories (NWT).

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t h e n o r t h s l ope b o roug h o f a l a s k a

The North Slope Borough (NSB), incorporated on July 1, 1972, was Alaska’s first borough (county-type) government serving a predominant Native (Inupiat Eskimo) constituency. The movement to form a borough government was interconnected with the land claims movement on the North Slope. A clear motivation was to capture rents from oil and gas development at Prudhoe Bay, previously unavailable to North Slope residents except through indirect transfers from the state. Leaders sought to ease material conditions of life in the eight Native villages that would compose the borough, particularly the high rate of unemployment. They were strongly motivated to establish high schools, not then available on the North Slope; to protect subsistence pursuits; and to regulate the impact of oil and gas development through land-use planning and zoning powers. During the next quarter-century, the borough developed capabilities in four areas: governmental infrastructure, social welfare distribution, fiscal extraction, and environmental regulation. Initially, borough government was a highly centralized institution operating out of the borough’s largest town, Barrow, which has about 60 percent of the borough population. Protests from the other seven villages (Point Hope, Point Lay, Wainwright, Atkasook, Nuiqsut, Anaktuvuk Pass, and Kaktovik) led to representation of villages on the assembly, school board, and planning commission, and the designation of borough liaison officers in each community. Nevertheless, the borough remains a centralized administrative structure today, with the largest local government staff of any region outside Anchorage. Furthermore, the mayor has greater authority within the borough than that of any other Alaska mayor. For a time, lack of bureaucratic and legislative checks (through the borough assembly) on mayoral power enabled corruption and scandal. Closer scrutiny of borough officials and increased political competition on the North Slope seem to have remedied these flaws. The NSB’s distributive capacity, funded by taxes on oil and gas property (primarily at Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk) located within its jurisdiction, is greater on a per capita basis (borough population is less than ten thousand) than that of any local government in Alaska

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and perhaps the world. It has had the state’s most handsomely funded school district and the most aggressive housing program for residents. The massive Capital Improvements Program (CIP) brought new schools, clinics, roads, housing, water and sewer facilities, airports, sanitary facilities, and light, power, and heating systems to each of the eight North Slope villages, at a total cost by 2001 of over $1 billion. Construction work on CIP facilities as well as jobs in borough government employed well over half of North Slope adults seeking full-time employment. After withstanding two oil company and state challenges to its taxation powers in the early and mid-1970s, the borough had fifteen years of fiscal stability. However, the sunk costs of general government and social welfare programs as well as growing interest payments on bonded indebtedness grew to comprise the lion’s share of the borough budget. And that budget began to decline in pace with the reduction in oil production from Prudhoe Bay after 1988; property tax revenue fell for the first time in fiscal year 1999. The borough’s response was to develop status quo budgets in the late 1990s, to consolidate services, and to begin privatization of some central government services. These measures balanced borough budgets. The most notable indication of fiscal capability was the establishment by borough voters in 1984 of the North Slope Borough Permanent Fund. In early July 2007 (at the peak of oil prices), the fund’s corpus was $575 million, but the global recession reduced its value to $400 million by late September 2009 (personal communication with Reed O’Hair, NSB administration and finance, April 2009). Through charter changes in 1997, 5.5 percent of the rolling average total value of the fund is transferred to the general fund annually. The principal amount of contributions and growth in excess of annual transfers remains in the fund in perpetuity (see McBeath et al. 2008.) The permanent fund contributes significantly to fiscal and thus governmental stability. As an environmental regulator, the borough stands between Native subsistence users and state and federal agencies that regulate species populations. In the particular area of whaling, so critical to the continuation of Inupiat culture, the borough’s development of a correlative agency, the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, has made it

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a major player in the protection of the species most vital to six of the eight North Slope villages. Through its planning and zoning authority, and through its Coastal Management Program (giving the borough a voice in all state and federal decisions affecting coastal development), the borough has regulatory power over oil and gas development that is as strong as that of any Alaska municipality (see McBeath 2001). The NSB is not the only predominantly Native region to have taken advantage of strong local government powers under the Alaska Constitution. In 1986, leaders of the NANA Regional Corporation, a for-profit corporation formed under terms of ANCSA, initiated incorporation of the Northwest Arctic Borough to the southwest of the NSB. Development of the Red Dog zinc mine, located on NANA corporation lands, provided the impetus for the incorporation. The mine is this borough’s richest tax resource and a major source of employment for the region’s residents, most of whom also are members of the NANA corporation. Both the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs are public governments, serving all residents, whether Native or non-Native. Since the 1980s in Alaska, some Native leaders have supported formation of tribal governments and a statewide intertribal council, believing this provides a superior voice for Native people and better protection of their needs than instrumentalities of the state. Tribal governments play a relatively small role in Alaska’s two northernmost boroughs today. However, Native corporations chartered under terms of ANCSA and some village corporations play large roles. The Arctic Slope Regional Corporation is the largest corporation owned by Alaskans and has paid $364 million in dividends to ten thousand shareholders in the last three decades (ASRC 2009). de v e l opm e n t s i n t h e c a n a di a n n o r t h

Concerns for self-government and empowerment in Canada’s North have been front-page stories in the last two decades, as peoples living within territories have gained federal government recognition and increased local authority. The Canadian North, including the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, and newly formed ­Nunavut,

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is distinctive because it covers 40 percent of the Canadian landmass, with a little over one hundred thousand people. In Canadian terms, it presents the issue of “public government”—equally accessible to all residents—vis-à-vis indigenous self-government, accessible only to those with aboriginal ancestry. We trace recent changes of internal political structures in the Yukon, the NWT, and Nunavut. Yukon Territory. Created in 1898, in conjunction with the Klondike Gold Rush, this territory remains mining-dependent today. Government, however, is the largest employer, and it serves a relatively small population of thirty thousand. Half live in the territorial capital Whitehorse; only one-quarter of the territory’s residents are indigenous people. Although the Yukon has had a fully elected legislature since 1909, for most of territorial history the executive was appointed and the government dominated by Ottawa. Pressures by Yukon’s councilors in the 1950s and 1960s for constitutional change resulted in gradual devolution of responsibilities from federal officials, particularly Canada’s Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND), to elected representatives in the territory. Today, in the views of many observers, Yukon is a “­proto-province,” with a great deal of political autonomy. Its government is a scaleddown version of the provincial governments of southern Canada. The seventeen-person elected legislature provides members for the executive council (cabinet). Competition between political parties enlivens debate, and the cabinet is collectively responsible to the majority party (following the British parliamentary tradition). Most federal programs, including resource management, have been transferred to the territory. The territory, however, is highly dependent on federal revenues, which amount to about 75 percent of its budget. Unlike a province, the territory lacks unequivocal constitutional status, power over public lands, and the ability to make policy without federal interference (see Smyth 1999, 2005). The most significant recent political change was the passage of the Yukon land claims and self-government agreements of 1994. The land claims were negotiated for Yukon’s fourteen indigenous communities by the Council of Yukon Indians. (Indigenous communities are called “First Nations” in Canada.) The claims settlement package is

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analogous to those of the Northwest Territories. It is a comprehensive land claim in the nature of a modern treaty. In exchange for compensation for land lost, First Nations receive fee simple title to certain tracts of land (including ownership of a small part of the subsurface rights to the land) and participation in wildlife and environmental management boards. Funds from the settlement are awarded to indigenous organizations for purposes of economic development projects and social programs; lands are retained in common by First Nations organizations. Pursuant to the Umbrella Final Agreement, the Yukon First Nation Self-Government Act was proclaimed in 1995, but not all selfgovernment provisions have been implemented yet (see Leas 2005). Each First Nation can assume areas of legislative jurisdiction from the territorial government and receive federal funds for operation of programs in that area. Economies of scale, however, suggest that few small First Nation communities will be able to manage government programs, especially those with expensive overhead requirements. The Yukon has had a politically significant nationalist movement, seeking full provincial status, for four decades. Until recently, the movement has been constrained by the lack of resolution of First Nations land claims, which prompted objections from the DIAND. Then, the patriation of the Canadian fundamental law in the 1982 Constitution Act created new conditions for province-hood: both the federal government and two-thirds of the provinces (with at least 50 percent of Canada’s population) must consent. This seems likely to delay provincial status as much as Yukon’s small population, underdeveloped economy, and fiscal dependence on the federal government. Northwest Territories. Created by the Canadian government in 1875, the NWT covered all of the Canadian Arctic (except a small slice of the northern Yukon) until Nunavut was established in 1999. The western sphere, which is the NWT today, has a heterogeneous population, and this factor has been the impediment to the growth of autonomous institutions of public self-government. Nonindigenous residents compose roughly over half of the population of thirty-six thousand, and they live in the most populous towns, including the territorial capital of Yellowknife (fifteen thousand). The indigenous population is substantially divided, including some Inuit, as well as

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a large Dene and Metis population. Government is also the largest employer, but the territory has a varied menu of nonrenewable resources, including oil and gas, gold, and diamonds. The site of best economic development prospects and also the most populated region is the Mackenzie Valley. NWT political development resembles that of the Yukon. Until the 1960s, the federal government was in complete charge, and the NWT commissioner and territorial council worked from Ottawa. Following the Carrothers report, which called for enhanced autonomy, the territorial administration moved north to Yellowknife in 1967. Indigenous residents, however, were little involved in this process. Only in 1975 did the territory gain the right to have a wholly elected territorial council, and in that year the council had a majority of First Nations members. In the 1980s, much of effective government authority was transferred to elected officials, including the devolution of provincialtype programs. The territory relied on the federal government for most of the revenue (about 80 percent) to support service delivery. The NWT government early established a distinctive pattern of operation. Legislators did not organize into political parties and functioned more as a committee of the whole than as a debating society. Indigenous customs and traditions were recognized, and the government translated important proceedings into all eight of the region’s languages. Northern influences have been prominent as well, particularly in the attempts of the territorial leaders to decentralize programs to local governments. The First Nations of the western Arctic did not agree to a comprehensive approach to settlement of land claims. The Treaty 8 and Deh Cho Natives opposed this in concept. They questioned the legitimacy of the territorial government and sought nation-to-nation negotiations with Ottawa. On the other hand, the Inuvialuit formed one of the earliest land claims associations—the Committee for the Original Peoples’ Entitlement (COPE)—and reached agreement in 1984, followed by the Gwich’in in 1992 and the Sahtu claims in 1994. The establishment of Nunavut reduced the size of the NWT without narrowing differences among residents on the scope and ­nature of territorial government, definition of the political ­community (and in

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particular whether it included all residents or was defined by indigenous status), and basis of government legitimacy. Nunavut. On April 1, 1999, the Canadian government formally acknowledged the formation of Nunavut from the central and eastern arctic regions of the NWT, at a celebration attended by indigenous leaders from many nations. The small population of Nunavut, approximately thirty thousand, is mostly Inuit (about 85 percent), and this relative homogeneity is a factor explaining its political unity and success. Discussions concerning the formation of Nunavut began in the early 1960s but were delayed by federal constitutional issues as well as land claims. The formation of the new territory required two plebiscites among NWT voters. The first, in 1982, asked whether a new territory should be formed, and 56 percent of those voting agreed; the second, in 1992, asked whether the proposed boundary (giving relatively more contested land to Nunavut than to the NWT) should be accepted, which gained a similar vote. At this time, the provisional government committee made an interesting proposal to ensure gender balance in the legislative assembly: two-member districts would be established, in which voters could choose one man and one woman. This proposal was not accepted by voters. The new government of Nunavut has the same legislative and executive authority as do the other territories. The government is responsible for a full range of jurisdictions from the old NWT government. But, unlike some of the First Nations representatives at the Western Constitutional Conference in 1995, who sought clear constitutional statements of indigenous self-government, the Nunavut Act makes no reference to “citizens” of Nunavut and regards itself as a public government (see Jull 2001). Yet Inuit leaders of Nunavut have attempted to introduce aspects of traditional social practices and customs into government administration. Loukacheva (2007) reports on the efforts to incorporate Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (Inuit social values, knowledge, and the wisdom of elders) into the machinery of government. Notwithstanding the issues remaining in each of Canada’s three northern territories, they have taken great strides toward ­self-government in the last few decades. In each, indigenous populations now have a

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stronger voice than at any previous time; all residents through representative assemblies can share in making decisions on policy matters. europea n norther n patter ns

A different set of patterns appears when one leaves the North American continent and examines communities of the North Atlantic and northern Fenno-Scandia. Some of these communities (Greenland, Faroe Islands) are self-governing territories of the Danish Realm, which have achieved a considerable measure of autonomy within that context. Other communities, such as the Sami, are not recognized as having special rights as members of indigenous groups but have been successful in winning some degree of autonomy that protects their culture and, to a lesser extent, their livelihood. We discuss the different cases below.

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g r e e n l a n dic ho m e ru l e

Greenland1 has only fifty-six thousand residents, 88 percent of whom are Inuit (most of the remainder are Danes).After more than two hundred years of colonial rule and an interlude of some twenty-five years as an ordinary Danish province, in 1979 Greenland became an autonomous region, a home rule territory, of the Danish Realm. The path toward home rule was gradual, beginning in the 1860s as local councils were established with representatives from the Greenlandic population. In connection with the decolonization process occurring after World War II, Greenlanders were represented in a provincial council and won two seats in the Danish parliament. The pace quickened in the 1970s, by which time political parties advocating different positions (home rule vs. independence) had mobilized voters. The Greenland Home Rule Act of 1979 (modeled on the 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands) transferred legislative and administrative powers in particular fields to the home rule authority. The act provided for a legislative branch, the Landsting, and for the establishment of local government in the Landsstyre. The limits of

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Greenland’s home rule were established by the fields of responsibility that could not be transferred. These included foreign relations, international treaties, defense policy, monetary policy, and areas such as the police and judiciary. In these two latter cases, the powers of the home rule government were less than those of Canadian provinces or U.S. states. Decisions concerning use and ownership of natural resources were shared jointly between Greenlandic and Danish authorities. Greenland’s home rule system was not a nation-state. A large degree of control was still vested in Denmark. Greenland relied on Denmark for economic aid, ranging from half to three-fourths of its annual budget of public expenditures (Caulfield 1997; Dahl 2005; Nielsen 2001; Larsen 1992). Nevertheless, the home rule administration assumed a long list of important government functions: direct and indirect taxes, fishing in the territory, labor relations, education and cultural affairs, social welfare, wildlife preservation, trade and competition regulation, internal transportation, housing administration, environmental protection, and health services. Moreover, although Greenland lacked independent foreign relations powers (sovereignty), it commented on proposed treaties affecting its interests and negotiated directly with foreign governments and participated in international negotiations on commercial issues (with Danish approval). Significantly, by a narrow margin, Greenland voters opted out of the European Union in 1982, a decision supported by Denmark. (Greenland remains as an observer, protective of its fishing interests.) Home rule leaders quickly moved to implement policies of Greenlandization, to enhance control over economic and social development. An early focus was the fishing industry, Greenland’s largest employer (after government) and industry. Once dominated by small independent fishermen, by the 1970s this sector had become an ­export-oriented fishing economy. The home rule government took over the Royal Greenlandic Trade Department, which gave it influence over the industry as a whole, including the state-owned trawlers. In addition, home rule enabled a focus on economic diversification and development of the Greenlandic home market. Educational policies attempted to increase significantly the number of Inuit serving as teachers and public administrators, which became a central objective of the new, small Uni-

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versity of Greenland in Nuuk, the capital. Greenland’s majority Inuit population collectively was less advantaged than the Danish residents, and the intent of Greenlandization policies was to address this disparity. However, home rule was defined in relation to the geographical territory of Greenland and not by any racial stipulation. The home rule government thus was a “public” and not an aboriginal government. Differences among Greenland’s parties have been more pronounced than those of the other circumpolar northern states. Since the 1970s, a center-left or social democratic party (called Siumut, meaning progressive) has emphasized Greenland’s “blocked development” because of colonial dependency. It was the spearhead of the home rule movement and guided the home rule government during its early years. The success of Siumut stimulated the formation of other political parties, such as the Atassut, which sought to slow the pace of sociopolitical change, and newer center-conservative parties, seeking to promote the private sector and limit the scope of the public sector. One party only, the Inuit Ataqatigiit, sought to cut all ties to Denmark and enter close cooperation with other Inuit nations. Greenland’s desire for greater autonomy prompted the home rule government to establish a Commission on Self-Governance in 1999. In its 2003 report, this body recommended a partnership between Greenland and Denmark, which led to bilateral negotiations and formation of a Danish-Greenlandic Parliamentary ­Self-Government Commission the following year. Significantly, this commission had equal representation from each side. In June 2008, the commission recommended adoption of the Self-Government Agreement as a substitute for the Home Rule Act of 1979. The Danish parliament accepted the agreement, as did 76 percent of Greenland’s voters in November 2008. While not a declaration of independence, the agreement moves Greenland much closer to full autonomy. It divides the remaining powers and responsibilities of government exercised by Denmark into two lists. The first list provides for immediate assumption by Greenland over areas such as workplace injury insurance, traffic regulations, and property laws. The second list specifies areas such as correctional facilities, criminal courts, justice administration, and mineral

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r­ esources. Not subject to the scope of self-government are monetary policy, foreign and defense policy, the supreme court, and citizenship (Graugaard 2009). Transfer of power and authority concerning areas on the second list is designed to be gradual and in accord with Greenland’s ability to finance these government services. Political and symbolic gains from the agreement include adoption of Greenlandic as the official language and recognition of Greenlanders as a people according to international law, with the right to self-determination. Greenland has vast alternative energy resources in wind and solar power and harnessing its hydroelectric potential. It has hard-rock minerals (such as aluminum), and it is estimated that there are large offshore reserves of oil and gas. Completing the march toward independence under terms of the agreement will require Greenland’s exploitation of its natural resource bounty, with the attendant increased dependence on the volatile global market and risk of environmental disturbance. In the most recent Landsting election of June 2009, the opposition (and leftist) Inuit Ataqatigiit (Inuit Community) Party won 44 percent of the vote and formed a new government, displacing Siumut, which had governed Greenland during most of the period under the home rule agreement. The new governing party has popularized an agenda of faster development of Greenland and looser ties to Denmark. It has a popular leader, Kuupik Kleist, who became the new prime minister (Lyall 2009). Home rule and now the self-government agreement have led to a resurgence of consciousness and pride among the Greenlandic population, with ramifications on language and culture as well as society and politics. They appear to have overtaken residents of the Faroe Islands, to whom we turn. fa ro e i s l a n d s

These eighteen islands lie between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic, nearly equidistant from Iceland and Norway. Populated by Viking settlers in the ninth century, they have been linked to Denmark since the fourteenth and achieved a high measure of ­self-government

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after World War II. Today’s population is approximately forty-six thousand. Although part of the Danish Realm, the Faroe Islands are a self-governing overseas administrative division of Denmark and since 1948 have enjoyed home rule. An elected parliament, the Logting with thirty-two members, represents the Faroese, and there is strong competition between political parties. In the election of 2008, voters gave roughly equal percentages of the vote to four parties: the Union, Social Democratic, Republican, and People’s parties. In late 2008, Leo Johannesen of the Union Party formed a majority coalition and became prime minister. The prime minister selects a cabinet that is responsible to the Logting. A high commissioner represents the Danish head of state, and there are two Faroe Islands seats in the Danish parliament. The Faroese economy is heavily dependent on fisheries, which makes it vulnerable, particularly given nonsustainable fishing practices in recent years. Nevertheless, success in fish landings as well as high and stable export prices have reduced unemployment and the subsidy required from Denmark (approximately 15 percent of annual public expenditures). One economic factor stimulating the independence movement is the expectation of most Faroese that an oil industry will be developed in their waters (see Menas Associates 2001). A second factor, but one that depresses enthusiasm for independence, is the global economic recession of 2008–2009, which agitated the Faroese economy before it nearly bankrupted Iceland— long a model for the Faroese. Economics and politics have dictated the recent course of the independence campaign. Ackren (2006) characterizes the objectives in four stages: (1) development of consensus on overall political objectives, (2) preparatory work such as crafting reports and establishing timelines, (3) negotiations between Faroese and Danish authorities, and (4) ratification by the Danish parliament and a popular referendum in the Faroe Islands, with a planned completion of the process by 2012. In 2001, the Logting adopted a proposal for a structured process toward independence, acknowledging that the Faroese people were a nation with sovereign rights to self-determination (an ­apparent

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c­ onsensus). The plan would phase out financial subsidies from Denmark and begin the transfer of control over education, church, police, and other areas in 2002, for which plans were crafted. Initially, Denmark was reluctant to discuss the issue, but in a 2002 visit to the Faroe Islands, the new Danish prime minister proposed that the Faroese take over responsibility of areas such as police, courts, and the airport. Thus, by 2003, stages one and two had been completed, and the Faroese began negotiating with the Danes. Independence was not an issue to the Danish authorities. Instead, they focused on the sustainability of the Faroe Islands, indicating that shortly after independence was declared (just four years), Danish economic support would cease. The Faroese government sought a longer transition period, of at least fifteen years. Changing party fortunes also influence the process. The Logting is divided among supporters of independence (for whom, again, Iceland is the model), supporters of different types of confederation with Denmark, and those favoring a free association option (Ackren 2006). Financial hard times compound the political indecision, making the path toward independence more torturous than it has been in Greenland. the sa mi

Four northern European states—Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia—have Sami populations, which collectively number fewer than sixty thousand. None of the states, however, gives constitutional recognition to the indigenous status of the Sami, and none has recognized their rights to lands as indigenous peoples. The treatment of the Sami in Russia resembles that of other aboriginal peoples. Here we consider some of the patterns of Sami-Nordic state interrelationships. One factor is similar, however: each of the Nordic states has a unitary system of government, with no provision for a constitutional devolution of authority to subnational units. Unlike the situation of the Greenlanders and Faroese, moreover, the Sami populations are contiguous to other Nordic state residents who are not indigenous.

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Norway has the largest number of Sami, and most of them live in the northernmost region of the nation, Finnmark. The Norwegian government recognizes the Sami as an ethnic minority and a separate people (but not one with constitutional rights as an indigenous people). Reindeer herding is a major pursuit of Norway’s Sami (as it is of Finnish and Russian Sami), and the state recognizes reindeer herders as an interest group. But areas traditionally used for herding are not protected by the state. In fact, conflicts between reindeer herding and other land uses are not uncommon. The Norwegian state has followed a progressive policy regarding recognition of the Sami language (including teaching it in schools) and protection of the culture through creation of several museums. Sweden does not recognize its small Sami population as a separate people but does recognize them as an ethnic minority. A larger part of the indigenous population is economically integrated and resides in southern Sweden. The northern population lacks protection for its herding areas, which increasingly are threatened by mining and nuclear and hydropower plants (see Korsmo 1993). Under Finnish law, Sami have no rights to land, waters, or traditional sources of livelihood. Unlike Norway, which restricts reindeer ownership and herding to Sami, Finland allows those without native ancestry to use reindeer. Yet the Finnish government has played an important educational role in publishing Sami textbooks and dictionaries and in seeking to preserve their culture. Indeed Josefsen (2005, 183) argues that Sami in Finland “have stronger statutory rights than those in either Sweden or Norway.” Each of the three Nordic states has Sami “parliaments,” which function as representatives of indigenous peoples. Broderstad and Dahl (85, 2004) argue that “they play a central political role . . . [on] political issues, and they function as governmental bodies . . . for realizing the principal policies of the respective states.” Yet they have made little headway in developing protections for Sami livelihoods. The Sami Council is a body representing Sami from all four northern nations and is a nongovernmental organization with the United Nations (as is the Inuit Circumpolar Council, representing Inuit of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia).

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patter ns in the russia n north

Unlike changes in the other northern regions we have treated, developments in the Russian North are ambiguous and unclear for three important reasons. First, Russia has undergone a massive political transformation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is evolving toward a new system only the outlines of which are apparent. Second and related, Russia is now democratizing but has not yet consolidated its democracy—unlike the established liberal democracies one finds elsewhere in the circumpolar north. Critical processes, such as legal and judicial protections for rights of individuals and groups, have not become established. Finally, Russia’s market reforms and economic declines make unclear the exact and potential fiscal relationships between center and periphery. For these reasons, we cannot point to new internal political structures, but in this section we will outline the development of existing structures of regional and local governments, focusing on the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. There are more than two dozen indigenous groups which collectively total 250,000 people, but they are a small proportion of the northern population of about ten million. Their traditional homelands extend over the arctic and subarctic territory, from the Kola Peninsula in the west to the Bering Strait in the east (including western Siberia, eastern Siberia, and sections of the Russian Far East). Practicing a subsistence lifestyle of fishing, hunting, trapping, and reindeer husbandry over the centuries, the indigneous peoples have seen their lands and pursuits threatened by industrial enclaves and development projects since the end of World War II. Resulting degradation and pollution of their lands have been more serious than in any other region of the North. pr e c o m m u n i s t e r a

Siberia was annexed by Russia beginning in the sixteenth century, and initially its indigenous peoples were sought out as allies in the settlement of the region. The Russian colonizers established districts, primarily for tax collection purposes, based on clan or territorial units;

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they also co-opted elders and clan leaders into the czarist service. Throughout the period of colonization, however, Russian officials at will took advantage of indigenous peoples. Perhaps the most farreaching administrative reform during this era was the division of the aboriginal population into settled, nomadic, and other (mostly hunting) groups. Tax collection systems as well as administrative practice differed across the groups, with the latter two enjoying the greatest amount of autonomy. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, this system was revised in an attempt to equalize settled indigenous peoples with Russia’s peasant population, while attempts were made to bring all indigenous people into a settled way of life.

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t h e s ov i e t pe r i od

The early days of communist rule brought some improvements to the conditions of indigenous people. A Committee of Assistance for the Peoples of the Northern Peripheral Regions conducted a census, extended schooling and health-care facilities, and sought to prevent encroachment on their territories. Work began on creating written languages for each of the peoples of the North in the late 1920s. An important political event was the establishment of okrugs (national areas) for many aboriginal peoples, such as the Nenets and Evens. Simultaneously, however, the regime organized joint reindeer breeding associations and used lands and cooperatives for joint production. Clearly, location on the periphery of the Soviet state protected indigenous peoples somewhat from the ravages of Stalinism. Postwar developments were more threatening to subsistence pursuits and to cultural survival. Peripheral districts in the 1950s were required to develop new economic activities, such as dairy farming, cattle husbandry, and domestic fur breeding, which overused lands and stole attention from primary economic activities. Then, in the late 1950s, a policy directive aimed to assimilate the nomadic population into settlement, mainly by construction of new housing. This violated the integrity of family units. The assimilation campaign intensified with the relocation of smaller villages into large communities. As a result, traditional hunting and fishing ­locations were ­abandoned,

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and indigenous groups were mixed. The Russification policy of the 1960s and 1970s led to loss of indigenous languages and disappearance of some national cultures (Hickey and Ugrinsky 1996).

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postcom m u n ist r e for ms

The perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (opening) reforms of the Gorbachev era, which brought on the dissolution of the Soviet Union, also focused on problems facing aboriginal peoples in the Russian North. One important outcome of this public debate was the formation in 1990 of the Russian Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON). The association participated in election campaigns for the Duma and Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and campaigned in regional and local assembly and executive elections. This political mobilization emphasized themes of self-government. (See Murashko 2005 and Todyshev 2005, who both note that in the 2004 Duma elections, no indigenous person was elected to office.) A number of laws were amended and established pertaining to indigenous peoples and their opportunities for self-government. The intent of these laws was to assist peoples of the North to overcome excessive paternalism and local ethnosocial dependence, by supporting them in developing their national cultures, traditional economy, and commerce. Legislation included The Basics of the Legal Status of the Minority Nations of the Russian Federation, The Status of Family Land Plots of the Minority Peoples of the North, and On the Protection and the Traditional Use of Land and Other Natural Resources in the Areas Inhabited by the Minority Peoples of the North. However, severe economic dislocations associated with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the marketizing reforms in Russia, and general deterioration in the level of administrative services, undercut the intent of these legal reforms. Constitutional reforms also seemed to head in the direction of increased self-government opportunities for northern peoples. The 1993 Yeltsin constitution gave increased powers to eighty-nine “subjects,” the primary political entities in the territory of the Rus-

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sian Federation. Yet their character is quite complex. The subjects (such as republics) are further divided into smaller units—districts, cities and towns, groups of villages, and villages—in which local ­self-government operates. (For information on how this affects indigenous groups, see Kryazhkov 2005; Turaev 2005; and Sillanpaa 2008.) Although the 1993 constitution established one chapter entitled “Local Self-Government” (chapter 8), it formed only a broad framework for the creation of institutions of local self-government without specifying details. Local self-government is to be exercised in forms determined by the local population, with consideration being given to historical forms and other traditions of local administration. However, local self-government institutions are almost completely dependent economically on the subjects of the federation. Instead, representative bodies of the subjects of the federation determine what revenues collected in their jurisdiction will be given to the districts, cities, towns, and villages. Local governments across Russia complain that subjects keep the largest share of collected revenue, much like the complaints that subjects of the federation make about the federal government. The identified problems of developing self-governing institutions for communities of the North are indeed generic to all local polities in post-Communist Russia. Observers of local politics generally agree that local government has been unable to attain the degree of independence ostensibly granted to it by the constitution and laws of Russia. This is in large measure because of the inadequacy of the financial resources of institutions at that level. Also, local government executive authority has been dominant, and legislative institutions have played a marginal role. The ties between political actors on different levels are highly personalized, with wide opportunities for the cultivation of patron-client relationships (and associated corruption). In other words, new internal political structures have not been solidly established. The situation is little better at the republic level, where indigenous peoples of the north typically are minorities. A serious difficulty not within sight of resolution is the lack of concrete and definitive legal frameworks supported by a powerful judiciary. This is essential in order to confer group rights to land and to

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subsistence pursuits. No property rights regime exists in Russia that would facilitate the protection of indigenous community structures.

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conclusion

We have surveyed seven circumpolar northern nation-states and briefly observed some of their northern communities. In most, we have seen the growth of new political structures which have had the effect of increasing self-governing capabilities of northern peoples. Most of the circumpolar north is very sparsely populated. The majority of residents in the Alaska North Slope, Nunavut, and Greenland are indigenous peoples who have lived in the region since time immemorial, but indigenous peoples are a minority of the residents in the North overall. Nonindigenous settlers and transients increasingly moved to northern regions in pursuit of furs, gold, oil, and souls. Government actions, such as military deployments in the Arctic during World War II, were a major vector of change. Multinational corporations (and, in the former USSR, the state) seeking to exploit northern resources began the industrialization of sections of the Arctic. These pressures collectively were the most serious challenge to indigenous lands, language and culture, livelihood, and environment in their history. The response of indigenous people—their political mobilization—was the chief explanation for the creation of new political structures. Native land claims movements in Alaska and Canada were directly linked to the formation of new agencies of self-government. Clearly, however, other conditions facilitated the development of new institutions: favorable national conditions for recognition of minority rights, the growth of human rights on the international agenda, and the power of a “demonstration effect,” as news of the successes of one group migrated to another. Development of new political structures has depended on two factors, present in the North American and Nordic regions and absent in Russia. First, changes occurred in modern liberal democracies, which allow groups to freely organize and protest, and which require that important changes receive support from a majority of

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the electorate. Liberal democracies also insist that institutions be representative of those served and responsible to them. Second, changes occurred in states with autonomous legal systems, which recognized property rights and which could assign rights of property in land to groups as well as to individuals. Obviously, the subnational political structures we have examined are not identical. They vary in response to the groups they represent, and particularly by the ethnic homogeneity or heterogeneity of that population. Of equal or greater importance, the new political structures vary by nature of the system—federal or unitary. Federal systems seem to provide greater opportunities for the development of self-governing structures, as indicated in the difference between the United States and Canada on the one hand and Denmark on the other (although some would contest this point, claiming that Denmark is now a quasi-federal system). Within the class of federal systems, there are significant differences in the number of local government opportunities provided. Alaska gives its local governments great powers, unmatched by the Canadian and Russian federal systems. In the class of unitary systems, there are significant differences in the devolution of power to indigenous groups, revealed in the comparison of Danish overseas possessions to the Sami of Norway, Sweden, and Finland (yet the geographic distance of Greenland and the Faroe Islands from Copenhagen makes an obvious case for maximum devolution). Finally, subnational political structures vary by the arrangement of powers found in the nation-state, with a difference between parliamentary systems, such as Canada and Denmark, and the separation-of-powers system found in the United States and, to a lesser extent, in Russia. Lastly, the new political institutions vary by condition of economic development. There is an obvious linkage between the power of a subnational structure and its wealth, as we note in the case of the Alaska North Slope Borough. Northern communities lack the diversified economic bases of their southern cousins. Subsistence provides a floor, but community wealth depends on resource extraction opportunities (which increase directly with the rate of global economic interdependence) and transfers from superior governments. There is considerable variety in both conditions across the North today.

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notes 1. Geographically, Greenland belongs to the North American continent. Because it remains an overseas territory of Denmark and has been strongly influenced by Danish law and politics, we consider it in the European section.

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r efer ences

ACIA. 2004. Impacts of a Warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ackren, Maria. 2006. “The Faroe Islands: Options for Independence.” Island Studies Journal 1(2):223–238. Arctic Slope Regional Corporation. 2009. Press release, March 31. Broderstad, E.G., and J. Dahl. 2004. “Political Systems.” In Arctic Human Development Report. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Cameron, Kirk, and Graham White. 1995. Northern Governments in Transition. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy. Caulfield, Richard. 1997. Greenlanders, Whalers, and Whaling: Sustainability and Self-Determination in the Arctic. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. ———. 2004. “Resource Governance.” In Arctic Human Development Report. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Dahl, Jens. 2005. “The Greenland Version of Self-Government.” In An Indigenous Parliament? ed. Kathrin Wessendorf. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Dickerson, Mark O. 1992. Whose North: Political Change, Political Development, and Self-Government in the Northwest Territories. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Evans, Alfred B., Jr. 2000. “Economic Resources and Political Power at the Local Level in Post-Soviet Russia.” Policy Studies Journal 18(1):114–133. Funk, Dmitriy A., and Lennard Sillanpaa. 1999. The Small Indigenous Nations of Northern Russia: A Guide for Researchers. Vaasa, Finland: Social Science Research Unit, Abo Akademi University.

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Graugaard, Naja D. 2009. National Identity in Greenland in the Age of Self-Government. Center for the Critical Study of Global Power and Politics, Trent University, Ontario, Canada. Henderson, Ailsa. 2007. Nunavut: Rethinking Political Culture. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Hickey, James E., Jr., and Alexej Ugrinsky. 1996. Government Structures in the U.S.A. and the Sovereign States of the Former U.S.S.R. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Inglehart, Ronald. 1997. Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Josefsen, Eva. 2005. “The Experience of Sápmi.” In An Indigenous Parliament? ed. Kathrin Wessendorf. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Jull, Peter. 2001. “Nations with Whom We Are Connected.” Discussion paper, March 31. Korsmo, Fae. 1993. “Swedish Policy and Saami Rights.” Northern Review 11:32–55. Kryazhkov, Vladimir A. 2005. “Participation in the Political Process” and “The Example of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.” In An Indigenous Parliament? ed. Kathrin Wessendorf. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Larsen, Finn Breinholt. 1992. “The Quiet Life of a Revolution: Greenlandic Home Rule 1979–1992.” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 16:1–2, 199–226. Leas, Daryn. 2005. “Self-Government in the Yukon.” In An Indigenous Parliament? ed. Kathrin Wessendorf. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Loukacheva, Natalia. 2007. The Arctic Promise: Legal and Political Autonomy of Greenland and Nunavut. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Lyall, Sarah. “Fondly, Greenland Loosens Danish Rule.” New York Times, June 21, 2009, A1. McBeath, Gerald A., and Thomas A. Morehouse. 1994. Alaska Politics and Government. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

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McBeath, Gerald A. 2001. “Changing Capabilities of Northern Communities: Environmental Protection.” Northern Review 23 (Summer):164–179. McBeath, Jerry, Matthew Berman, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Mary F. Ehrlander. 2008. The Political Economy of Oil in Alaska: Multinationals vs. the State. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Menas Associates Ltd. 2001. Impact of the Development of Hydrocarbon Resources in the Faroe Islands. London. Murashko, Olga O. 2005. “Introduction: The International Round Table on an Indigenous Parliament.” In An Indigenous Parliament? ed. Kathrin Wessendorf. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Nielsen, Jens Kaalhauge. 2001. Greenland’s Geopolitical Reality and Its Political-Economic Consequences. Copenhagen: Danish Institute of International Affairs, DUPI Working Paper 6. Petersen, Hanne, and Birger Poppel. 1999. Dependency, Autonomy, Sustainability in the Arctic. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Peterson, Paul E. 1981. City Limits. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sillanpaa, Lennard. 2008. Awakening Siberia, from Marginalization to Self-Determination: The Small Indigenous Nations of Northern Russia on the Eve of the Millennium. Helsinki: Department of Political Science, University of Helsinki (Acta Politica). Smith, Eric Alden, and Joan McCarter. 1997. Contested Arctic: Indigenous Peoples, Industrial States, and the Circumpolar Environment. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Smyth, Steven. 1999. The Yukon Chronology (1987–1999). Whitehorse, YT: Claredge Press. Smyth, Steven Eric Ronald. 2005. “Constitutional Change in the Circumpolar Periphery: A Comparative Case Study.” Ph.D. diss., University of Alaska Fairbanks. Todyshev, M. A. 2005. “Issues of Legal Framework of the Life Activity of Russian Aboriginal Peoples after Changes Made in the Federal Legislation.” Region: Economics and Sociology (Journal of the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering, Siberia):4–15. Turaev, Vadim A. 2005. “The Examples of Amur and Khabarovsk.” In An Indigenous Parliament? ed. Kathrin Wessendorf. Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.

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Larisa Riabova

This chapter examines the well-being and viability of circumpolar communities in the face of globalization. What is a “good life” for people living in remote northern communities? How does one measure it in order to be able to secure community viability? How can communities create and take advantage of opportunities to make individual and communal life better, either in accordance with international and national standards or their own notion of “good life”? What are the challenges of globalization for viability of remote northern communities, and what prerequisites make a community viable in the face of globalization? These are questions of major interest not only for academics but for people living in those communities or considering moving there. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of concepts and measures of community viability and well-being. Next, social trends in northern communities as well as their unique aspects, inequalities in incomes, health, and social services will be analyzed. Finally, community capacity as an important factor influencing northern communities’ viability in the face of globalization is evaluated.

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communit y v iabilit y a nd w ell - being : concepts a nd measur es

Many, if not all, of the communities in the circumpolar north are now in an active state of transition. This process is shaped by technological leaps, increasing market competition for goods, and a clear reduction of state welfare and state engagement in the well-being of peripheral northern communities. The boom of global interest in the Arctic observed over recent years and the current world financial crisis add new challenges for their well-being and viability. The economies of many northern communities rely heavily on natural resource–extraction industries such as fishing, forestry, or ­mining— industries that are highly globalized, involving multinational companies, and extremely sensitive to fluctuations in global markets for natural resources. Because of the narrow economic bases of northern communities, when these industries fail—as many have in recent years, and especially within the past few years due to the global financial crisis—many of them face loss of employment and income, retrenchment in the public service, and population decline. For some of these communities, however, rapid social change gives people new perspectives and opens new possibilities for employment and social services improvement, and they manage to keep their population stable or even growing. Measures of population development are often used to access community viability. Although comprehensive definitions of viability differ according to the natural, societal, and cultural contexts for humans in the Arctic, these measures are easy to understand and make sense to people, including people living in those communities. A viable community thus can be understood as one in which people feel that they can stay as inhabitants for a period of their lives and where they find sources of income and meaningful lives (Aarsaether et al. 2004). The key element needed to keep these communities attractive places to live is a “good life,” those quality-of-life features that people enjoy through living there. Many concepts for community assessment suggest ways to define and measure “good life.” Among others, these are community well-being, community quality

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of life, community health, community sustainability, community resiliency, or community capacity. One of the most common ways of defining and measuring “good life” is the concept of individual and community well-being. There is no single definition of community well-being. A thorough review of community well-being definitions can be found in a report from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Canada (Murphy and Kuhn 2006). An approach that appeals to this author is that of community well-being as a concept meant to “recognize the social, cultural and psychological needs of people, their family, institutions and communities” (Wilkinson 1991). As Kusel and Fortmann (1991) put it in their works on forest communities in Canada, the concept is focused on understanding the contribution of the economic, social, cultural, and political components (structures) of a community in maintaining itself and fulfilling the various needs of local residents. Community well-being then can be described as that state of social, economic, political, and other aspects of community life that allows people to enjoy living in their place: having basic needs met, health, security, and satisfying social relations combine to lead to general happiness or self-satisfaction of a community and its people. Studies of community well-being use several approaches and types of data collection. Some studies use social indicators such as poverty, economic development, and other factors that influence well being as seen in the evaluation of community well-being among Canadian Aboriginal peoples by Cook et al. (2004). Other studies attempt to identify a broader set of factors that form well-being in communities (for example, Kusel and Fortmann 1991 or Cuthill 2003). These studies build on a mix of social indicators, historical information, and data collected from people in the communities regarding how they perceive different aspects of their lives. Despite the differences of the approaches, all use social indicators as one of the main tools of wellbeing assessment. They build on two types of well-being indicators: the qualitative subjective and the quantitative objective. Subjective measures often require individual and community ­self-assessment through the use of selected informants or through surveys. Objective measures are based on data sets that document variables in social

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structure. Discussions on the limitations of each type of indicator can be found, for example, in Kusel’s (1996) or Beckley’s (1995) works on forest-dependent communities. The selection of indicators of individual and community wellbeing may be influenced by political dimensions, consideration of audience, or other factors. For example, lists of indicators generated locally may differ from those generated by the public service. Nevertheless, certain widely accepted sets of indicators focus on aspects of individual/community well-being that are easier to quantify, generalize, and compare. These sets normally include income, poverty, unemployment, personal physical and mental health, education, and others. They may also include rates of suicide, crime, and divorce and other measures of social dislocation. Rapidly increasing globalization with faster flows of money, people, and ideas influences well-being and, subsequently, the viability of northern communities in diverse and often contradictory ways. In the frames of discussion on concepts and measures of community viability and well-being, at least two important trends need to be mentioned here. On one hand, there is the increasing influence of global processes and information exchange on northern communities’ perceptions of their well-being, with impacts varying from sensible incorporation of international standards of defining, measuring, and managing well-being into theory and practice of community development, to erosion of local values in people’s perceptions and local development practices. On the other hand, there is a strengthening of the local component in views on well-being in northern communities. This leads to an increase in studies of local communities throughout circumpolar north; searching for specific local knowledge, insights, and experiences; and in strengthening the efforts of northern communities to preserve local values and notions of well-being. This last trend is witnessed in the number of locally produced indicators used for measuring community well-being and conducting development programs.

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tr ends in the w ell - being a nd v iabilit y of norther n communities

The population of the circumpolar north numbers around four million, about two-thirds of which is concentrated in relatively large settlements (over five thousand inhabitants each). This situation varies across the Arctic—for example, in arctic Russia the proportion of the population living in large settlements is over 80 percent, over 70 percent in Iceland, over 60 percent in Alaska, over 50 percent in Sweden, just over 40 percent in arctic Canada, less than 40 percent in northern Norway and the Faroe Islands, and only 30 percent in Greenland. Even though most people in the Arctic live in rather large urban settlements, most inhabited places, especially peripheral ones, are small. The indigenous populations generally live in the smaller communities (Bogoyavlenskiy and Siggner 2004; Aarsaether et al. 2004). As justly pointed out in the 2004 Arctic Human Development Report, one of the most recent international reports dealing with human development in the North, there is a lack of information on many issues of well-being in the circumpolar north, especially in regard to systematized information on northern communities. Lack of consistent and comparable data for residents of the circumpolar territories of each nation prevents researchers from making comprehensive systematic comparisons. However, drawing on available national statistics, international reports, and surveys (see, for example, Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic Environment Report, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the Survey of Living Conditions of the Arctic, and the Arctic Human Development Report), as well as on the studies conducted in northern communities, it is possible to identify major trends in northern communities’ well-being and viability. The focus in this section will be on three trends in northern communities’ well-being and viability. The first is the persisting disparities and inequalities in well-being between northern and southern communities, and between indigenous and nonindigenous communities. The second is the growth of local responsibility for the delivery of social services due to a reduction of state engagement in the well-being

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of these communities. The third trend is that of increased difficulties maintaining the viability of most northern communities.

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di s pa r i t i e s a n d i n e qua l i t i e s i n w e l l - b e i n g pe r s i s t

Community well-being differs significantly throughout the Arctic. The standard of living is highest in the North American Arctic, with Alaska ranked first based on per capita income. The standard of living in Fennoscandia, Iceland, and Greenland is also high, with personal incomes falling in the middle range of the circumpolar perspective. Living standards are lowest in the Russian North, where in 2001 personal income was less than one-fifth that of Alaska (Duhaime 2004). According to the International Wellbeing Index (IWI), Norway, Denmark, and Finland were among the top five ranked countries while Russia as a whole ranked 105 out of 180 countries (State of the World 2004). Strikingly, while northern Russia makes up more than 66 percent of the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the circumpolar arctic economy, the per capita GDP income (one indicator used for international comparisons of well-being) in Russian northern regions is quite low—$12,327 per capita in 2001. The Alaska per capita GDP is the highest among arctic regions, and far above the circumpolar average, at $45,107 per capita (Duhaime 2004). International comparisons show that the majority of arctic countries have rather high life expectancies with Russia as an ­exception. Though life expectancy is increasing in all arctic countries—­including Russia—Russia has the lowest life expectancy in the Arctic. The Scandinavian countries, Iceland, and Canada are among those whose life expectancy is the highest in the world—76–77 years during the period 2000 to 2005. Since 2003 the Russian Arctic has experienced growth in life expectancy; however, it is still very low—63–66 years for the same period. National comparisons show that in the arctic regions, life expectancy is lower than that in the countries as a whole. For example, in Alaska, life expectancy is almost two years lower than the average for the United States (Bogoyavlenskiy and Siggner 2004). In Russia in 2003 only in two northern regions—

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Khanty-Mansiiskiy and Yamalo-Nenetskiy Autonomous Okrugs— life expectancy was one year higher than the Russian average of 65.1 years. In 2007, life expectancy exceeded the national average of 67.5 only in these two regions, too. The rate became 1.9 years higher than the Russian average in Khanty-Mansiiskiy AO (69.4 years) and 2.7 years higher in Yamalo-Nenetskiy AO (70.2 years). In the rest of the northern regions of the Russian Federation, life expectancy is one to twelve years lower than the national average (Russian Agency of Statistics 2008). Differences in well-being may be observed between northern and central regions, urban and rural northern communities, and indigenous and nonindigenous communities within the same regions. Differences in well-being among the residents of the same community can also be found based on ethnicity, occupational divisions, and gender. Numerous studies report extreme inequalities between northern and central regions: •

“The income level of Northern Norway is lower than the national average. Average income in the three northernmost counties (Finnmark, Troms and ­Nordland) constitutes about 80% of national average income” (Murmansk County and Northern Norway 2008).

•

“The health status of American Indians and Alaska Natives is not equal to the US general population. Poor nutrition, coupled with unsafe water supplies and inadequate waste disposal facilities, has resulted in a greater incidence of illness in the Indian population” (National Center for Health Statistics, Healthy People 2000 Final Review).

•

“Unemployment in the Murmansk region of Russia is higher compared to the national average. The official level in the region was 15.6 % of the population against 13.4 % in the RF in 2007” (Didyk and Riabova 2007).

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“Life expectancy is shorter and infant mortality rates are higher among indigenous Arctic residents in the US Arctic, northern Canada, and Greenland when compared with those of nonindigenous residents of Arctic countries” (Parkinson 2008).

Illustrations of inequalities in well-being between northern and central regions can be found in Murmansk County and Northern Norway: An Analysis of Key Economic and Social Indicators (2008). The study analyzes the socioeconomic development in the last fifteen years in the two regions—northern Norway and the Murmansk region—and points to significant differences in indicators of population dynamics, life expectancy, employment, and other well-being indicators not only between these two regions but within northern and central regions of both Russia and Norway. In many cases northern territories of both countries have lower indicators of well-being in comparison with national averages, but the discrepancy levels on the Russian side are higher. Inequalities between indigenous and nonindigenous populations are reported in Bjerregaard and Kue Young (1998). Their research highlights the differences in incomes, life expectancy, birth and death rates, health status, and many other indicators of wellbeing between the circumpolar Inuit and other populations. Discrepancies between indigenous and nonindigenous populations can be exemplified by comparison of income, one of the most common indicators of well-being. The median income of the Canadian Inuit in 1991 was $13,400 (CDN) for men and $8,100 for women, while for Canadians it was $25,600 for men and $11,900 for women (Bjerregaard and Kue Young 1998). In Alaska, among Eskimos, the median family income in 1990 was US$23,600, about 66 percent of the figure for the United States as whole. In Greenland, the average taxable income for the Inuit was only 41 percent of the average income of people of Danish origin living in Greenland. Employment opportunities are lower in the North generally and are less favorable for Native populations. In 1999, unemployment rates in the Northwest Territories of Canada were 17 per-

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cent overall and 30 percent for the aboriginal population (Ruttan 1999). Labor force participation rates among Eskimos in Alaska were 55 percent for men and 48 percent for women, compared with the national average of 74 percent and 57 percent, respectively ­(Bjerregaard and Kue Young 1998). Solvent abuse rates for the aboriginal population in Canada are twenty-four times the national average (Bureau of Statistics 1996). Violent deaths—accidents, suicides, and homicides—account for 36 percent of all deaths of Alaska Natives and for 27 percent of Inuit in Greenland (Bjerregaard and Kue Young 1998). In the Russian North, rates of tuberculosis, hepatitis, respiratory infections, and alcoholism are 1.5 to 2 times higher among the indigenous population than among the nonindigenous population (Zaidfudim and Mizun 1998). Alcohol is a major problem and risk factor for indigenous people, be it North American Indians, Alaska Natives, or the indigenous people of Siberia. Alcohol contributes to high rates of motor-vehicle accidents, cirrhosis, suicide, homicide, and domestic abuse. For example, among Chukotka Inuit, 40 percent of deaths are attributed to injuries, of which 80 percent are considered alcohol related ­(Bjerregaard and Kue Young 1998). There is a trend toward increasing life expectancy among arctic indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, their life expectancy is still generally lower than that of the national populations. For example, the life expectancy of Inuit in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Chukotka (Russia) is generally about ten years lower than that of the general national populations (e.g., in Greenland 76 years for people of Danish origin and 64 years for Inuit) (Bjerregaard and Kue Young 1998). Indigenous residents of Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland have higher mortality rates from injury and suicide, as well as higher hospitalization rates for infants with pneumonia, meningitis, and respiratory infections. Many communities that were once isolated are now linked to major cities by air transportation and are only an airplane ride away from more densely populated urban centers. Consequently, these communities are now vulnerable to the importation of new and emerging globally infectious diseases, such as influenza, severe acute

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respiratory syndrome (SARS) or SARS-like infectious diseases, and antimicrobial drug–resistant pathogens (Parkinson 2008). It is clear that persistent disparities and inequalities between northern and southern communities and between indigenous and nonindigenous communities constitute one of the basic trends. Throughout the North there are certain common traits that point to lower levels of well-being. These include higher rates of unemployment, greater numbers of people in poverty, and a large proportion of the population with a lower health status. Today, despite being exporters of wealth, with large quantities of profits and rents arising from the extraction of natural resources (Duhaime 2004), northern communities are very often deprived of potential sources of revenues which could form an important basis for an improvement in their well-being. Large-scale resource exploitation in the north is characterized by outside control, with resources and resource rent moving out of the arctic communities. (Only Alaska’s model of resource rent distribution can be considered an exception.) This situation can be seen as one of the primary sources of unsustainability in northern communities and a major threat to their viability. It appears unlikely that these activities, conducted in such manner, will create economic alternatives that can enable local communities to survive after the extractive activity is finished. It is highly likely that the impacts of globalization will tend to strengthen these trends. Increased dependency of local economies on multinational companies, fluctuations of global markets for natural resources, and booms and busts of the global financial system mean that globalization will likely widen these gaps and increase inequalities in the northern communities’ well-being and consequently their viability. The latest illustration is the wrenching effects of the world financial collapse in Iceland. l o c a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s f o r de l i v e r i n g o f s o c i a l s e r v ic e s a r e g row i n g

Another important aspect of community well-being and viability is the delivery of social services that enable communities to survive in

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the Arctic. Individual and community well-being is very much influenced by the performance of the state’s social welfare system. There are different social service programs throughout the North, but generally they fall under two classifications: liberal and social democratic. The liberal regime, used in the United States and Canada, is dominated by means-tested benefits, modest universal cash transfers, and some social insurance schemes. The social democratic regime provides many universal benefits as social rights based on citizenship and financed by taxes. Benefits are relatively high, and the welfare state itself is extensive. This regime is found in Scandinavia. As for Russia, since the beginning of the 1990s the system of social services has undergone profound changes. In the mid-1990s it could be described as “liberal, or even less” (Granberg and Riabova 1998). Nowadays, Russia has adopted a new, socially oriented strategy of development focused on greatly improving social services on national, regional, and community levels. While the involvement of the federal state has increased somewhat, it is mainly regional and local providers who are responsible for social services delivery. It is now a common trend in all welfare regimes for states to reduce their involvement in people’s welfare and to cut social welfare expenditures. Only Russia can be regarded as an exception due to active investing in its social sphere nowadays. However, Russia’s northern territories are not prioritized in these new activities. Social policy reforms, be they the gradual reformation of the Scandinavian welfare state, swift and profound reforms of the Russian welfare system, or social services reforms in Canada, are, more than anything, a devolution of responsibilities for service planning and delivery to local and regional levels (Didyk et al. 2008; Browne 1999). This devolution often results in downloading the responsibilities without adequate financial resources or personnel in place. Today, the main barriers to service delivery in remote northern communities are difficulties in geographical accessibility, a limited range of services, and a limited number of service-delivery personnel. In northern and rural regions of Canada, as Browne (1999) reports, family members, community nurses, family physicians, and social service workers are left to cope with the acute health problems

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that people experience when they are either not cared for in hospitals or are discharged early. Unreasonable demands are then placed on the already overburdened community-based health services. In the Russian North, the retreat of the state from the social sphere and the general cutback of social expenditures in the early 1990s led to great reductions in both quantity and quality of social services, particularly in peripheral, remote settlements. Today, social services are concentrated in regional capitals or cities, while small remote settlements continue to be affected by the legacy of the shocking 1990s. There, due to limited local budgets, medical services are reduced, kindergartens are lacking or simply closed, and schools do not have enough teachers. Distances are great, and the availability or absence of reliable, year-round transportation connection between settlements determines, to a large extent, the availability of social services and consequently well-being and viability of the communities (Gutsol and Riabova 2002). This relative isolation makes the traditional subsistence economy and traditional (indigenous) medicine important for survival. Throughout the North, recognizing and incorporating Native traditions, culture, and values into communities’ social-service programs is important if they are to be made more effective in meeting the needs of these communities. This is increasingly recognized by governments. In the Canadian Northwest Territories, for example, the Community Wellness Movement and the Community Empowerment Initiative, started in 1996 by the territorial government, aimed to deliver more effective, locally controlled services. The main idea was to have communities set their own priorities, make their own decisions about services that affect them, and develop the resources to meet their needs (Ruttan 1999). Another example is the Sami health and social services program started in Norway in 2002 after pressure from Sami health professionals and political bodies. The program goals include increasing the cultural competence of the local and regional health personnel working with Sami patients. Culturally sensitive services came into existence because both individual Sami doctors and their own professional organization in the beginning established the services as a private initiative (Hild and Stordahl 2004).

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Another basic trend then is the growth of local responsibilities for delivery of social services due to a reduction of state engagement in the well-being of northern communities. This shift to local control means not just the delivery but also the design of these programs. This gives an opportunity for a greater emphasis on prevention, culturally relevant approaches to healing, increased reliance on elders and traditional healers, and a chance to put a community vision of wellness into practice. However, much depends on local possibilities to raise resources for such developments.

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m o s t n o r t h e r n c o m m u n i t i e s a r e m a n ag i n g t o m a i n ta i n t h e i r v i a b i l i t y

Population developments indicating viability of northern regions and communities show that by now most have experienced population decline. The peak of population growth in arctic Finland and Canada was in the 1960s, the 1980s in northern Norway, and the 1990s in northern Sweden, the Faroe Islands, and Russia. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, only northern Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and Iceland were still growing (Bogoyavlenskiy and Siggner 2004). Much of the overall growth pattern depends on resource development cycles. An important factor of the overall population growth is migration, which depends heavily on economic conditions creating “tidal waves” of in- and out-migration. However, it is not only economic opportunities but also a meaningful social and cultural existence for people that influence migration. For example, in Greenland migration patterns show that those born in Greenland migrate less than those born elsewhere (Bogoyavlenskiy and Siggner 2004). Generally, growth rates for indigenous populations are high. These are driven by natural increase rather than net migration. Some common traits point to a gender bias among those leaving the north—in many northern communities (Greenland, northern counties of Norway, and Finnish Lapland) women dominate among out-migrants. The greatest ever outflow of population from the North has taken place over the past fifteen years in the Russian North. Migration from the northern communities began in the early 1990s and

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reached its peak in 1992 to 1994. Since then it has slowed but it continues to exist. From 1989 to 2002 the Russian Arctic lost about 650,000 people, or about one-fourth of the total population in 1989. The greatest losses were in Chukotka, where about 70 percent of the population was lost to migration (Bogoyavlenskiy and Siggner 2004). The enormous outflow has been provoked by the systemic national crisis accompanied by change in the state policy toward northern territories as the maintenance of a significant human presence in the North stopped being regarded as a high priority. Generally, a state’s policies toward its national northern territories form an important factor influencing their viability. In this respect, contemporary Russia represents the case of a less articulated and responsive policy toward her northern territories than is the case with other arctic states toward their northern regions. This forms the subject for complaints from many northern regions of the country. By contrast, great attention is devoted to northern issues in Fennoscandia, especially in Norway, with special focus on policies aimed at making northern communities attractive places for living. Despite the fact that many communities in the North have passed the peak of the population growth and that some places have suffered from a drain of capable people who have moved away in search of better employment opportunities or a more diverse social and cultural life, the trend of maintained viability of the greater part of northern communities is evident. Most northern communities are managing to continue to exist and are finding ways to provide economic, cultural, and social opportunities for their residents. Abandoned communities and ghost towns are present in the North but are increasingly rare. These communities are now generally considered “policy mistakes.” In the contemporary North there are several distinct types of communities: indigenous, resource-dependent (industrial- and subsistence-based), and diversified service. Each faces different issues relating to community viability, especially when facing the growing forces of globalization. These forces bring more challenges to the northern communities and put more demands on policy makers, managers, and residents. However, certain common characteristics serve to make a community viable and to strengthen its ability to cre-

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ate and take advantage of opportunities to make individual and communal life better. These characteristics are the theme of the last section of this article.

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communit y capacit y a nd r esponses to globa liz ation

During the last few decades, local communities in the circumpolar north have been increasingly exposed to globalization, with both positive and negative effects. In the literature this dichotomy is often described by the expression “opportunities and threats of globalization.” In the economic sphere, opportunities of globalization are associated with an increased international division of labor and the ability to mobilize more significant financial resources and to distribute financial and other means more effectively, to open up new job opportunities, to raise the standard of living of populations, and to expand people’s life prospects at lower costs. In the social sphere, globalization opens up possibilities for establishing both governmental and nongovernmental transnational organizations at different levels, including the community level, and for using these organizations to improve aspects of socioeconomic life in the communities. These possibilities are created by “leaps in technology, where both time and space have been condensed by new communications,” giving scope and new hopes for peripheral actors (Skaptadottir et al. 2001). The extended scope of extra-local connections and networks that link local actors to global economic and social processes seems to constitute the key opportunity offered by globalization to northern local communities. Threats of globalization can be summarized as follows. First, it is the reduction of the role of the state, especially in the sphere of public well-being, due to global distribution of ideas of market regulation. Such development is especially painful for the northern communities that traditionally have been the objects of paternalistic policies of nation-states. Second, heavy dependence on natural resources and unpredictability of the global markets for the resource-based ­products

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creates a handicap for northern communities in their attempts to access the advantages of globalization. Transnational corporations are increasingly winning control over traditional northern resource-based industries. Outflow of capital and labor from these industries creates a need for costly adaptation measures. Third, the export of work to regions with cheap labor undermines northern local economies and negatively influences the well-being of these communities. Fourth, increased labor mobility to northern communities may create not only economic but also social tensions as these migrations cause increased social diversity and social differences within the community. These impacts are largely shaped by increased dependency of ­socioeconomic and industrial development in a globalized economy. For many northern communities the most serious challenge they face is dependence on one single resource, which makes them especially vulnerable to global market forces and paves the way for both external and internal stresses. The following quotes are from young people living in small North Atlantic fishing villages: Village of Isafiordur, Iceland: “The main occupation here is the fish industry, but it has been in a difficult position the last few years. The quota has been sold away, factories have been closed down, and people have lost their work.” Village of Teriberka, Russia: “Today almost all the enterprises are stopped and this leads to increase in unemployment. The young generation has nothing to do in their spare time. Because of boredom, some drink, some smoke or sniff.” (Bjorndalen and ­Aarsaether 2000) Many northern communities are facing problems that are at least in part a result of globalization. But at the same time, many refuse to accept their “ill fate” and possess the strength to respond to external and internal stresses, cope with the threats of globalization, take advantage of opportunities opened by global transformations, and meet

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the needs of residents. The ability of communities to create and take advantage of opportunities to heal themselves is conceptualized as community capacity (Kusel 1996; Doak and Kusel 1997). Community capacity requires the following components: •

Physical capital (the physical elements and resources in a community, as well as its financial capital);

•

Human capital (the skills, education, experiences, and general abilities of the residents);

•

Social capital (the ability and willingness of residents to work together for community goals) (Kusel 1996).

Emery, Fey, and Flora (Emery et al. 2006) developed the community capital framework based on seven types of capital: natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial, and built. In addition to identifying various forms of capital and the role each plays in community economic development, this approach also focuses on the interaction among these seven types of capital as well as how investments in one form can build assets in others. A community’s viability in the North is strongly connected to its natural and built capital (two elements of physical capital). Natural capital includes those assets that exist in a location, including resources and natural beauty. Built capital includes infrastructure such as telecommunications, industrial parks, water and sewer systems, and roads. Built capital is often a focus of community development efforts. In respect to natural capital, issues such as land ownership and resource management are of major importance. There is a strong link between community viability on the one hand, and the continued abundance and accessibility of a local renewable resource base on the other. In other words, the continued ability to obtain the necessary input to the domestic sphere of the economy by means of access to all or most of the traditional harvesting territory seems to be a necessary condition of continued community viability (Arctic Contributions to Social Science and Public Policy 1993). At the same time, as is shown below, diversification, aimed at coping with

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the vulnerability caused by dependence on the traditional resource base, is one of the challenges for viable communities. Financial capital represents the financial resources available to invest in community capacity building, underwrite businesses development, support civic and social entrepreneurship, and accumulate wealth for future community development (Emery et al. 2006). Globalization opens opportunities for mobilizing more significant financial resources through the attraction of investments from outside the community, both nationally and internationally. However, communities that rely heavily on outside capital usually expose themselves to high dependency on decisions made outside their region. As to transportation infrastructure—roads, air connections, and telecommunications—it is obvious this needs to be well developed for northern communities to combat isolation and to secure their inclusion in global flows of people, information, and goods. Human capital has gained more attention in the last twenty years. Earlier development projects in the North were lauded for “creating jobs,” but many of these were low-level, unskilled jobs which left the employees with little after the work was over. It became recognized that training and education would allow northerners to gain higher-level jobs. Beyond that, learning and experience that enhanced people’s skills and confidence could help them find or create other work opportunities afterwards. Further, by training northerners in management, skills could be developed within northern communities that could benefit other endeavors there (Riabova et al. 2003). Globalization has put more demands on human capital in northern communities. Human capital is now not only about the skills and abilities of people, but also about the ability to access outside resources and bodies of knowledge in order to increase understanding and to identify promising practices. Human capital also refers to the leadership’s ability to “lead across differences,” focus on assets, be inclusive and participatory, and be proactive in shaping the future of the community (Emery et al. 2006). Community capacity has been identified as an important factor influencing community well-being and, consequently, community viability. For example, Doak and Kusel (1996), when analyzing de-

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velopment in forest-dependent communities, found that the communities’ well-being was a function of both socioeconomic status (measured by such indicators as housing tenure, poverty, education level, and employment) and community capacity. They (like many other authors in the mid-1990s and later on) also pointed out the critical role of social capital. Social capital refers to the social networks, systems of reciprocal relations, sets of norms, or levels of trust that individuals or groups may have, or to the resources arising from them. Its recent popularity can be traced to three authors—Bourdieu, Coleman, and Putnam— each of whom has a distinct conception of social capital. Bourdieu (1986) identifies it as the actual or potential resources that arise from being part of a network of relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition. Coleman (1990) defines it as the set of resources that are inherent in a group (for example, a family or a community organization) and which facilitate certain actions of members of the group (for example, social development of a child). For Putnam (1993, 2000), it refers to three features of social life—networks, norms, and trust—which enable participants to function more effectively in pursuing common goals. Today the concept of social capital is used in several social sciences. In economics, it is a production factor, reducing transaction costs. In political science, it is a factor explaining democracy, civil society, or conflict. In management, trust and loyalty are important factors for the efficiency of a business. There are four main definitions of social capital: cooperation (people’s ability to self-organize solving local problems), network density (an important subfield of sociology), trust (in national institutions, the local community), and game theory (excess conflict or cooperation in a prisoner’s dilemma game). In all these conceptualizations, social capital refers to connections within and between social networks. The key idea of the concept is that social networks that include people who trust and assist each other can be a powerful asset. This type of capital can also be used to increase other kinds of capital. Thus, along with economic capital, social capital is a valuable mechanism in economic growth.

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The concept is increasingly used in research on northern local communities. Many authors suggest that social capital has often been neglected by past developments in the North, thereby aggravating the dislocative effects of northern mega-projects or boom-and-bust patterns. Fundamental to a viable community is good communications between residents and supportive social relationships, as well as a sense of identity. Along with these comes a willingness to participate in local processes and to contribute to community needs. At the same time, outside dimensions are as important as internal links within the community. External links (to the regional, national, and global levels) in this respect mean an increased ability to perceive the outer world not as a threat but as an opportunity. In other words, strong social capital, not only “internal” but also reaching out of the community up to the global level, helps a community adapt to rapidly changing conditions in the face of globalization find ways to constructively use new circumstances to its advantage. Research projects that have focused on northern communities give us many indications of the particular importance of social capital for improving well-being and viability. For example, research within the UNESCO Management of Social Transformation (MOST) Circumpolar Coping Processes Project (CCPP), which dealt with restructuring in North Atlantic fishing communities, shows that strong social capital was a major precondition for economic and social recovery after the severe crisis in the fisheries in the 1990s (see Aarsaether and Baerenholdt 2001). In a case study from Canada, Gull (1998) analyzed the attempt to create alternative income for local people after the closure of the ground fishery in 1992. The study illustrates how strategies implemented to develop small-scale ecotourism have been strengthened by the enthusiastic support of local people, proving the importance of mobilizing local people in order to find alternative sources of livelihood. Another study was done at Bolungarvik in Iceland, Vagur in the Faeroe Islands, and Teriberka in the Murmansk region of Russia. Skaptadottir et al. (2001) show how fishery-based communities are coping with the collapse of their economies in the late 1990s. The most important feature of coping strategies in all three communi-

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ties was strong municipalities that became the main “developers” of the villages, economically and socially. Another common trait was the attempt to diversify local economic life. Restructuring was based on a wide range of small companies in different sectors—not only fisheries, but also in tourism, science, high technology, local handicrafts, and some other activities. For example, in Bolungarvik one attempt made by the municipality to build new initiatives was to have the regional natural science research center located in the village. As soon as the mayor found out about the plan to establish such an institute in the West Fjords, he contacted the right people, offering a building in Bolungarvik for this purpose. A scientist with a Ph.D. was hired to do research in biology. Linked to the research center, a large natural history museum has been established, with an exhibit focusing mostly on birds. The exhibit is now a tourist attraction, bringing busloads of tourists there many times a week during the summer months. In Vagur, a successful example of diversification was the establishment of a small wool factory producing tradition-based clothes. The wool factory, Suduroyar Ullavirki, was established as a family business. The husband, a local farmer, managed to raise the necessary funding by using the network he had acquired as a member of the Faroese Agricultural Board. Awareness of the basic skills should be credited to the wife, who had obtained the traditional know-how during her upbringing in a small community. The cooperative company took in wool from farmers throughout the Faroe Islands and turned it into yarn. A collection of sweaters, coats, and other garments was also made. Although they were living abroad, the daughter and son of the family, together with some of their friends, played an active role in creating new designs for the products and preparing marketing material. The factory also benefited from the professional designs of islanders living abroad. In addition to financial support from the farmers’ association and the development office, the wool factory also obtained loans from a newly established fund for industrial initiatives, founded by islanders who wanted to support the creation of employment opportunities. Cooperation between business people, municipalities, and local savings banks was a strategy used in Vagur and Bolungarvik. In

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Teriberka, Russia, the main strategy was to attract foreign capital to support the main sector of the local economy—fisheries and fish processing. A joint Russian–Portuguese–Lithuanian fish-processing enterprise was established, a result of ties between outside entrepreneurs who had either earlier worked in Teriberka or knew about the place from business partners. The upper-level managers were all outsiders working either as long-distance commuters or from the offices in Murmansk and abroad (Aarsaether et al. 2004). Although it was the only realistic possibility to finance local development under the conditions of a severe socioeconomic crisis, this strategy continued to make the village vulnerable to decisions made outside community. The above-mentioned research has shown that an overlapping of networks and a high level of trust made it possible to generate new initiatives, which led to diversification, a condition that is crucial for communities surviving under new conditions. Strong social capital based on family ties, traditions, and networks not only within but also reaching outside the community was witnessed in Vagur, where the strategies have been most diverse. In Teriberka, social capital was badly damaged in the shock of the transition to a new ­socioeconomic arrangement that Russia went through. Those forms of social capital that survived (family ties, kinship, and neighborhood) could serve as safety nets but could not work as a mechanism of economic growth. The study concluded that social life and social capital are a major part of the solution for local economic problems caused by global transformations. Cultural capital, which reflects the way people “know the world” and how to act within it, is closely related to social capital. Cultural capital includes the dynamics of whom people know and feel comfortable with, what heritages are valued, and cooperation across races, ethnicities, and generations. It influences what voices are heard and listened to, which voices have influence in what areas, and how creativity, innovation, and influence emerge and are nurtured. Cultural capital might include ethnic festivals, multilingual populations, or a strong work ethic (Emery et al. 2006). For northern communities cultural capital is most often related to indigenous cultures and their

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responses to global transformations, since local cultures are often based on the heritage of indigenous peoples. A reassertion of indigenous culture has taken place, but also a redefinition of local identities in the wake of deindustrialization and with increasing awareness of ecological and cultural values. The development of hybrid identities, in which individuals see themselves as a mix of traditional and modern elements, may lead to innovations in the business and public sectors, to individual mobility, and to new forms of political selfassertion (Aarsaether et al. 2004). To resist becoming the flotsam and jetsam of global economic “tides,” communities need to be able to enunciate their own needs, plans, and capabilities; guide development processes; and pursue development and diversification that will assist their survival. A community’s ability to plan, establish goals, and act upon those plans is critical to its viability. This ability is conceptualized as political capacity, or political capital of the community, and can be seen as an extension of social capital. It reflects the ability to develop a unified identity and voice, to represent this to the outside world, and to act effectively in larger political processes. It is about the ability to influence standards, rules, and regulations and their enforcement. It reflects access to power and power brokers, such as access to a local office of a member of Congress; access to local, county, state, or tribal government officials; or leverage with a regional company. As a result of land claims settlements and greater self-government opportunities, such political capacity is becoming more evident, for example, in Canadian arctic aboriginal communities. In Russia, local governments are in the process of developing the skills and experiences that will enable them to increasingly act on their own. ­However, in the Russian North development of local political capacity is ­hampered by the legacy of former top-down state and regional policies (Riabova et al. 2003). Generally, municipal self-government increasingly plays a significant role in the development of northern communities. Municipal authorities are crucial actors when they combine the roles of (1) partner, supporter, or entrepreneur in innovation; (2) gate-opener,

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establishing contacts and legitimating actions by ­networking; and (3) integrator, securing the direction and commitment of actions to locate development. As the legitimate community representative, local government should have the capacity to bridge local and nonlocal relations. The more isolated the locality, the more important this becomes. Today, the coupling of local, regional, and global systems is one of the most acute issues for communities hoping to keep themselves viable (Aarsaether et al. 2004).

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conclusion

The well-being and viability of the northern communities are extremely closely connected. In an increasingly globalized world, nothing can make people stay in a community except prosperous and meaningful lives that they enjoy through living there. This chapter presents the argument that despite the increasing connectedness of northern local communities to global processes, any initiatives to improve communities’ viability must first ensure that the communities themselves are actively engaged in improving their own well-being. This is necessary to ensure community viability in the face of the challenges of globalization. Maintaining viability requires that people living in northern communities have the ability to look at new and changing conditions not only as something to adapt to but as opportunities to develop strategies aimed at increasing local capacity. Such strategies need to ensure access to traditional natural resources, undertake diversification efforts, and develop human capital and local political capacity, with a focus on the development of effective local governments. Special attention needs to be made in regards to building social capital—cooperation, networks, and trust—not only within a community but also by “reaching out,” up to the global level. The transfer of responsibility for a community’s viability to the local level seems to be one of the major trends related to globalization. Northern communities’ ability to maintain their viability is increasingly dependent on their own capacity to secure their future existence.

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r efer ences

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Russian Agency of Statistics. 2008. Rossiiskiy statisticheskiy ezsegodnik 2008 (Statistical yearbook of Russia 2008). Moscow. Russian Agency of Statistics and Komi Republic Committee of Statistics. 2002. Sotsial’no-economicheskie pokazateli regionov SZFO v 1995-2001 godah (Socio-economic indicators of the NorthWest regions of RF in 1995–2001). Ruttan, L. 1999. “Community Wellness, Community Empowerment: Changes to Social Service Delivery and Training in the Northwest Territories.” In Securing Northern Futures: Developing Research Partnerships. Edmonton: Canadian Circumpolar Institute Press. Skaptadottir, U. D., J. Mørkøre, and L. Riabova. 2001. “Overcoming Crisis: Coping Strategies in Fishery Based Localities in Iceland, North-Western Russia and the Faroe Islands.” In Transforming the Local, ed. N. Aarsaether and J. O. Bærenholdt, 43–67. Copenhagen: MOST and Nordic Council of Ministers. Worldwatch Institute. 2004. State of the World 2004. A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress toward a Sustainable Society. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnweb/Stateof World2004.dat.pdf. Wilkinson, K. P. 1991. The Community in Rural America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Zaidfudim, P., and Y. Mizun. 1998. Rossiiskiy Sever (Russian North). Moscow: EKIZ.

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epistemological conflicts and cooper ation in the circumpolar north

6

Mark Nuttall

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globa liz ation , cultur e , a nd indigenous rights

The environments and societies of the Arctic are, like ecosystems and communities all over the world, subject to the effects and influences of increasing globalization. If we take one of the accepted definitions of globalization as a process of interconnectedness, one manifestation of this may be for people to contest and resist this process, to see it as a threat, to stress the distinction between their localities and the global, or to see movement, migration, and globalization as providing opportunities for the persistence of local livelihoods. Localities and local identities remain central to many people’s everyday lives and experiences, despite John Berger’s argument that the movement and migration of people around the world is “the quintessential experience of our time” (1984, 55). Although our understanding of the complexity and textured patterns of human movement in history and the contemporary world complicates arguments about the nature of the fixity of human life, experience, belonging, and community in time and space, it is territory, landscape, memory, individual and collective identities, and ideas and the experience of locality—even 149

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­ ovement and migration itself—which nonetheless all inform a sense m of locality that continues to anchor the social lives of people to a spatial reference point (Gardner 1995; Jedrej and Nuttall 1996; Lovell 1998). Yet those lives are increasingly influenced and shaped by events, decisions, and politics beyond local, regional, and national borders. This is not to deny the histories of profound change evident throughout the circumpolar north—globalization is certainly not a new phenomenon affecting the world’s high-latitude regions—but to point to the rapid nature of change as experienced by northern residents today. The forces that influence, mold, or shape societies are increasingly global in their origins, detached from what we understand to be locally, regionally, or nationally specific. Hunters and their families in small communities in northern Greenland, Canada, and Alaska, and herders and fishers in northern Fennoscandia and the Russian North, for instance, feel the heavy presence and influence of previously remote “others” and institutions in the form of new quota systems that restrict traditional hunting practices and affect customary rights; in the listing of species of social, cultural, and economic importance as endangered; in the presence of toxic chemicals in the blood of animals and humans alike; in the gradual disappearance of seasonal sea ice because of global warming; and in the feel of changing weather on the face. One elderly hunter I once spoke with in a small village in south Greenland described this feeling about the influence of the outside world and overwhelming change on his home as ulippoq— “the tide is coming in.” However, unlike the tide as he used to know it, he went on to say that it showed no sign of going out, but rising higher over the village, threatening to sweep it away. The Arctic is imagined as a new—some say last—frontier for oil, gas, and mineral extraction, important for supplying global energy needs and global consumption. As the world casts its gaze on the North for resource development and new shipping routes, scientists, policy makers, indigenous and local residents, and the media all talk about the region being on the verge of a transformation into a transnational space firmly embedded in a global economy. Again, however, this is nothing new to the Far North. Mining operations in nineteenth-century Greenland, the Klondike Gold Rush at the end

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of the nineteenth century, coal mining in the early twentieth century in Svalbard, oil production at Norman Wells in 1920s Canada, high arctic oil and gas projects in the 1960s—to say nothing of the extractive industries in northern Fennoscandia and Russia—are examples of thousands of capital-intensive and scale-expansive operations happening all over the world that have moved the global economy toward greater globalization. Bunker and Ciccantell (2005) argue that globalization is the latest manifestation of capital’s internal dynamic, and it results from processes of material and spatial expansions and intensifications, which are driven by economies of scale made possible by technology. What we are witnessing in the Arctic is a latest chapter in a “historically constant process of expansion.” This is not only apparent in the development of energy and mineral resources, but in the financial sectors as witnessed by the spectacular rise and collapse of Iceland’s banking industry. Bunker and Ciccantell (2005, xiii) suggest that capitalism is deeply rooted in “the ongoing, cumulatively sequential expansion of its own reproduction.” However, they argue, it is a process which may be reaching its global limits—quite literally in a geographical, ecological, and material sense, as we witness in the Arctic, the Amazon, and other remote regions of the world. For many indigenous peoples around the world, from remote mountain valleys, to tropical forests, deserts, and tundra, but also in the urban environments of large cities in which many indigenous peoples live, globalization is regarded and expressed by them as a process of cultural homogenization which entangles local cultures in a struggle with global forces. This struggle is about being able to maintain cultural diversity and indigenous livelihoods, gaining recognition of cultural and political rights, and ensuring cultural protection in the face of threats to cultural and economic survival. While access to new goods and other cultural items, and services such as education and health care, is often welcomed by indigenous peoples, and while globalization brings new opportunities and opens up exciting vistas, nonetheless there are concerns that globalization, through the exposure it gives to foreign societies, goods, and cultural values, threatens the viability of local languages and dialects, of traditional value systems and ways of life, and of locally made products and the people who ­produce

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them. Globalization becomes a challenge to self-determination and autonomy, the quest for which is predicated upon distinctiveness. Although it is difficult to determine the extent to which globalization has an impact on local and national cultures, many nonetheless believe that a people’s exposure to a foreign culture—or to an emerging global culture with its systems of materiality and ideology—can undermine and subvert their own cultural identity, or even lead to cultural extinction. The destruction of indigenous lifestyles and local environments is often connected to industrialization and modernization, a process noted by the Brundtland Report, which emphasized that traditional lifestyles are “threatened by insensitive development over which they have no control” (WCED 1987, 12). Many critics of globalization also argue that its effects can be felt in the corporate exploitation and theft of traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights, often framed as an infringement of human rights, cultures, and ecosystem biodiversity. Bunker and Ciccantell’s argument is that globalization is a corporate and economic elitist view, a perspective on the world that sees resources as there for the taking by the most competitive and most powerful.

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r esponding to globa liz ation

One response to the consequence of globalization for indigenous cultures is to reassert and express the distinctiveness of local identities through, for instance, language, music, artistic expression, and movements for self-determination and the recognition and protection of sacred geographies. In the United States, for example, cultural protection is a key policy issue for the National Coalition of American Indians, illustrated by the organization’s work to ensure the protection of sacred lands. For American Indians sacred sites are integral to the practice of indigenous religions and thus inseparable from the very basis of American Indian culture itself. Concern over the destruction of sacred sites and the loss of languages and traditions is leading Indian tribes to seek to protect and preserve cultural heritage as a living part of contemporary life. On occasion, some peoples attempt to

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shun external influences completely. In remote regions of the Peruvian Amazon, a number of different indigenous peoples refuse to establish sustained contact with national society—although this is with increasing difficulty in the face of the seemingly inevitable encroachment of resource development (Huertas Castillo 2004), while the Jarawa of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean have long avoided contact with the outside world. For the most part their wish to remain in isolation has been recognized by India, which established the Jarawa Tribal Reserve. Current advocacy initiatives for Jarawa cultural protection, spearheaded by civil society organizations, indigenous rights groups, and scholars, are aimed at securing the Jarawa rights to territory and to choose for themselves the future they want (Venketeswar 2004). Efforts to protect traditional cultures—and hence the articulation of knowledge and calls to recognize indigenous rights—have begun to play an increasingly prominent role in new international agreements and forums. Ironically, while globalization is often considered a threat to culture, it makes possible the emergence of global networks set up to cope with and protect local cultures from the cultural impacts of international trends. As Daes (2003, 67) puts it, “The very existence of the world indigenous movement is a product of globalization, especially in the field of information technology: air travel, telephone, and now the Internet have helped to link indigenous peoples together worldwide, to increase the visibility of indigenous peoples, and to amplify indigenous peoples’ collective voices.” She speaks to a broader sociological and anthropological argument that globalization and modernity make it possible for people to become aware of the extent of social change, to become conscious of their own identities, and to articulate their own sense of cultural distinctiveness. Yet doing so verges close to a process of strategic essentialism that denies cosmopolitan identities and ignores the emergent forms of cultural expression, such as music, theater and art, that blend different styles and cultural influences, utilize technologies of communication, and celebrate cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity. Ulrick Beck, for instance, has argued that modernization is the primary globalizing force. In The Risk Society, he places risk at

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the very center of his analysis of modern social change, arguing that it accelerates the globalization process. As the world has modernized and industrialized, Beck (1992, 20) suggests, we have become aware that the sources of wealth are increasingly threatened and polluted by hazardous side effects. In characterizing modernity as a risk society Beck not only means that modern social life introduces new forms of danger and hazards, but that one of its defining aspects is its social reflexivity. Life has always been fraught with risk, hazards, and dangers, and for Beck it is not that this hazardous aspect to muddling through the everyday world is necessarily new—what is different is the way risks are socially constituted and how we perceive, understand, and respond to them. Beck defines risk as a systematic way of dealing with the hazards and insecurities that modernization produces. Living in a world of modernity, Beck argues that we face qualitatively different kinds of hazards than in previous periods of history. We are aware of the global threats that emanate from industrialization, such as pollution, contaminants, toxins, and radioactivity that have profound and irreversible effects on organisms. Giddens (1990, 139) has described the modern world as a “juggernaut,” which he considers a runaway engine of enormous power which, collectively as human beings, we can drive to some extent but which also threatens to rush out of our control and which could rend itself asunder . . . .[S]o long as the institutions of modernity endure, we shall never be able to control completely either the path or the pace of the journey. In turn, we shall never be able to feel entirely secure, because the terrain across which it runs is fraught with risks of high consequence. Yet modernity stimulates powerful reactions and resistance to progress and change. This may come in the form of political protest (Lynge 1992), in the form of grassroots movements and indigenous peoples’ organizations (Nuttall 1998, 2000), or in the assertion of local knowledge as a basis for new education curricula deemed appropriate for indigenous conditions and circumstances (Kawagley 1995). As Breyman (1993, 127) argues, the success of social move-

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ments concerned with the environment (be they indigenous peoples, grassroots activists, or environmental organizations) “depends on the effective mobilization of resources,” and points to knowledge as a crucial resource which “best reflects both the promise and the problems of the globalization of environmental issues and the groups that champion them.” Many organizations and groups have been formed at the local, national, and international level with an aim to promote the specific protection of traditional cultures and value systems and advance claims for indigenous peoples’ rights. In doing so, the notion of ­“indigeneity” is important for emphasizing the cultural distinctiveness and continued presence of “first” peoples, juxtaposing the culture or livelihoods of indigenous communities with settler societies, as well as reinforcing the morally compelling claim of indigenous knowledge as politically more potent than “local” knowledge. In Canada, for example, the Assembly of First Nations has recently advocated that the creation of school systems regulated and maintained by First Nations, with pedagogic practices informed by indigenous knowledge, is the only way Aboriginal people can hope to survive culturally and economically. Around the globe, indigenous peoples’ organizations have emerged as significant social movements over the last decade or so (the Inuit Circumpolar Council is one notably successful arctic example), and indigenous rights, land claims, self-determination, and self-government are often at the heart of their campaigns and discourses on cultural protection and economic development. The acceptance of indigenous issues as internationally significant was illustrated by the International Labour Organization’s (ILO’s) adoption in 1989 of Convention 169, concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Counties. This required states to recognize and guarantee the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous and tribal peoples, yet because so few states actually ratified ILO Convention 169, the United Nations developed other mechanisms (the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and a Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples) to keep indigenous rights issues on the international agenda. In September 2007, the United Nations’ Human Rights Council approved the UN

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Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirmed the equality, diversity, and right to self-determination of indigenous peoples. Only four states (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States) cast negative votes (there were eleven abstentions), while 143 states voted in favor. Australia has since reversed its decision and has endorsed the declaration, while Columbia and Samoa, two of the countries that originally abstained, have also now indicated their support. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples is a body of sixteen representatives, half of them nominated by indigenous organizations and half by UN member states, that meets annually to examine indigenous issues. It reports its recommendations to the UN Economic and Social Council. At the center of many of its meetings is discussion on how to ensure awareness and sensitivity on all indigenous issues and concerns, how to empower communities, and how to ensure cultural protection and the rights of indigenous peoples. The protection of cultural heritage has long been a concern of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), notably under its 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Adopted in 1970, this treaty forms the largest and longest-standing framework for international cooperation in efforts to reduce and prevent the pillaging and theft of archaeological sites and ethnological objects of importance to indigenous peoples and cultural groups around the world. Ninety-one countries are party to the convention, with each differing in their implementation of it. For example, in the United States the convention is implemented by the Cultural Property Implementation Act. Increasingly, it is being recognized that cultural rights are an integral part of human rights, as expressed in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in Articles 13 and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. On October 20, 2005, the UNESCO General Conference approved the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. This reinforces UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001), a legal instrument which recognizes that cultural protection is a prerequisite for the maintenance of

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cultural diversity. It states that “as a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature. In this sense, it is the common heritage of humanity and should be recognized and affirmed for the benefit of present and future generations.” In the Arctic, for example, recent work has argued that the conservation of wildlife and ecosystems depends in part on maintaining the strength of the relationship between indigenous peoples, animals, and the environment, and securing the rights of indigenous peoples to continue customary harvesting activities (Nuttall 1998). Similarly, for the Amazon it has been argued that, in terms of cultural and biological diversity, safeguarding traditional territories and local cultures is important for the sustainability of global ecosystems. The Cultural Diversity declaration makes explicit reference to globalization, stating that “the process of globalization, facilitated by the rapid development of new information and communication technologies, though representing a challenge for cultural diversity, creates the conditions for renewed dialogue among cultures and civilizations.”

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epistemologica l cooper ation in the arctic

As the Arctic has emerged as an international political region, indigenous peoples have found critically important roles to play in responding to and shaping the direction of political dialogue on globalization and its cultural and environmental consequences. Since the 1980s, indigenous peoples’ organizations have become increasingly important actors in arctic environmental politics, giving a greater voice to indigenous peoples throughout the circumpolar north and arguing the case for the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in strategies for environmental management and sustainable development (Nuttall 2000). Over the last two decades in particular, these organizations have played a pivotal role in agenda-setting and political debate on the arctic environment and resource development, and have gained international visibility and credibility through their participation in

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policy dialogue and decision-making processes at regional, national, and international levels. The Arctic Council, a high-level governmental forum with a mandate to cooperate on environmental protection and sustainable development, has given six indigenous peoples’ organizations “Permanent Participant” status. These groups—the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), the Saami Council, the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), Arctic Athabaskan Council, Gwich’in Council International, and the Aleut International Association—have set themselves in the vanguard of arctic environmental protection and sustainable development for indigenous communities (Nuttall 2000). They are now major players on the stage of international diplomacy and policy making concerning the future of the Arctic. Although it does not explicitly recognize indigenous peoples’ rights, the Arctic Council has allowed the permanent participants a greater role in international arctic politics and provided an opportunity for these groups to position themselves to achieve international visibility with regard to environmental conservation and issues of cultural protection and cultural survival. In the Arctic, indigenous peoples and the organizations that represent them use knowledge to define their interests and to pursue various claims. They also use it as a political lever to influence policy makers and to empower themselves so that communities can take decisive action on the future of natural resource use and environmental protection, as well as claiming the right to determine the course of economic development. In the Arctic today, indigenous peoples’ organizations openly challenge the authority of the state and question the processes and meanings of modernity and development (Nuttall 1998). The claims advanced by indigenous peoples are often collective in nature, and in this they differ markedly from nonindigenous peoples living in the Arctic. Those suspicious of indigenous peoples and their activism accuse them of attempting to gain special privileges, but the indigenous counterargument is that they are seeking to secure cultural survival and equality, as well as an acceptance of the legitimacy of their ways of life (Kenrick and Lewis 2004). As witnessed in the Arctic, indigenous peoples’ organizations have taken a lead in pressing regional and national governments to offset the

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impact of social and economic change and have taken action in persuading governments to work on implementing measures for environmental protection and sustainable development (Nuttall 2000; Shadian 2006). Notable success stories include the work of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in playing a central role in the negotiation of the global Stockholm Convention on the Elimination of Persistent Organic Pollutants. Following the negotiations, ICC continued to lobby states to ratify the convention in their national legislatures. The convention entered into force in May 2003, and ICC continues to work to ensure that the convention obligations are implemented (Downey and Fenge 2003). Significant political changes in the circumpolar north since the 1970s have seen the settlement of land claims in Alaska and Canada and the formation of regional governments in Greenland and Nunavut. These include the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), Greenland Home Rule (1979), the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (1975–1977), the Inuvialuit Final Agreement (1984), and the Nunavut Agreement of 1992 (the Territory of Nunavut was inaugurated in 1999). Furthermore, a new system of self-rule was introduced in Greenland in June 2009, giving the Danish North Atlantic territory greater autonomy. These settlements and agreements often include changes in the ways that living and nonliving resources are managed as well as defining and controlling who has access to them. A greater degree of local involvement in resource use management decisions has been introduced, including in some cases the actual transfer of decision-making authority to the local or regional level (see Sejersen 2004 for an account of how the opposite has happened in Greenland). In addition, significant steps have been taken with innovative co-management regimes that allow for the sharing of responsibility for resource management between indigenous and other users and the state. Examples include the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) and, in Canada, the Inuvialuit Game Council. In theory, co-management projects involve greater recognition of indigenous and local rights to resource use and emphasize the importance of decentralized, nonhierarchical institutions and consensus decision making. This presents tremendous opportunities for

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c­ ollaboration among indigenous peoples, scientists, and policy makers concerned with the sustainable use of living resources. And it is within this new political and scientific environment of power sharing and dialogue, for example, that indigenous communities, scientists, and policy makers can work together to find solutions (such as building flexibility into otherwise constraining wildlife management regimes) to the pressing problems climate change may bring to the Arctic. Although knowledge integration in co-management systems remains fraught with technical, methodological, bureaucratic, and political difficulties (Nadasdy 2003), new and evolving forms of comanagement institutions create opportunities to increase local resilience and the ability to cope with, respond to, and deal with change.

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epistemologica l conflicts

Despite these developments, indigenous peoples—as well as other local resource–dependent communities such as fishers, farmers, and pastoralists—often feel their voices are still muted. They feel their participation in decision making and management is limited and that state regulations over access to resources, in the form of resource management and quota systems, place pressure on their ways of life by restricting their activities (Anderson and Nuttall 2004). Indigenous and local producers also complain that biologists, wildlife managers, and conservationists ignore their perspectives on resource use and indigenous and local systems of environmental management, including traditional environmental knowledge. The persistence of a dominant scientific and political discourse about environmental explanation and perception remains a perennial problem for hunters, fishers, and herders attempting to participate in decision-making processes. While there are many examples of this conflict throughout the circumpolar north, it is illustrated well by an ongoing political debate in Greenland about who has rights of access to marine resources and who has the power to regulate and manage them. To understand this debate, we must understand the broader context of changing resource rights in Greenland and the creation of

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an administrative and geographically defined national hunting and fishing territory (Greenland as a whole, imagined and constructed politically as a single community, contrasted with what were once a diversity of traditional local hunting territories) and the erosion of local territories, communities, and management systems. Caribou, whales, seals, and fish, which traditionally were subject to common use rights vested in members of a local community and to some extent determined by local and regional institutions, have been transformed increasingly into national and privately owned divisible commodities subject to rational management regimes defined by the state and the national interest groups of hunters, fishers, and producers rather than to locally understood and worked-out rights, obligations, and practices (see Helgason and Palsson 1997 for a discussion of similar processes in the Icelandic fishing industry). As still evident in some parts of Greenland today, especially in the smaller, remoter villages, it has traditionally been the case that no one owns animals—everyone has the right to hunt and fish as a member of a local community. A caribou, fish, or marine mammal does not become a commodity until it has been caught and transformed into private property. Even then, complex local rules, beliefs, and cultural practices about sharing the catch counter the exclusive sense of individual ownership (Nuttall 2001). However, the definition, administration, management, and practice of caribou hunting since the 1980s are illustrative of general wildlife-management policies in Greenland, where membership of a territorial, or place-based, community no longer gives hunters exclusive rights to harvest caribou. In West Greenland, caribou hunting was largely a family event until the 1970s. Kinship, locality, and territory were the mechanisms for regulating harvesting activities. Today, hunting rights are vested in people as members of social and economic associations irrespective of a local focus or their family affiliations. Discussing the situation in central West Greenland, Dahl (2000) shows how the traditional hunting territories of various communities are not the same as the administrative boundaries that surround villages, towns, districts, and municipalities. The relevant territorial unit for hunting caribou (and other animals such as beluga and narwhal)

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is now Greenland, rather than a place-based community largely comprising families and related households. Greenland’s government bodies and administrative and research institutes, all located in the capital Nuuk, are charged with the task of describing, managing, and regulating access to living resources. They are also redefining resources and challenging cultural understandings of what constitutes an animal. For example, fisheries quotas are decided upon and fixed based on advice from biologists. One conflict to have emerged because of this is between user groups (i.e., fishers and hunters) and biologists. In Greenland, biologists occupy a central position in the management of resource use as primary expert advisers to the Greenland government. As Roepstorff (1998) and Sejersen (2004) have written, the scientific concept of the “stock” has become of central importance in the production of knowledge. Scientists— those with expert knowledge—are tasked with defining ecological sustainability, and this depends on a strict measurement, definition, and delimitation of the natural world. The concept of the stock, however, entails a fundamentally different way of thinking and talking about animals compared with how local fishers perceive and conceptualize animals and the environment. As Roepstorff (1998) has reported from his work on the management of the Greenland halibut fishery in Disko Bay, when biologists talk about stocks they refer to a theoretically well-defined entity moving about within more or less set spatial and temporal borders. For biologists, stock assessment is about identifying such stocks and determining their basic properties. However, it is not easy in practice to express the complexities, behavior, and characteristics of fish, seals, caribou, whales, and other animals in the real world as a single entity that we can call the “stock.” This is especially difficult when animals are migratory, moving across international borders and also across the borders of neighboring “stocks.” And when fish are not visible from time to time, how do species form identifiable, coherent communities? But to call something a stock is to give it an identity and to assign to it properties that simplify it, making it amenable to measurement, management, and control. As Roepstorff points out, the relationship between a concrete stock and what local people un-

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derstand to be “the real fish” is problematic, in the sense that stocks are representations of reality. However, for scientists, a stock is good to think with. Greenlandic fishers and hunters claim that biologists are not interested in local knowledge or local understandings and definitions of fish—or their own particular relations to animals in general—and they question the biologists’ assertion that stocks exist in reality. The biologists, in turn, complain about the difficulties of getting the Greenlandic public (and especially hunters and fishers) to understand what a stock is. The conflict boils down to an argument about the reasons for the supposed disappearance or absence of halibut, and it has generic relevance for discussion of the exploitation of all living resources in Greenland. For local fishers the absence of halibut is attributed to their shift in distribution (they have moved on to another place), while for biologists the absence of the fish is evidence of a decline in the population, or stock (they have been overfished). Fishers may deny that overfishing is responsible for the disappearance of halibut (and argue that the fish have simply moved elsewhere), but as Gilchrist et al. (2005) observed in Upernavik in northwest Greenland, while few hunters cited overhunting as a cause of decline in the thickbilled murre population, scientific research shows it to be the leading cause of decline rather than shifts in distribution. Speaking more generally about conflicts between user knowledge and scientific knowledge, Kalle Mølgaard (2006, 35) from the Greenland Association of Hunters and Fishers summed up the situation in Greenland when he said that “there is a lack of trust between hunters, the government and the biologists. Trust and respect are fundamental elements in the process.” Community viability in West Greenland depends on the long-term sustainability of local livelihoods and economies based on the resources of the sea, but ecosystem-based advice for resource management needs to be informed by in-depth understanding of the social and cultural dynamics of living marine resource use and of the social organization of communities that depend on the sea for a living. While the West Greenland ecosystem is poorly understood in biological terms, so too are the social, economic, and cultural aspects of West Greenlandic coastal communities, especially in terms

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of their interactions with living marine resources and the continued social and cultural importance of hunting and fishing.

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ex pert k now ledge a nd globa l public goods

Stocks are only one mapping of reality—there are many possible mappings and definitions of environments, landscapes, animals, and resources. As Simon Schama in his book Landscape and Memory (1995) ably observes, the wilderness does not locate or name itself. And as Beck (1992) argues, environmental problems are not problems for our surroundings, but in their origins and through their consequences they are thoroughly social problems, problems of people, their history, their living conditions, their relation to the world and reality, and their social, political, and cultural situations. Nature does not speak for itself but must be interpreted and constructed through social and cultural institutions (such as science) and social action. As rapid climate change helps focus world opinion increasingly on the Arctic, both the region and its peoples are confronted with suggestions for possible solutions to global challenges that are influenced increasingly by the idea of global public goods. Kaul et al. (1999) argue that if we are to understand the roots of global crises, we must do so through the lens of global public goods, by which they mean a set of goods that the market itself cannot provide, and which are in the public domain. They are contrasted with private goods, which are associated with clear property rights—their owners decide how to use, consume, lease, or sell them. Global public goods are not merchandise or services and often need to be provided by nonmarket or modified market mechanisms. The “goods” in this use of the term refer to the advantages and benefits to society from the provision of certain initiatives that satisfy particular needs and wants, such as the eradication of diseases and controls on pollution. Public goods are recognized as having benefits that cannot easily be confined to a single “buyer” (or group of “buyers”)—they are in the public domain and are available for everyone to consume. And once they are provid-

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ed, many can enjoy them for free. A clean environment is one good example of a public good. Peace and security are others. Knowledge is also a public good and can be legitimized as such and made public through basic education. However, some forms of knowledge are not in the public domain and, especially in the case of knowledge with commercial value, are protected by intellectual property rights (Kaul et al. 2003). Kaul et al. (1999) argue that the modern global crisis reveals a serious underprovision of global public goods, and they ask whether it is possible to find policy options and strategies that would ensure a more reliable supply of global public goods, thus enhancing market efficiency and promoting equity, health, knowledge, environmental sustainability, and peace and security. Within each of these sectors goods can be identified that bring advantages to society as a whole and to which every individual has an equal entitlement. Without these global public goods, they suggest, human security and development will be elusive. In a sense, the idea of global public goods speaks to that aspect of globalization which is about the interdependent nature of people’s lives (Kaul et al. 2003). Averting the risk of global climate change, for instance, concerns the provision of public goods because their benefits cut across borders, cultures, and generations. For Kaul et al. (2003) globalization and public goods are inextricably linked—whether and how global public goods are provided determines whether globalization can be turned into an opportunity or a threat. Public goods cannot be owned exclusively by an individual, as one’s claim to exclusivity over a resource denies rights of access to other people, so the idea of a public good in an environmental sense comes close to the claiming of natural “resources” as the common heritage of humankind. Halting environmental disasters and controlling invasive species are global public goods. McNeely (2004, 3) argues that invasive alien species are now recognized as one of the greatest biological threats to the global public good of our planet’s environmental and economic well-being: The trans-boundary movement of harmful invasive species can retard economic growth in the affected countries, undermining developments such as ­irrigation

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systems and leading to increases in social tensions and political conflict. If left unaddressed, invasive species can threaten international trade and investment activities. Reducing the negative cross-border externalities of the movement of potentially invasive alien species is a global public good. To control invasive species is to provide social benefits as a global public good, continues McNeely:

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The provision of the public good of controlling invasive species can be seen as the flip side of the public good of providing conservation of biological diversity. In the first case, the intention is to slow the growth rate of the population of an invasive species to zero, while the conservation objective is to ensure a healthy population of all native species. As the global environmental crisis demands action, so calls increase for a global public goods system as an institution of global governance. In June 2007, for example, the UN World Heritage Committee declared the Galapagos Islands an endangered world heritage site following an admission from Ecuador that it could not properly protect the isolated Pacific archipelago from environmental deterioration, invasive species (such as goats and feral dogs and cats), illegal fishing, and increasing tourism. Public goods, it is argued, should be enjoyed by everyone and as such are defined as “nonrival,” which means that their use by one consumer does not prevent their use by another consumer. Fisheries management is not a global public good because fisheries are a complex mix of open access, systems of property rights, territorial limits, and problems of competition for shared and straddling stocks. Fisheries management is, however, a challenge for collective global action to ensure the conservation of fish stocks and the supply of fish for food. The protection of the ozone layer, however, is an example of a global good that most countries agree on, and something achieved by the Montreal Protocol, but is an international whaling regime to protect whales and

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prevent whale hunting a global good? The latter, like all attempts at biodiversity conservation, is multidimensional in that it involves a number of different species to manage, a variety of ecosystems to manage, and a range of contested perspectives and knowledge claims to negotiate. I mention whales because global discussion (and argument) over the management of whale hunting, as well as the use of the products of the hunt, is (at least as far as arctic resource use goes) an epistemological conflict par excellence. It entails a tension between different groups over the conservation of a resource and the protection of marine mammals. There is an extensive and germane literature on this (e.g., for recent discussion see Friedheim 2001 and Heazle 2006), and it is only possible here to touch on some of the main issues relevant to this discussion. Indigenous peoples, mainly in the Arctic, as well as other local communities and some entire nations, claim the cultural and economic right to hunt certain species of whales. The cultures and livelihoods of many arctic coastal communities in Greenland, northern Canada, Alaska, and the Russian Far East are either based largely on sealing and whaling or dependent on marine mammal hunting at certain times of the year, such as in northern Norway, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. Although marine mammal hunting is vital as a local food source, some coastal communities are looking to it as a way of enhancing opportunities for economic development, for example, through the international sale of whale meat and other whale products. Iceland, for instance, is looking to Japan as a lucrative market for fin whale meat. In Greenland, community-based whaling is a vital and integral part of local mixed economies (Caulfield 1997). Whale meat, mattak (the skin and blubber), and other marine mammal products are not only shared and distributed widely within and between households and communities, thus creating and contributing to kinship and community ties and other forms of close social association (Nuttall 1998), but they are also produced for sale within Greenland’s domestic market for kalaalimernit (Greenlandic foods). This provides the cash necessary for the continued viability of both the household and community economies throughout the country. The sale of whale meat and other Greenlandic food products from seals and fish is being encouraged by the Greenland authorities on a larger scale beyond the

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l­ocal level. Greenland remains highly dependent on imported foodstuffs, and to ease this reliance hunters are being encouraged to sell part or most of what they catch to Royal Greenland, the country’s meat- and fish-processing company, thus promoting local, small-scale community development. While Greenlanders and other arctic whaling communities claim the right both to continue whaling and to develop domestic and international markets for whale products, environmentalist organizations and animal-rights groups have continued to express concern over depleting whale stocks and what they define as the commercial, immoral, and unnecessary nature of whaling. Since the 1980s, the cultural and economic viability of coastal communities has been seriously undermined by the activities of environmentalist groups that have campaigned against whaling and seal hunting. For antiwhaling groups and antiwhaling nations, the preservation of whales is argued to be a global public good, as the existence of whales is valued. The conflict arises over the different kinds of claims different groups of users/consumers make for their rights to use and consume whales, and the different reasons why the existence of whales is valued. Whales may be important subsistence resources, as well as cultural and spiritual resources for Inupiat hunters in Alaska and Inuit hunters in Greenland, for example, but environmentalists aim to prevent this use while promoting not only the rights of whales but the rights of other people to consume whales as whale watchers and tourists, not hunters. As the history of the International Whaling Commission reveals, this conflict has been marred by epistemological problems in the production of “truth” (Heazle 2006). pol ar bears a nd caribou : notes from norther n ca na da on enda nger ed species

Like the whale, the polar bear is another charismatic animal at the very center of current controversy and epistemological conflict. Discussion about the future of polar bears is increasingly framed within

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the discourse of global public goods in that international concern over their survival is increasing. Polar bears are both migratory animals and an iconic species. Their range crosses national borders, making them subject to discussion about international management and appropriate conservation regimes. Contaminants, pollution, and climate change have made them emblematic of arctic ecosystems at risk, but for conservation groups and the media, they have also become a supreme image that represents the plight of all the world’s animal species that are threatened and endangered by human activities. Polar bears depend on sea ice. They hunt seals and use ice to travel from one area to another. Seal-hunting success, and hence the survival of polar bears and their families, depends on good spring ice conditions. Climate change scenarios for the complete elimination of multiyear ice in the Arctic Ocean indicate that this environmental shift is likely to be immensely disruptive to polar bears and other icedependent animals, which will lack a permanent habitat when the ice goes. Global warming is now seen to be the biggest threat to their survival, and polar bears have become an indicator species of the rapid nature and extent of climate change in the Arctic. Both the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) and the IPCC fourth assessment suggest that the earliest impacts of warming will be expected to occur at the southern limits of the bears’ distribution, such as James Bay and Hudson Bay in Canada (ACIA 2005). According to much of the scientific research which ACIA draws upon, the condition and health of adult polar bears in the Hudson Bay region has declined during the last two decades. The predictions for the future of polar bear populations—and the health of the Arctic generally—are stark. Polar bears are unlikely to survive as a species if there is an almost complete loss of summer sea-ice cover, which is what most climate models indicate will probably happen by the end of this century, if not sooner (ACIA 2004, 2005). The loss of polar bears is likely to have significant consequences for the ecosystems they occupy. Heartrending stories in the media represent the polar bear as a once majestic predator at the top of its food chain, now a helpless, starving animal seeking seals on thinning ice. For environmentalists and conservation organizations, polar bears are iconic—they are part of the global heritage of

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humankind, and the threat of their extinction makes them a pressing issue of global concern. Polar bears have been transformed in the public imagination from symbols of cold, unbounded polar wastes to symbols of an ecosystem in crisis and a planet in peril. Along with the Indian tiger, they are the latest endangered-species pin-up. Polar bears continue to have considerable social, cultural, and economic importance in many Inuit communities in Greenland, Canada, and Alaska. As Wenzel (2005, 363) points out, “No animal has as large a symbolic place in Canadian Inuit culture as the polar bear.” They are hunted for their meat and their skin, and are a central feature in Inuit cosmology. At the same time, polar bears “may also be the most carefully managed marine mammal species in the circumpolar world, being the subject of a sustained international conservation effort for the last three decades.” Wenzel is referring to the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears, which came about because Denmark (on behalf of Greenland), Russia, Norway, Canada, and the United States, the five nations with polar bear populations, were concerned that polar bear populations were declining due to overharvesting. The agreement was one of the first international regimes to include ecological principles and calls for the protection of the ecosystems upon which polar bears depend and, specifically, to protect special habitat components. It allows for the hunting, killing, and capturing of polar bears for scientific and conservation purposes, to protect other resources, and for harvest by local people using traditional methods or where people had a tradition of hunting polar bears. Derocher (2005) claims that the agreement has been effective because resource users, and those involved in research and management, were committed to finding a solution to improve polar bear conservation. The agreement was based on the best research information available, and all involved in the negotiations respected the cultural differences of signatories. In addition to the agreement, polar bears are protected under the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Climate change, however, threatens the agreement and the rights of Inuit to continue harvesting polar bears. Following a twelve-month review, the United States Department of the Inte-

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rior concluded that the polar bear should be listed as threatened throughout its range under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, following a proposal put forward by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in January 2007. The petitioners to this proposed ruling included the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Canadian Inuit response to the proposal was, unsurprisingly, a request for the polar bear not to be listed. In a jointly signed letter to the Marine Mammals Management Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the leaders of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the national Inuit organization, and Canada’s Inuit Circumpolar Council argued that any proposal to restrict the hunting and use of polar bears, either within or outside Canada, would affect the rights and interests of Inuit in Canada directly and substantively. Both ITK and ICC advance claims that Inuit in Canada have conserved ­polar bear populations at healthy levels through proper and responsible wildlife management, research and monitoring, and sustainable harvesting practices. For Canadian Inuit, listing polar bears as threatened will impose arbitrary, and scientifically unfounded, penalties and hardships upon Inuit. These penalities and hardships would have negative impacts on our rights and interests and would undermine our current successful measures and on-going activities in the sustainable use and conservation of the species. (Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Inuit Circumpolar Council– Canada 2009, 143–44) This intervention draws attention to the claim advanced by Inuit leaders that Inuit are successful conservationists who question the legitimacy of the scientific basis, as well as the rights, of those who claim the authority to make decisions concerning wildlife without first consulting local hunters (Nuttall 1998). In Nunavut the co-management of polar bears (as for co-management of all wildlife) is legislated through the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB), an institution of public government under the

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Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (1993). It cooperates closely with Inuit hunters’ and trappers’ organizations, and the incorporation of Inuit traditional knowledge into its research operations and management principles is ­particularly strong. As the Government of Nunavut put it, “Our polar bear ­management system in Nunavut is designed to be more flexible than the traditional North American model of wildlife management. In Nunavut our management draws largely upon the wealth of knowledge from Inuit, who are still largely tied to wildlife through subsistence hunting” (Government of Nunavut 2009, 154). To support the listing decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Secretary of the Interior asked the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to carry out research that would generate new scientific data and models on polar bears and their sea-ice habitats. The USGS science team released its findings in nine administrative reports to the Fish and Wildlife Service on September 7, 2007. The overall conclusion of the research is that the projected changes in future sea-ice conditions would result in the loss of approximately two-thirds of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid-twenty-first century. But the team also warns that the observed trajectory of arctic sea decline may be underestimated by current models, making the USGS assessment of the future status of polar bears a conservative one (Amstrup et al. 2007). The Government of Nunavut response to the nine reports is unequivocal: Despite our concern for polar bear conservation and acknowledgement of the impacts of climate change on polar bears, Nunavut cannot support your proposed listing in its current form. We ask you to acknowledge the scientific evidence of distinct population segments and the evidence that polar bear populations have and will respond differently to climate change. Currently, while climate warming is a global, and an anthropogenic phenomenon, the impacts on the different polar bear populations will be variable. (Government of Nunavut 2009, 162)

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In June 2007 Canadian Inuit hunters and Nunavut wildlife management organizations were further angered by a Canadian federal government proposal to add the Peary caribou to its list of species on the brink of extinction. Peary (sometimes called arctic) caribou are the smallest of the caribou ecotypes—a consequence of the High Arctic’s short growing season, low plant productivity, and long, cold winters. Scientists have long suggested that Peary caribou may be particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events and to climate change. Based on scientific advice that climate change is altering the habitat of Peary caribou with disastrous effects, and in light of a huge decline in the population from fifty thousand to eight thousand in recent years, Canadian Environment Minister John Baird advised wildlife officials in Nunavut of his intention to apply the new Species at Risk Act to Peary caribou and barren-ground caribou (which would be listed as a species of special concern). The Nunavut Wildlife Management Board disputes federal estimates of the size and health of the Peary caribou population. The NWMB aims to conserve wildlife in Nunavut through the integration and application of traditional Inuit knowledge and scientific knowledge and criticized the federal government’s stance. For one thing, the NWMB argues that scientific research on Peary caribou has ignored Inuit perspectives and knowledge. For another, the board claims that the Peary caribou population should be divided into four subgroups for the purposes of management. It makes no sense from an Inuit perspective, argues the NWMB, to see the Peary caribou as one cohesive population. In 2005, the first attempt to list the Peary caribou failed following threats from the Inuit to sue the federal government for failing to adequately consult them about the population’s status. Like the polar bear, the caribou is achieving iconic status as a species at risk from catastrophic climate change, and decisions over its future pit the expert scientific knowledge of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (the body responsible for providing scientific advice to the federal government) against the claims for recognition of the knowledge of Inuit who live, travel, and hunt on the land.

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epistemology, ontology, a nd pr actice

For many of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples, consuming food from animals is a fundamental part of social identity and personal and cultural well-being. Indigenous peoples have reported their loss of vitality and decline in health and personal and community well-being when they are unable to eat traditional foods. To be cut off from hunting, to be denied access to animals that nourish one in a nutritional, cultural, and spiritual sense is to be denied cultural rights as well as economic and livelihood rights. For Inuit, international concern over endangered species and who has the right to protect wildlife from hunting bring back emotional memories of the 1970s and 1980s, when successful antitrapping and anti–seal hunting campaigns by animal-rights groups seriously undermined the economies and livelihoods of many arctic economies. These activities, by southern-based groups who did not understand northern cultures, were perceived by indigenous peoples, such as Inuit in Greenland and Canada, as activities of cultural imperialism that struck at the heart of Inuit culture (for a discussion of the Canadian eastern Arctic case, see Wenzel 1991). Anxieties over the return of similar action and international opinion were very much in the foreground during hearings about polar bear hunting that were carried out in Iqaluit by the Nunavut government in September 2009. Aware of increasing opposition in the United States and Europe to polar bear hunting (especially the commercial transactions between Inuit communities and sports hunters), the Nunavut environment minister spoke of a fear of sanctions being imposed on Nunavut if the territorial government did not take steps to limit polar bear hunting quotas, thus acknowledging international concern over scientific research which argues that polar bear numbers are declining significantly. At the hearings, testimony was presented to the contrary, that Inuit hunters and elders are noticing an increase in polar bear numbers and that the science is not based on the same understandings hunters have of the complex movement and behavior of polar bears along the coasts and on the pack ice. While such conflicts—whether over seals, halibut, polar bears, whales, or caribou—are often explained as conflicts of epistemology,

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or different and contested ways of knowing, it is also a debate that is fundamentally ontological in the sense that it is about not only how different people claim they know what they know, but about the reality of the world, what it is, how it is perceived, what it consists of, and how people relate to it and everything in it. Jenkins (2002, 5) argues that enchantment, which he sees as the human refusal to accept the physical appearances of reality as the sum total of the world, is a feature of the everyday human world and as such is manifest in many aspects of everyday life. Scientists are tasked with providing data about the supposedly observable realities of the world, data which are then used to inform decision-making processes that are based on an understanding of specific criteria and conditions. Science depends on the separation of facts and information from lived, everyday worlds of shared relations in practice. In doing so, it leaves no possibility for enchantment to be considered as having any influence over decision-making processes for environmental management and wildlife-management regimes.

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r efer ences

ACIA. 2004. Impacts of a Warming Arctic: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2005. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment: Scientific Report. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Amstrup, S. C., B. G. Marcot, and D. C. Douglas. 2007. Forecasting the Range-Wide Status of Polar Bears at Selected Times in the 21st Century. Reston,VA: U.S. Geological Survey. Anderson, D. G., and M. Nuttall, eds. 2004. Cultivating Arctic Landscapes: Knowing and Managing Animals in the Circumpolar North. Oxford: Berghahn. Beck, U. 1992. The Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage. Berger, J. 1984. And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos. London: Bloomsbury. Breyman, S. 1993. “Knowledge as Power: Ecology Movements and Global Environmental Problems.” In The State and Social

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Power in Global Environmental Politics, ed. K. Conca and R. Lipschutz. New York: Columbia University Press. Bunker, S. G., and P. S. Ciccantell. 2005. Globalization and the Race for Resources. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Caulfield, R. A. 1997. Greenlanders, Whales and Whaling: Sustainability and Self-Determination in the Arctic. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College. Daes, E. I. 2003. “Globalization, Intellectual Property and Indigenous Peoples.” In Indigenous Peoples: Resource Management and Global Rights, ed. S. Jenfoft, H. Minde, and R. Nilsen. Delft: Eburon. Dahl, J. 2000. Saqqaq: An Inuit Hunting Community in the Modern World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Derocher, A. 2005. “Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears.” In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, ed. M. Nuttall, 16–17. New York and London: Routledge. Downey, D. L., and T. Fenge. 2003. Northern Lights against POPs: Combating Toxic Threats in the Arctic. Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press. Friedheim, R. L., ed. 2001. Toward a Sustainable Whaling Regime. Seattle: University of Washington Press and Edmonton: CCI Press. Gardner, K. 1995. Global Migrants, Local Lives: Travel and Transformation in Rural Bangladesh. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. ———. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity. Gilchrist, G., M. Mallory, and F. Merkel. 2005. “Can Local Ecological Knowledge Contribute to Wildlife Management? Case Studies of Migratory Birds.” Ecology and Society 10(1):20. Government of Nunavut. 2009. “Response to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Proposed Rule to List the Polar Bear as Threatened Throughout Its Range.” In Inuit, Polar Bears and Sustainable Use, ed. M. M. R. Freeman and Lee Foote. Edmonton: CCI Press. Heazle, M. 2006. Scientific Uncertainty and the Politics of Whaling. Seattle: University of Washington Press and Edmonton: CCI Press.

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Helgason, A., and G. Palsson. 1997. “Contested Commodities: The Moral Landscape of Modernist Regimes.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3:451–471. Huertas Castillo, B. 2004. Indigenous Peoples in Isolation in the Peruvian Amazon. Copenhagen: IWGIA. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Inuit Circumpolar Council–Canada. 2009. “Response to the Proposal to List Polar Bear under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.” In Inuit, Polar Bears and Sustainable Use, ed. M. M. R. Freeman and Lee Foote. Edmonton: CCI Press. Jedrej, C., and M. Nuttall 1996. White Settlers: The Impact of Rural Repopulation in Scotland. London and New York: Routledge. Jenkins, R. 2002. Foundations of Sociology: Towards a Better Understanding of the Human World. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. Kaul, I., I. Grunberg, and M. Stern, eds. 1999. Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaul, I., P. Conceicao, K. Le Gouvell, and R. U. Mendoza. 2003. “Why Do Global Public Goods Matter Today?” In Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization, ed. I. Kaul. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kawagley, O. 1995. A Yupiaq World View: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Kenrick, J., and J. Lewis. 2004. “Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and the Politics of the Term ‘Indigenous.’” Anthropology Today 20(20):4–9. Lovell, N., ed. 1998. Locality and Belonging. London: Routledge. Lynge, F. 1992. Arctic Wars, Animal Rights, Endangered Peoples. ­Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College. McNeely, J. 2004. “Control of the Spread of Invasive Species as a Global Public Good.” UNDP/ODS background paper. New York: United Nations Development Programme. Mølgaard, K. 2006. “User Knowledge in Greenland.” In Conference on User Knowledge and Scientific Knowledge in the Management Decision-Making, Reykjavik, Iceland, January 4–7, 2003:

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Conference Proceedings, ed. G. T. Hovelsrud and C. Winsness. Tromsø: North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission. Nadasdy, P. 2003. Hunters and Bureaucrats: Power, Knowledge and Aboriginal-State Relations in the Southwest Yukon. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Nuttall, M. 1998. Protecting the Arctic: Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Survival. New York and London: Routledge. ———. 2000. “Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations and Arctic Environmental Co-Operation.” In The Arctic: Environment, People, Policy, ed. M. Nuttall and Terry V. Callaghan. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. ———. 2001. “Locality, Identity and Memory in South Greenland.” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 25(1&2):53–72. Roepstorff, A. 1998. “Virtual Stocks, Experts and Knowledge Traditions.” In Aboriginal Environmental Knowledge in the North, ed. L. J. Dorais, M. Nagy, and L. Müller-Wille. Quebec: GETIC, Université Laval, Quebec. Schama, S. 1995. Landscape and Memory. London: Vintage Books. Sejersen, F. 2004. “Local Knowledge in Greenland: Arctic Perspectives and Contextual Differences.” In Cultivating Arctic Landscapes: Knowing and Managing Animals in the Circumpolar North, ed. D. G. Anderson and M. Nuttall. Oxford: Berghahn. Shadian, J. 2006. “Remaking Arctic Governance: The Construction of an Arctic Inuit Polity.” Polar Record 42(222):249–259. Venketeswar, S. 2004. Development and Ethnocide: Colonial Practices in the Andaman Islands. Copenhagen: IWGIA. WCED. 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wenzel, G. 1991. Animal Rights, Human Rights: Ecology, Economy and Ideology in the Canadian Arctic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ———. 2005. “Nunavut Inuit and Polar Bear: The Cultural Politics of the Sport Hunt.” In Indigenous Use and Management of Marine Resources, ed. N. Kishigami and J. M. Savell. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.

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Elina Helander-Renvall

The indigenous peoples of the Arctic have been living on their lands since time immemorial and they regard the areas that they traditionally inhabit as their home (Nuttall 1992). While the Arctic has become a dwelling place for other groups as well, their presence in the Arctic is much more recent. Today, many interests are connected to the Arctic. The Arctic Human Development Report (2004, 22–26) lists many of these: homeland, land of discovery, magnet for cultural emissaries, storehouse of resources, theater for military operations, environmental linchpin, the scientific Arctic, destination for adventure travelers, and the Arctic of the imagination. Lassi Heininen (2007, 127) recognizes one more aspect, namely, “the Arctic as a distinctive region,” which is based on the discourse of region building. Many encouraging achievements in the Arctic are supporting the cultural and political spaces that indigenous peoples have created. These include the establishment of new political institutions (Chadurvedi 1996; Keskitalo 2004) and increased awareness of indigenous peoples’ rights (Wessendorf 2005). Indigenous peoples are increasingly developing and mobilizing their ethnicity across time and space (Cant et al. 2005). We can also see darker elements arising in terms of climate change, transformation of traditions, increased exploitation of natural resources, power fluctuations, and 179

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outflow of people from small settlements (Arctic Human Development Report 2004; Helander and Mustonen 2004). Threats caused by globalization are met with the same types of resistance as threats caused by colonialism and other aspects of modernity. Human rights standards, international law, and dehegemonization (Simpson 2004; Mander and Tauli-Corpuz 2006) are linked to efforts to recover and reclaim indigenous identity, ­self-determination, and territories (Eidheim 1998; Wessendorf 2005). They are also tied to the development of local indigenous economic activities and new political structures (Petersen and Poppel 1999; Kasten 2002), comanagement and negotiations (Freeman 1989; Berkes 1994; Jentoft et al. 2003), and reestablishment of indigenous life strategies and traditional knowledge (Eythorsson 1991; Helander-Renvall 2005). According to Giddens (1990, 64), globalization is “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” Nyseth and Pedersen (2005) have shown that globalization does not mean that local places, institutions, and activities are losing their meaning: “Instead of being defined from outside, the locality now defines itself with reference to what and who they are” (83). For Erica-Irene Daes (2003, 67–68), the very existence of the world indigenous movement is a product of globalization in the sense that modern information technology helps indigenous people link together worldwide, share political and cultural ideas, and give voice to their collective will. Local changes can be caused by many factors. The local culture is in many cases strengthened as a result of the activities of the indigenous peoples at the global level. One effect of globalization is an increased awareness of international rights, such as the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights. There are also many political structures (see Urry 2003, 45), such as regional blocs (the European Union), international organizations (the United Nations), international NGOs (Greenpeace), and treaties (Kyoto). Indigenous groups enjoy the benefits of globalization in many ways: for instance, they adapt themselves to and take advantage of the international organizations, actors, and agreements. Nenets groups network with non-

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governmental organizations in Western Europe (Habeck 2005, 230). International instruments give indigenous groups political influence at many levels, as some indigenous claims are generated through international and local contacts and conventions. As Arjun Appadurai (2006, 136) puts it, the new transnational activisms are developing “a new dynamic in which global networking is put at the service of local imaginings of power.” This chapter explores the varying impacts that globalization can have on indigenous communities in the circumpolar north. This will be done through an analysis of two separate case studies: the Sea Sami of Tana Fjord in northern Norway and the Nenets reindeer herders of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Both groups have been experiencing many economic and identity-based difficulties. While globalization has, in certain instances, offered challenges to these communities, it has also offered these groups the tools to start countering the sources of these difficulties.

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cases : fishers a nd her ders of the arctic

The case of the Sea Sami from northern Norway exemplifies the dynamism of global processes: the global flow of products, money, and power; the redistribution of wealth to global enterprises; conflicting resource management; a need to enhance the national and local identities; and the role of the ethnic elite in international and national ethnopolitics. My aim here is to discuss globalization as it presents itself in the context of the Sea Sami fishing society, as the Sea Sami are trying to promote resource management and fishing rights in areas that they have been traditionally using for a very long period of time. Vestertana is located in the northwestern part of the municipality of Tana in the state province of Finnmark, Norway. It is situated on Tana Fjord, which runs in a south-to-north direction and flows into the Barents Sea. It is a fjord that has rich fish resources. The majority of the inhabitants in Vestertana are Sami whose mother tongue

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is Sami. Those Sami who live along the north Norwegian coastal area are classified as Sea Sami. Largely due to problems brought on by the forces of modernization and assimilation, the Sea Sami have been a rather weak group politically. Fishing is an international industry in Norway. The fishing grounds around Norway attract fishermen from other countries, which has led to international cooperation in the management of stocks. More than 90 per cent of the Norwegian catch is exported in the form of two thousand different products to over 150 countries, and the total value of exports has more than doubled during the last decades. Salmon produced at salmon farms account for a third of the total value of the exported fishery products. Fishing is also important for the local Sami of northern Norway. In Norway, state control is held by the aid of bureaucracy as well as by Norwegian rules and regulations (Helander 2001), and the Norwegian state still functions as a center of control for the local Sea Sami. The Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs (the Norwegian Fishery Department) and the Directorate of Fisheries have the main national responsibility for the management of fishing in Norway. The Regulation Council gives advice to the directorate. The Norwegian Fishers’ Union is among those organizations that have much influence within the national organizational structure concerning the fisheries. The most significant international regulations take place between the European Union and Norway, and between Russia and Norway. The International Council for Exploration of the Seas makes decisions about the international fishing quotas or levels. The locals perceive the national state as an agent of power and an important representative of globalization. The government does not like to share its power with peripheries without maintaining control regarding the economic development. The Norwegian administrative and political elite’s collaboration with the Norwegian Fishers’ Union is an example of this. The Fishers’ Union has gained even more influence after the restructuring of the Norwegian fishing industry in the 1990s, and it is now dealing with interests and actors outside the local communities. The Fiord Sami have not been

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able to reach the central decision makers through the Fishers’ Union. Their utterances have been “tolerated, but not taken much notice of ” (Eythórsson 2003, 160). Due to the colonial relationship between the Sea Sami and the Norwegian society, Sami knowledge is not considered valid when making political decisions or when managing fisheries (Eythórsson 2003; Nilsen 2003). National interests are regarded by the central authorities as more important than the local fishers’ issues. It is shown below that the local strivings of the Sea Sami are directly or indirectly strengthened through global connections to other indigenous peoples. It remains to be seen whether the Sea Sami are now capable of challenging the state-centered politics in Norway and whether they are in a position to take advantage of global and international networks, alliances, information, politics, and laws. What is clear is that the Sea Sami will not give up what they perceive as their rights without resistance. They have been consciously striving to uphold these rights for over one hundred years, but it was during the 1980s that the Sea Sami began to remobilize their identity and politics—a process that still continues today. The second case is from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Federation and concerns a reindeer-herding people. Indigenous peoples of northern Russia have various traditions and wide experiences of herding in a diversity of landscapes and historical changes. Russia has about two-thirds of the world’s population of domesticated reindeer (Jernsletten and Klokov 2002). In the ­Nenets Autonomous Okrug the size of the reindeer herding area is over 160,000 square kilometers (Ravna 2002, 145). In 2005, the number of reindeer herded by Komi and Nenets was 163,000 (Stammler and Peskov 2008, 835). According to Igor Krupnik (2000, 52), participation in subsistence activities and dwelling in residence in tundra camps is coming back as “pillars of cultural continuity and ethnic pride.” Reindeer herding is regarded as the foundation of the culture and identity of northern indigenous peoples (Anderson 2000; Jernsletten and Klokov 2002; Habeck 2005), and it is the cornerstone of the Nenets economy and life (Golovnev and Osherenko 1999; Ravna 2002). Almost

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all Nenets young people have adopted Russian values, but many see reindeer herding as an interesting alternative partly because it sustains people. Nenets herding is regarded as a tundra type, meaning that the reindeer have long migration routes. Distinctive features of the ­Nenets reindeer herding are, for instance, the use of sledges throughout the year and constant herding by dog teams (Jernsletten and Klokov 2002, 25). The economical profile of the indigenous Russian Arctic is to a certain degree a “mixed subsistence-market economy” (Krupnik 1993, 263–264). Thus, the selling of meat, hides, and other products makes the Nenets herding occupation market-oriented. The free market and the oil industry are threatening the way of life and environment of the Nenets people (Ravna 2002; Tuisku 2002; Stammler and Forbes 2006). The oil industry is quite new in the Nenets Okrug. According to Crate (2006), the Russian state has made itself increasingly powerless, in that in the 1990s, in order to secure material gains, it handed control over to large industries. Since the 1990s, however, ideas regarding sustainable development have gained greater popularity in the Russian Federation. How are the Nenets reindeer herders managing to persist with their traditions while at the same time claiming their rights and adapting themselves to the changing circumstances of globalization? It is my claim that the globalizing “landscape” is still barren in some localities or regions of the Arctic. For instance, in terms of economic globalization (oil and gas development, mining, largescale fishing industry), its activities presuppose supportive infrastructures, such as new roads, dams, and airports (Mander 2006, 3), yet many indigenous areas and communities lack modern facilities. Examples from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug show that global cross-border flows cannot be channeled to the service of local people. Still, the global market economy gives certain opportunities for the local and indigenous groups in many areas. Some Nenets groups, for instance, are able to use their knowledge and networking capacities to mix different cultural, economic, and political ways for their own benefit.

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theories a nd beyond

As pointed out in chapter 1, globalization is a concept that has been used during the latest decades to discuss almost all aspects of modern life. Globalization has been analyzed and discussed mainly as an economic issue as the global economy circulates and causes changes everywhere. According to Norwegian sociologist Berit Ås, globalization is a matter of neoliberal free trade principles. Ås (1999, 95) defines globalization as “a process of concentration of wealth and power, mainly for trans-national corporations, through trade liberation, deregulation and privatization, removing the obstacles for global movement of capital, goods, labour and services.” It is obvious from an indigenous point of view that the global economic life, at least at the emotional level, has pushed indigenous communities toward mainstream ways (Mohawk 2006, 27). Yet their cultural identities are not disappearing and have sometimes become an economic asset. Florian Stammler (2005, 328) writes that the herders of the Yamal area have “adopted innovations to supplement their own way of life.” This statement signals that indigenous groups can choose to take advantage of certain elements of the global cultures. Globalization does not replace all aspects of local ways, and localization does not reject innovations. Mark Nuttall (1992) exemplifies this through description of the Inuit culture of sharing. Inuit are known for their ways of sharing food with members of their local community. In the current contexts money is also given away. The continued cultural sharing may in fact guard the local Inuit communities against internal fragmentation (Nuttall 1992, 171–174). In his description of the coastal and fjordal areas, Ragnar Nilsen (1988) emphasizes the importance of rationality in the fjord, which manifests itself as an adjustment to the changing circumstances and diminishing resources. According to him, it is rational to accept a social situation which includes a low income but which, at the same time, maintains traditional subsistence activities and develops them into new combinations. Fjord rationality also rejects the pursuit of big catches and competition with other fishermen as means of raising one’s living standard. Erica-Irene Daes (2003, 67) describes this

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attitude among indigenous peoples regarding consumer societies as follows: “In many ways, Indigenous peoples challenge the fundamental assumptions of globalization. They do not accept the assumption that humanity will benefit from the construction of a world culture of consumerism.” Within this context, many of the Norwegian Sea Sami emphasize the importance of other values in life besides rush and consumption. In a variety of ways, however, indigenous people do adopt various attributes of modern life. Perhaps the most prominent example of this is in the field of technology. The Sami, Nenets, and Inuit all buy snowmobiles to use in subsistence and leisure time. At the same time, they manage to remain true to themselves. We can indeed observe that “they have absorbed much of what we would call white culture; but white culture has not absorbed them” (Brody 1987, 109). One important contribution to the discussion of globalization comes from Arjun Appadurai. He sees the new global economy as a very complex order which is based on certain fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture, and politics. He identifies five landscape formations, the imagined worlds, that are constituted by the historically situated imaginations of persons and groups spread around the globe (Appadurai 1990, 296). These five elements of global flow are ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes. Appadurai claims that the current global flows occur in and through the growing disjunctures between these landscapes (1990, 301), and they represent a fluid irregularity among modern flows. Many people are able to contest and undermine the imagined worlds of the official mind and the entrepreneurial mentality that surround them. The new overlapping and multilayered globalization process is challenging for indigenous people, but it gives them the possibility to negotiate with, and beyond, many levels of stakeholder power structures. At the same time, it is also local and connected to action and resistance. In a sense, the presence or heavy influence of landscape formations, “scapes” in a (local) society, supplies indigenous people with a global toolkit when fighting for their traditions and rights. For instance, the mediascapes and

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ideoscapes can be used to create a political space for the weak (Appadurai 2006).

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the sea sa mi of v esterta na

In the Tana Fjord area, the majority of the inhabitants are Sami. During a fifteen-year period the population of Vestertana has been nearly halfed, from forty people in 1985 to twenty-three in 2000 (Helander 2001, 460; see also Helander 2002). The majority of the population was over fifty years of age when the investigation was made in 1998– 1999. The figures also imply a diminution in the population of the municipality of Tana (Helander 2001). Recruitment for sea fishing does not take place anymore to an extent necessary for community sustainability. The number of full-time fishers in the Tana municipality has declined since 1984, particularly among those under thirty years of age. Traditionally, both women and men took part in the fishing activities in the fjords. Today, commercial fishing is conducted by men, while small-scale fishing involves, in some cases, both men and women (Helander-Renvall 2009). The Sea Sami were primarily known for hunting, trapping, and fishing. Other sources of livelihood were pursued inland, but when those activities diminished, Sea Sami culture became more and more characterized by sea fishing (Vorren and Manker 1976). Their occupational structure has come to resemble that of the rest of the coastal region. e t h n ic i t y i s pu t t o t h e t e s t

The identity of the Sea Sami has been stigmatized in the past (Eidheim 1971), and many have not dared to show their Saminess (Nielsen 1986). Many have been ashamed to be Sami and have not spoken the Sami language. To be a Sea Sami has been so difficult that many have become politically passive and uncritical (Ballari 1983). There is a concern, or maybe the term risk is more applicable here, that the oppressed and stigmatized adopt the views of the oppressor and, therefore, the

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results of recovery are unclear. However, throughout the course of their struggle, since the 1980s, the Sea Sami identity has gradually been transformed into a more positive image (Helander-Renvall 2009). Ethnicity and national feelings among the Sea Sami have been through various assimilatory approaches and have been put to the test consistently throughout the twentieth century. As a result, they have found it difficult to present themselves with distinctive characteristics in relation to their occupations, especially considering their depreciation and what could best be described as ignorance by the Norwegian state regarding their culture. It seems, however, that in a way the modern Sea Sami identity has been crystallized, with the fishing culture still being one of its key components. This process is one result of the Norwegian assimilatory efforts. Cultural traditions express identities which historical circumstances have formed (Smith 1990). The severe threats against the Sea Sami identity have forced Norwegians and Sami to communicate with each other. The ethnic identity is not necessarily based on objectively different ethnic symbols. The Sami elite bases its demands regarding the Sea Sami fisheries on the ethnohistory of the Sea Sami, which was developed significantly throughout the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The ethnohistory and the identity of the Sea Sami are linked to their contacts with “others,” such as Norwegians, Russian traders, and inland Sami. s e a s a m i r e s ou rc e u s e

The Barents Sea is one of the world’s richest fisheries, and Tana Fjord has long been known for the abundance and great variety of its fish stocks. Thanks to these fish stocks, the Sami living in the area have been able to maintain habitation, their traditional sources of livelihood, and their culture and identity. Before World War II it was common for households in Vestertana to have one or two cows and a few sheep and goats. Fjord fishing was combined with farming and supplementary economic activities in the outlying areas. Some also kept reindeer. A few men had seasonal or permanent jobs outside the area. All this was common practice as late as the 1960s.

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Accordingly, it has been traditional in the Sami community to hold a combination of sources of livelihood. This is in stark contrast to the organization of the Norwegian society, dominated by sector thinking and the ideal of full-time employment (Ballari 1995, 157–167). The local fishing culture in Vestertana has retained many of its special features. Fishing is mainly practiced according to old models, that is, with small boats, selective equipment, and little mobility, as well as with short distances to the fishing grounds. This forms the Sea Sami’s community identity and is foundation upon which the local population of Vestertana wants to develop its ways of living (Helander 2001, 2002). With the modernization of working life, other means of livelihood have developed. A number of Sea Sami have been employed seasonally or permanently outside the region, in the fishing industry, road building, or construction industries, among others. They are able to migrate from their home village and to come back again, moving “from place to flow” (Lash and Urry 1994, 323), while maintaining their sense of belonging to the area in which they live. In other fjord areas, such as Porsanger, households use local fish resources in their strategies to achieve an acceptable family income and welfare aims, and avoid migration and commuting. de v e l opm e n t o f f jo r d f i s h i n g

While Tana Fjord is known for being rich in natural resources, in the 1997–2000 strategic plan for the municipality, the economic viability of fishing in the fjord was rated low. In 1996 there were 120 registered fishers in the Tana Fjord area (Eriksen 1996, 9), and the majority of fishing boats were small. According to interviewees in Vestertana, there has been a marked reduction in both fish stocks and the number of species of fish since the 1970s. Many processing plants in the fjord area have shut down. The opportunities for small-boat owners to deliver fish have deteriorated significantly, and as a result, local fishers are in severe competition with fishers from elsewhere in Norway and even abroad. This same situation applies throughout the whole area of Finnmark.

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Traditionally, fishing in the Barents Sea has been carried out in coastal waters. As already indicated, fishing in the Vestertana area and other fjords of northern Norway has also been characterized by the use of small boats and small investments in fishing equipment. The various species of fish are fished all year round, depending on the time they come into the fjord and their availability. Through continual presence in the fishing waters, a fisher acquired a vast amount of expert knowledge about the fish stocks as well as the currents and wind conditions. The capitalist development of northern Norway after the Second World War, changes in the fishing industry, and the building of Finnmark after the war involved great changes for the Sea Sami, who in a number of ways became dependent on the national market trends. The whole Sea Sami culture was regarded as old-fashioned, barely sustainable, and reactionary (Nielsen 1986; Nilsen 2003). The fjordal population was not ready for the great changes that were taking place, such as the introduction of large boats, modern equipment, loans, and investments as well as contacts with influential traders, bankers, and other people representing banking and administration. The Sea Sami had no representative organizations of their own, and the Sami issue became associated with inner Finnmark. The authorities did not necessarily regard the Sea Sami as a specific ethnic group, and their means of livelihood were apt to be excluded from the official support systems. Among themselves the Sea Sami began to feel that they were excluded from the spheres of interest of both the Sami at large and Norwegian society, and because of this their identity became stigmatized. In many places it seemed that the old Sea Sami culture was on the verge of extinction, until the political and cultural awakening of the 1980s took effect (Helander 2002; Nilsen 2003). f jo r d r at io n a l i t y

As mentioned above, the Sea Sami people live in compliance with their own fjord rationality, which means, for example, that they accept low living standards. Their approach of maintaining local sub-

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sistence activities presupposes this kind of rationality (Nilsen 1988; Helander 2001). The local Sami of Vestertana are aware of the necessity to keep their living standards modest, especially considering the diminishing resources in the outlying areas and in the fjord. But it is important to keep in mind that these circumstances are imposed by the rules and regulations of Norwegian society. As an example, the fjordal fishers in the North—at least until recently—have been forced into an economic situation with lower incomes and more difficult conditions in their jobs and lives than the Norwegian population in the same peripheral areas (Nilsen 1999, 93). In his assessment of the situation, Ragnar Nilsen (1998, 145– 147) has written about catch-limiting strategies in the fjord and on the coast. Fjord fishers use selective gear such as nets, the juksa, and the fishing line, picking out only mature fish, which guarantees that fish live long enough to maintain reproduction. Selective fishing to a restricted degree in the inner parts of the fjord represents an activity that is far-sighted, economical, and conducive to sustainability. Other factors, such as small overall investments, have a catch-limiting effect as well. Those who engage in fishing as a way of life constitute less a threat in the long run to the health of fish stocks than professional fishermen (Young 1983, 137). Resource conservation by the Sea Sami fishers, however, does not lead to official support from Norwegian society for their way of life. The industrialization of the fisheries is the preferred approach for the Norwegian state. r e g u l at io n o f r e s ou rc e s

Steinar Pedersen’s (1994, 1997) description of the local regulations and protective measures concerning resources in Finnmark’s coastal and fjordal regions shows that the people of the fjord area have always been very particular about the protection and regulation of resources. At the beginning of the twentieth century fishers from other areas and provinces began arriving with bigger boats, modern equipment for active fishing, and a different set of values and customs. A conflict between modern versus traditional technology ­gradually

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began to manifest itself in the fishing industry. In the course of time the antagonism between the local population and nonlocal fishers became accentuated owing to the laws and regulations as well as the general development of society, all of which promoted the interests of the latter group. Oran R. Young (1983) describes similar processes within the Alaskan fisheries, in which manageability has been promoted through professionalization of commercial fishing and the emphasis is on the latest technology, large investments, efficiency, and other similar factors (ibid.). The Sami in the Tana Fjord area have traditionally exploited only part of the resources to safeguard an ecologically sustainable development (Helander 2001, 2002). In 1960s the herring stock broke down in many fjords of northern Norway. The Sami and other local fishers warned scientists and administrators about the large-scale fishing of herring in the fiords, but they people did not have a power base to place behind their warnings (Eythórsson and Mathiesen 1998). The herring stocks have been restored but herring under twenty-five centimeters must not be taken. This rule, together with the new quota regulations, is not suited to fjord fishing and has resulted in the total exclusion of the fjordal population from herring fishing. c od s t o c k s

Seals came into the Tana Fjord in large numbers in 1977 and in many succeeding years. As a result, cod stocks were reduced to a crisis situation. One male respondent relates: “In the early 1970s we had good catches of cod. In 1977 came the seals and this went on until 1989. In the end there was nothing left in the sea” (Helander 2001, 107). A dramatic decrease in cod stocks over wide areas has resulted in extensive restrictions on cod fishing in Norway. Until 1990 there were only minor regulations concerning the fishing of cod with conventional gear. Then a new system of regulations was introduced concerning participation in fishing, the fishing gear, and the size of catches (see Helander 2002, 211–212). The new rules applied to small boats as well as big ones. Due to the new quota regulations by the state administra-

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tors, many fishermen who had been registered as part-time fishers ran the risk of being excluded from the fisheries, and many Sami and local fishers actually lost their licenses (Helander 2001). The assigning of quotas takes place once a year. Negotiations on quotas are first carried on at the international level and then at the national level. There are separate quotas for trawling and fishing with conventional gear (net, line, juksa). Fishers with conventional boats are divided into two groups: those with full rights (category B) and part-time fishers with restricted quotas (category A). Many boats from the fjords belonged to category A and had trouble showing that they had fished an acceptable number of fish during the period 1987–1989 or that they had registered their boats properly. Under category A, several boats were grouped together and shared a “maximum quota.” As soon as the quota was full, each boat had to stop fishing, irrespective of the size of its individual catch. This system created lots of problems for those with small boats (Helander 2002, 211; see also Nyseth and Pedersen 2004, 78–79). The Sami fishers “were punished for having fished too little of a communal resource that was threatened with extinction” (Nilsen 2003, 178). Thus, in the early 1990s the fishing quotas were small and receiving a quota was suddenly quite difficult. Since then, however, there have been modifications in the quota system, such as the stipulation concerning a “guaranteed quantum” introduced in the 1990s, in order that the assignment of quotas might better serve the interests of fjord fishers. of f ic i a l f i s h e r i e s p o l ic y

The official Norwegian fisheries policy aims at safeguarding the profitable development of the fishing industry (St.meld. nr. 51 1997–1998, 7, 17), and sustainable management of the resources is a precondition for the achievement of that goal (15). The profitability of the fishing industry has increased since 1990. The structural change which the Norwegian fishing industry has undergone since the 1980s has aimed at rationalizing the industry in view of the existing overcapacity—there were far too many boats, firms,

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and processing plants. During the period 1990–1997, the number of small boats below ten meters was reduced by 40 percent, while during the same period, there was a considerable increase in the number of larger boats (twenty to twenty-eight meters). In Sami communities, boats under ten meters are commonly used. As a rule, fishing with small boats takes place close to home. Catches of cod in the northernmost counties have diminished between 1980 and 1997. Growing quantities of cod are fished by large boats, while small boats catch smaller amounts. Sami culture in the fjord area has become particularly endangered, and the quota regulations have had a negative impact. Owing to the seal invasions of the recent past, they have had to live through a number of lean years as far as fishing is concerned, and the amounts of catch they have been able to document have been low. The constellation of power and the exercise of it do not necessarily have any legitimacy in the minds and actions of the local population (Helander 2001; Nyseth and Pedersen 2004). People in the fjord area, including Vestertana, have always had a critical attitude toward Norwegian laws and regulations. Fish resources of the North really are “a curse” for the Sea Sami, as Ragnar Nilsen (2003, 165) claims. From the Sea Sami perspective, the laws and regulations represent a far-away, all-knowing, and all-embracing power machinery which causes a lot of harm locally. The unpleasant consequences are manifested, for instance, in legislation, the central management of fisheries, and the central administration of environmental issues; through complicated and ever-growing bureaucracy, within the Norwegian fisheries laws, the large fishing fleets from distant ports, and the dominant society’s concepts regarding knowledge; as well as the fluctuation of prices and markets and the negotiations of fishing quotas on the international level. The Fishers’ Union, which dominates the political discourse, has systematically voiced down the Sea Sami demands (Eythórsson 2003) and has been against ­ethnopolitics in the fisheries. Such a situation has some questioning whether a new regionbased approach would be better for the Sea Sami than the current livelihood-based approach (see Stammler and Peskov 2008, 839).

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The Sami Parliament has suggested a change from the current model to one in which local fishers from several fjords, including Sami fishers, would join a fishing zone.

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s a m i pa r l i a m e n t

Both the establishment of the Sami Parliament and the work it has undertaken have heightened the public profile of the Sea Sami ­(Helander 2002). The Sami Parliament functions as a link between the global and local and is also a connecting organization between the national and local interests and decisions. Its establishment is linked to the so-called Alta case of 1979–1981, whereby Sami strongly resisted the damming of the Alta and Kautokeino rivers in northern Norway (Minde 2005). This was a symbolic resistance in order to oppose the overall Norwegian policy regarding the Sami people, questioning the legitimacy and the morality of the Norwegian ways of treating its own indigenous population. The case showed both the Sami’s ability to act in unity and their openness to networking with environmentalists, media, and other global scapes (Ottar 1981). The issue also linked the Sami to the international law and international indigenous movements. In the context of the Sami fishing industry, the Sami Parliament regulates different relationships, scapes, and flows. Through it, the local Sami have become more acquainted with the United Nations declarations, NGOs, and international laws. Since the 1970s Sami politicians have been working internationally to make themselves into political actors, and globalization offers new possibilities for reflexive political action (see Gane 2001, 87). The Sea Sami can avoid direct confrontation with state politicians and authorities by claiming their rights through official Sami channels. The Sami Parliament is connected to globalization through and across several scapes—for instance, through international networked relationships, intensive traveling, the United Nations, international declarations and laws, NGOs, standardized indigenous politics, political actors and alliances, political organizations, Internet communication, portable phones, and social information flow. “A tightly knit global network

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exists ­between organized groups of Indigenous people, which could be described as an evolving superstructure over their local organizations” (Nyseth and Pedersen 2005, 74). On the other hand, the Sea Sami have in the 1980s strengthened their collective identity. They are stronger in their political work and have made their ethnicity visible in the discourse regarding fishing. They are also trying to find regional/local solutions to their problems. The Sami Parliament has proposed the introduction of a zone for the management of coastal and fjordal systems, based on considerations of fishery policies (Handlingsplan for samiske kyst- og fjordområder 1997–2001). In this context, the Sami Parliament claimed that the quota system has conflicted with international law. “The global discourse of indigenous peoples’ rights to local resources made it possible to construct the right to a local fishing zone in the coastline. The global discourse contributed to legitimization of these types of claims” (Nyseth and Pedersen 2004, 79). The parliament has suggested that experiments should be carried out in the areas of Tanafjord, Lyngenfjord, and Tysfjord. In addition, it would like to introduce the principle of adjacency and dependence in the management and harvesting of maritime resources (Handlingsplan for samiske kyst- og fjordområder 1997–2001). According to this principle, those who live nearby or have a great need for the resources in order to continue living in the area should be given priority of access to its resources. Generally speaking, the Sami Parliament supports multilevel management of resources. c a r st e n sm it h’s r e port

The Sami Parliament raised the issue of challenges to Sea Sami fishing with the Norwegian Fishery Department. Carsten Smith was commissioned to find out “the legal obligations of the authorities towards the Sami population concerning fishing regulations” (C. Smith 1990, 507). According to his report, Sami interests have been disregarded, especially in considering regulations about vessel quotas. Smith writes that the guiding principle on matters concerning Sami policy, as expressed by the Committee on Sami Culture

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and the Committee on Sami Rights in the 1980s, is the demand that state authorities should actively contribute to the survival of the Sami as a people. He underlined the fact that article 27 of the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights “must be recognized as a powerful source of rights providing the protection of the law for the rights of the Sami, i.e. their political rights, their cultural rights and their economic rights and this includes their right to the natural resources in the areas they live in or use” (C. Smith 1990, 516). Support for this is found in ILO Convention no. 169. Paragraph 110, from 1988, in the Norwegian Constitution also strengthens the regulations concerning international law by giving Sami constitutional status in Norwegian law. Furthermore, Smith points out, special rules may be required for the traditional use of resources that forms the basis of Sami culture, which means that coastal and fjordal fishing should be regarded as a source of livelihood to be protected under article 27 mentioned above. According to Smith, the special stipulations concerning fishing should be linked to the Sami areas of settlement, and the evaluation of the fishing regulations should be done from a comprehensive perspective, taking into consideration the effects of the different dimensions of Sami policy. This means an overall evaluation of the sum total of the specific measures taken to help the Sami maintain and develop their culture, including their traditional subsistence activities. Such an overall evaluation will also provide a way to assess the extent of the pressure to which Sami culture is exposed. t h e f i s h e r y de pa r t m e n t a n d f i s h i n g p o l ic y

In a parliamentary report, the Norwegian Fishery Department has raised the question regarding fishing in the Sea Sami areas (St.meld. nr. 51 1997–1998, 57–58): “The authorities hope that the conditions concerning fisheries will provide a basis for the viability of local communities.” With regard to the management of resources, the report proclaims that the authorities are ready to discuss measures for local management, where appropriate, hoping to foster cooperation with

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the Sami. At the same time, the report points out that there already is an administration strategy in Norway, and that will provide the basis for future strategies. The report also calls for more research on local fish stocks as well as the documentation of local resources and forms of regulation. The Fjord Sami have been working for their rights over one hundred years, primarily within the national system of networks and power. One effect of development in the Norwegian fishing industry is, as already indicated above, that the Fjord Sami and other locals have started to develop globally connected networks and alliances. Fjord Sami cooperate, for example, with the Sami political elite, and the Sami Parliament seeks to raise greater public awareness to the problem and work politically for a satisfactory solution. The Sami Parliament functions as mediator of the global ideoscapes, such as international law. The work done by the Sami Parliament and other Sami political actors, and the research conducted by Carsten Smith and others, has produced positive outcomes for the Sea Sami. For example, “small-boat fishing in the North-Troms and Finnmark regions became somewhat more free than in the rest of the country” (Nilsen 2003, 180). Still, it must be emphasized that Norwegian fishing policy still proceeds as before, and the coastal Sami have not yet managed to secure real access to the Norwegian power structures or to change their own situation regarding the fishing industry (­Helander-Renvall 2009). There is a “law optimism” among the Sea Sami, meaning that they are confident in using the legal system to solve their problems (Nyseth and Pedersen 2005, 82). This law optimism is also grounded on the local traditions and customary law (Helander 2001, 2002). At the same time the Sea Sami question concerning fishing rights has not been resolved through the newly created Finnmark Act (Finnmarksloven), which deals with the land ownership issues of Finnmark, and, therefore, one could ask whether the Norwegian government is fulfilling its responsibilities to them. On the other hand the Norwegian state hopes to find a solution to the Sea Sami problem. In the long run, international pressure, combined with a persistent regional/local activity, may lead to a solution that helps promote the circumstances and indeed the situation of the Sea Sami people.

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The Sea Sami are already being strengthened by their connections with global networks and new international laws.

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r eindeer her ding in the nenets autonomous okrug

Most of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) is located north of the Arctic Circle in the northwest of Russia, in the administrative area of the Archangel Oblast. The Nenets National Okrug, established in 1929, was later renamed the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. NAO covers an area of 176,700 square kilometers. There are several nationalities live in this district although the majority are Russians. The Nenets population consists of 7,800 people (Degteva 2006, 40). The reindeer industry is a vital source of employment for the rural population in the Nenets Okrug. According to Tuula Tuisku (2002), 14 percent of the Nenets work directly with reindeer herding, but the number of people linked to herding is probably larger (Degteva 2006, 41). The majority of the population of the NAO lives in the urban community of Naryan Mar. The majority of the Nenets group, however, lives in the rural areas of the NAO. Reindeer herders are spending much more time in villages, a shift that can be regarded as “a more desperate survival strategy during an era of extreme economic instability and social deprivation” (Krupnik 2000, 53). Many have a flat or house in Krashnoe and other villages where they and their relatives can stay when it is needed. Social services such as health care are not available in the tundra. Indigenous peoples accept the tundra as a place to stay, but many non-Natives continue to regard the tundra life as backward (Tuisku 1999, 2002). The Nenets Autonomous Okrug is one of the most important reindeer-herding districts in the Russian north. Reindeer in NAO can be owned either collectively or personally/privately, but most (over 70 percent in 1997) are owned by collective farms (Tuisku 2002, 191). Collective farms are former kolkhozes, sovkhozes, and ­sovkhoz-type entities (190). Those who herd reindeer for the ­collective farms are allowed to have personal reindeer. (When writing about the Erv

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a­ ssociation on the following pages, Tuula Tuisku uses the term private to describe those animals owned privately by the Erv herders.) Reindeer meat is widely used as food in NAO due to its low price and availability, and for a long time reindeer production was for meat. The initial exposure to globalization and access to new international markets has introduced new uses for reindeer, such as reindeer antlers. It is quite difficult to get reliable information regarding the velvet antler production in NAO. According to Stammler’s research (2004) on the velvet antler economy among the Yamal Nenets people, the reindeer horn extract is used as medicine in China and other Asian countries. This medicine reduces sleeping problems, headaches, and dizziness and is good for overall well-being of the human body. In the Yamal Nenets area, the boom of interest in velvet antlers started in the 1990s. Information coming from Tuula Tuisku (1999, 2002, 2005) indicates that the herders of the NAO can earn cash from selling antlers and other reindeer products. The Nenets also get cash through work outside reindeer herding. Among the Yamal Nenets, cash does not play a role in the local velvet antler market, as antlers are exchanged for various consumption goods, such as batteries for tape recorders or spices from abroad. Today’s subsistence harvesting requires new technological supplements such as snowmobiles and other similar equipments, and so with modern goods “global culture enters the tundra” (Stammler 2004, 111). The antler business requires good knowledge of local ethnoscapes; skills in networking locally, regionally, and nationally; knowledge about herders’ movements in the tundra; and the ability to communicate with all transportation business and administration, such as air cargo companies (Stammler 2004, 114–116). Locals see this business as a risky pursuit in economic terms and also regarding the health of reindeer. It has been an additional income for the Nenets herders, who have combined it with their traditional economy. According to Stammler (2009), the antler trade has significantly diminished among the Nenets living in the okrug as of late, while a mix of subsistence and commercial reindeer herding is reemerging in some areas of Siberia (Krupnik 2000, 53). The tradition-based herding and meat production are combined with more global types of economic

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flows in a nonexclusionary manner. From the point of view of a survival economy, the velvet antler production is less reliable (Habeck 2005, 139), so meat production is the structural basis of the Nenets economy and culture.

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o l d a dm i n i s t r at i v e wa y s

Much of the management of reindeer herding in Russia still follows the ways of the old administration. Land usage, for example, follows the rules from the Soviet period: the state is the owner of lands, and agricultural administration continues to control herding units ­(Tuisku 2002). Administratively, reindeer herding is subordinated to an agricultural bureaucracy. At the federal level reindeer-herding management is administrated by the Ministry of Agriculture through the Department of Regional Coordination. There is a federal program that supports the economic and social development of the northern indigenous peoples. At the regional level herding is administrated by the Departments of Agriculture of regional administrations. In addition, at the regional level there are Committees of Land Use, which are responsible for the reindeer pastures, and brigades at the local level. A brigade consists of herders, one of whom is a leader ­( Jernsletten and Klokov 2002, 37–46). The Reindeer Herders’ Union of Russia has cooperation with federal-level administration and research. The union is also a member of the Association of World Reindeer Herders. Generally speaking, the indigenous groups in Russia lack possibilities and ways to strengthen their land and resource rights (Ravna 2002; Crate 2006). On the other hand, international cooperation and overall networking are expected to give positive results regarding power issues in reindeer herding (Khorolya 2002; Kotkin 2004). e rv , t h e r e i n de e r h e r de r s ’ c o ope r at i v e

The association of reindeer herders called Erv was established in 1991–1992 as an offshoot of a kolkhoz Kharp after privatization was promoted in Russia. Erv is a cooperation of households. These

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­ erders registered themselves as farmers but later changed their status h to entrepreneurs (Tuisku 2002). The Erv herders received some animals from the Kharp and bought some from the kolkhoz Vyutsjeskij with financial help from the state. However, there is a limit to how many reindeer a household can keep, a restriction based on carrying capacity of the available lands. The Erv herders have their own areas of grazing lands, which had earlier belonged to the Kharp’s pasture area. The real owner of the lands, however, is the state, and herders have access to these lands through a long-term lease. Erv reindeer are herded collectively, and the cooperative hires administrators to take care of the payments, transportation of people and goods, and handling of the juridical issues (Tuisku 1999). The Erv has had some difficulties getting support from the ­Okrug administration. Their break away from the Kharp was criticized because many thought the privatization of herding would be threaten the benefits received from the structural organization of the Kharp (Ravna 2002, 148). Having said this, the Erv has been successful in maintaining its position as a private enterprise and can be regarded as a “freedom movement” within the occupational sector (Ravna 2002, 150). Erv has been successful in selling its reindeer products. In the late 1990s, Erv did experience economic problems, but some years later it was doing much better, largely because of its contacts with the oil industry. t h e o i l i n du s t r y

The oil industry is quite new to the Nenets area. Economically it is extremely important in Russia while reindeer herding is economically unprofitable if analyzed from the vantage point of the state ­(Degteva 2006, 74). In the early 1990s, there was little oil activity in the region, but by 2004 there were eighty-three oil and gas fields discovered on the lands of the NAO (Degteva 2006, 42). In Russia, the economic problems of the 1990s shifted attention to the largescale economy, such as the extraction of natural resources. There are several reasons for the decline in the Russian economic situation of that time, which Degteva (2006) describes as cuts in state financial

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support; large changes in the economic system and the transition to a market economy; the general economic crisis in Russia and the crisis of nonpayment; disparate prices for agricultural products and products of other industries; higher taxes than herders were able to pay; and loss of reindeer due to the climate factors. Tuisku (2002, 196–197) gives a more detailed picture of the economic difficulties of the 1990s at the local level. For instance, collective farms had to pay up to 30 percent of their incomes in taxes, and the rise of oil prices in the middle of 1990s made it more difficult to transport reindeer products to the buyers as the distances are huge. One has to keep in mind that the NAO has had very poor communication and transport scapes or infrastructures. During the economic troubles of the 1990s there were problems with electricity supply, and off-road vehicles, portable radio transmitters, and electric equipment were all in short supply. Some herders did not get payment for their work or payment was substantially delayed (Tuisku 2005). There were delays with supply to people in the tundra as well. As a consequence of this and many other problems, some herders started to lose their motivation even to the extent of leaving their reindeer unwatched. At present, communication and transport are improving fast as a result of the oil industry presence (Stammler 2009). Also, herders are making use of the increasing number of mobile phones. Helicopters are used as a way to transport humans and products, and there are now snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles in the tundra. Exactly how much oil and gas exist in the Nenets area is uncertain. In the whole Archangel Oblast there may be as much as 1.2 billion tons (Ludviksen 1995, 64). Degteva (2006) claims that by 2020, two-thirds of the oil produced in the Barents region will come from the oil fields of the NAO, a figure that indicates the problematic choices facing aboriginal peoples. It is obvious that oil and gas development imposes a severe threat to the Nenets environment, resource management, pasture lands, cultural sites, traditional ways, and social life. But despite these threats, not all of these developments are seen as negative by the Nenets. Oil workers, for example, buy reindeer meat. The local infrastructure is expected to improve,

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and some Nenets, who have certain skills, may find employment within the oil sector. Moreover, the local farms and authorities are expecting material, financial, and networking help from the oil and gas companies (Habeck 2005, 94). Initially, jobs are going to people from outside the region because they have specific skills. Improvement of infrastructure is mainly established to favor the companies. On the other hand, the Nenets can enjoy some financial benefits from these activities, as the oil and gas industry is increasingly “willing to consider reindeer herders’ interests and needs” (Stammler and Peskov 2008, 847). In addition, a portion of taxes on natural resource extraction goes to a special budget fund for the support of the indigenous peoples of the NAO. As already indicated, the Erv cooperative initiated a dialogue and series of agreements with the oil industry, resulting in material help from the companies and participation of herders in the planning of the use of land areas (Arctic Human Development Report 2004, 142–143). Vehicles and equipment were among materials that the Erv members could get with financial assistance from the oil companies (Tuisku 2005). The Erv’s achievements were based on its contacts with the oil industry and its good negotiating skills that were used in discussions with the companies. Also, collectively, the Erv made use of the political organization of the Nenets people in the NAO, and networking with central and regional politicians and authorities ­(Tuisku 2005). As explained by Stammler and Peskov (2008, 847), some herders who have received compensation and other support from the oil companies have had “the least interest in sharing their benefits with the rest of the population.” The oil industry is of great importance for the NAO economy. Despite the advantages mentioned above, oil development is still a threat to the Nenets culture and the local environment. Current oil and gas development is largely uncontrolled, and frequent oil spillages and industrial waste destroy Nenets lands (Ludviksen 1995; ­Habeck 2005). “The pipelines and roads obstruct the path of migrating reindeer, and pollution and topsoil disruption destroy reindeer pasture, fish spawning grounds, fish and game habitats, and wild plants” (Mander and Tauli-Corpuz 2006, 166; see also IWGIA 2006). In

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a­ ddition, many social problems follow this industry, such as alcoholism, drug addiction, and violence against women.

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p ow e r i s s u e s

The main political organization of the Nenets people in the NAO is known as Yasavey. Established in 1989, Yasavey has an important formal status in the region as seen by its right to make legislative initiatives. The Yasavey has earnestly worked to improve the dialogue between the herders, NAO administrators, and oil companies. As stakeholders they have managed to head off many problems (Kotkin 2004, 396). During the informal early meetings, much useful information was spread, and the involved stakeholders came to know each other (Stammler and Peskov 2008, 841). One idea was “to meet in a friendly atmosphere to talk without immediate binding implications, thus establishing good conditions for more formal dialogue” (Stammler and Forbes 2006, 56). This strategy does not require formal law making or agreements. Despite many successes reached by the Yasavey and by the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation, the Nenets are still in many ways powerless in relation to the oil companies and the authorities that manage their lands and occupancies. They are trying to force transparency regarding the oil companies’ plans, an approach that does not make them popular in the minds of corporations and some other stakeholders. Western oil companies especially were reluctant to join the roundtable discussions arranged by Yasavey (Stammler and Forbes 2006, 56). Frequent changes have taken place in oil industry organization, including their personnel, and for the Yasavey, it has been difficult to keep things together under such circumstances. Additional reasons for the Yasavey’s inabilities to better promote the issues of the Nenets people include the fact that ethnopolitics is not popular in Russia, and nongovernmental organizations do not have much power. Indigenous rights are treated as a matter of “environmental” discourse rather than as rights based on “­indigenousness” (Degteva 2006, 73). What is more, a new power structure has emerged

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regionally within the okrug (Stammler and Peskov 2008, 841). Other issues facing the Nenets are the relative lack of a common strategy vis-à-vis the companies and authorities that have impact on their lives (cf. Stammler and Peskov 2008), and the relative lack of a strong and grounded political leadership and “advanced” (i.e., rapid, fluid, and represented) networking system relating to relevant international actors. On this last point it should be pointed out that Yasavey has certain contacts to international organizations, and it has also been successful in “promoting collective agency” (Stammler and Peskov 2008, 847). Furthermore, indigenous groups are learning to use the Internet “for their sophisticated information-sharing infrastructure, self-expression and networking” (Stammler-Gossmann 2009, 11).

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ru s s i a n p o l i t ic s r e g a r di n g t h e n o r t h

The Russian Federation has introduced the policy of power centralization to ensure economic growth and security in Russia (Blanchard and Shleifer 2000). Because the Russian Federation needs oil and gas and because of the nature of globalization goals and politics, the Nenets have a certain influence on how their lands are used. The herders have to give consent regarding oil and gas activities on their lands. The oil companies give some compensation to the NAO budget, and a small part of this money goes to the herders via their enterprises (Tuisku 2005). The Russian state is resource-dependent in such a way that different resource sectors (oil, gas, diamonds, gold) may influence the state (Crate 2006, 305). At the federal level, Russia has a need to make its economy work in accordance to the international and global standards. The north is extremely important in this regard. Moreover, with the critical turn in the 1990s, there exists a challenge regarding political instability, fear of increased Western influence in the form of NGOs, and fear of separatism and terrorism (Dallmann 2004; Degteva 2006). One must also understand that, in recognizing indigenous people’s rights to traditional use of nature, the Russian Federation has established a number of federal laws with the aim of protecting the rights of the numerically small peoples of the north to land and resources. Among such laws are the Federal Law on Specially

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­ rotected Territories (1995), Federal Law on Agreements Concerning P Production Sharing (1995, updated in 1999 and 2001), Federal Law Guaranteeing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Russian Federation (1999), and Federal Law on Territories for the Traditional Use of Nature (2001) (Helander-Renvall 2005, 41, 67; Stammler-Gossmann 2009). These laws may appear very positive, but there are many problems with the practical implementation of them (Ravna 2002; Arctic Human Development Report 2004, 125; Helander-Renvall 2005, 41). For instance, in some cases no mechanisms exist to enforce these laws (Helander-Renvall 2005, 67).

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concluding r em arks

As this chapter shows, local actors resist the effects of globalization, and they adapt to globalization by using the same toolkit that globalization uses or is constructed of. Indigenous peoples actively resist those forces that threaten their harvesting activities, land rights, and resource management practices. Such opposition may take place through participation in various national and international discourses, by keeping at a distance some mainstream activities and policies, and through other counterstrategies. Furthermore, indigenous peoples increasingly adopt modern goods and images and make them fit into local marine and terrestrial activities and overall indigenous particularities. The development of the Norwegian fishing industry with regard to economic growth, viability, and the national system of regulation represents a threat to the Sami as an indigenous people and an ethnic minority. Research made regarding the Sea Sami situation as well as comments made by Sea Sami suggest that the way of life of their communities in the Tana Fjord area is gravely endangered. Fishing is not only an occupation for these Sami, it is also a way of life and an identity marker (Eythórsson and Mathiesen 1998; Helander 2001). The people interviewed in Vestertana feel that, all in all, the ­quota system has brought in its wake a number of disadvantages, such as declining recruitment into fishing and growing competition between fishers. People are critical of the regulation concerning fishing with

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small boats as it weakens their chances of earning an income, and in fact many fear that fishing as a source of living will soon come to an end. In their efforts to manage the fjord fishing, the Sea Sami have been working for restrictions on modern large-scale fishing in fjords and fishing with mobile equipment. However, the fishing administration and the Fishers’ Union have favored modern coastal fleets and have not supported Sami fishers’ proposals regarding restrictions. The power in the fjords is held by the Norwegian government. Sami identity politics and the work done by the Norwegian Sami Parliament has made the Sea Sami group visible and heard. The Sami Parliament is trying to find new solutions regarding the management of local fishing activities in the fjords of northern Norway. Furthermore, as this chapter has tried to show, key Sami politicians have made use of the global scapes, such as international law and global indigenous movements and media, when promoting the interests of the Sami people. Henry Minde argues (2004) that international pressure when combined with national activities helps change the living conditions of indigenous groups. The “boomerang strategy” of using international political arenas to influence national decision making is most common in contexts where control and input by the indigenous peoples in the political and judiciary process are more restricted and where armed struggle is clearly not a viable option (Blaser et al. 2004, 16). Access to the Internet and other global communication channels also means access to power sharing. This is of relevance for disadvantaged groups such as indigenous peoples (Daes 2003, 68). The boomerang strategy is without doubt useful for both the Sea Sami and the Nenets people. In fact, a Nenets politician, Dimitry Khorolya, the president of the Reindeer Herders’ Union of the Russian Federation, emphasized in the World Herders’ Congress in 2001 in Inari, Finland, that herders’ anxiety about their future should be heard by the world community. He urged reindeer people and other stakeholders and groups to join their efforts in order to increase reindeer herders’ influence in matters such as oil development in the North (Khorolya 2002, 40–42). It seems that in the Nenets region, the global and the local are simultaneously present in space and time. Roland Robertson (2004) uses the term glocalisation to describe this phenomenon. The Ne-

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nets have certain skills and equipment used in networking across the global streams and beyond national borders. Even while staying firmly in their nomadic space, they are able to use their globalizing skills. The velvet antler trade is one activity that has helped the northern people get ahold of global products and images. The spatial borders for the antler trade are weak, and as a consequence people “become much more sensitized to what the world’s spaces contain” (Harvey 1989, 294). Many indigenous groups wish to take part in the global economy while maintaining their own culture. The Nenets people, in their attempt to stay within their cultural ways on their lands, have combined market-oriented production with traditional subsistence. There are culture-specific strengths in the Nenets ways (Golovnev and Osherenko 1999) that can be helpful for the Nenets people in their contact with the outside world. Reindeer herding is the main traditional occupation for the Nenets people, and their customs have in many ways remained the same as before. Strong cultural background and knowledge are surely needed when combining the local ways with global goods, flows, and orders. For the Nenets, the end of certainty seems to come with oil and gas extraction within their traditional region. Many questions arise: Can the oil and gas developments be used to save the Nenets culture? Are the Nenets going to be transformed into a new working class? Or do they have a continued ability to stay in the here-and-now operating presence of the global and local? They seem to participate in communication with the oil industry, and they enjoy the benefits that come from the presence of the oil economy. The oil companies are increasingly supporting the local people (Stammler and Peskov 2008). However, this issue is a contradictory mix. Johnny-Leo Ludviksen’s (1995, 69) examples from other parts of the world show that the industries that are imported to indigenous areas and controlled by outside actors can be very limited in time and space and create huge problems for the locals in the long run (see also IWGIA 2006 and Mander and Tauli-Corpuz 2006). As claimed by Susan A. Crate (2006, 294), the long-term effects of outside intrusion (mining, oil development, etc.) function as ­unpredictable factors, which may in

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the end seriously threaten the survival potential of arctic indigenous peoples. In a variety of ways, the local people do not understand what is going on (Kotkin 2004, 396). Sharing of correct information can be difficult in places like NAO, where distances are huge and communication and infrastructure are not well developed. Yasavey has taken a great deal of time to inform the Nenets people so that they can get a clearer picture regarding oil and gas activities. Erica-Irene Daes (2003, 67) is of the opinion that the largescale development projects of globalization “set ethnic and social conflicts into motion that may haunt us for generations to come.” One problem is that worldwide finance denationalizes the national economies. The national governments are squeezed between globalization and localization (Lash and Urry 2004, 305). This may describe the situation of the Russian Federation in its relation to the foreign oil companies and to the indigenous groups of the North. Oil and gas development can result in the destruction of traditional indigenous societies and their resource base (IWGIA 2006), especially when the laws and policies are ambiguous or not implemented (Fjellheim and Henriksen 2006, 28–29). Still, as previously stated, the Nenets have positive expectations regarding the oil activities. Their case affirms that in today’s global world, “the dreamers and the haters are not two groups. They are often one and the same persons” (Appadurai 2006, 124). On the other hand, there are paradigm differences. The traditional economic life of indigenous peoples is based on many kinds of sustainable ways, while economic globalization benefits only a few and only until resources are depleted (Tauli-Corpuz 2006, 20). The speed of time and global circulation of money are often regarded as world compressions that make our globe move. From the two cases in this chapter we learn that it is, in fact, the indigenous peoples’ knowledge, and relationship with their environment and people around them, their life, that makes their world move. Vladimir Kotkin from Yasavey gives expression to this: “We have always lived here and will live here in the future” (2004, 396). For the Kolgyev Nenets, for example, the tundra means independence, freedom, and continuity (Suominen 2004, 402). Furthermore, the

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Sea Sami want to survive in both a material and a cultural respect; that is, they want to earn a living in their home area while maintaining the norms, knowledge, and customs conditioned by their culture (Helander 2002, 217). Indigenous peoples’ struggle for their rights is a central element in the structure of their world. This struggle also has a wider meaning: in the management of globalization, the role of the nongovernmental organizations that indigenous people cooperate with is increasing. Furthermore, minorities and indigenous peoples threaten the peace of mind of the modern states (state-linked actors). Their status puts pressure on legislation; their politics tend to be multifocal; as marginalized and poor, they are symbols of the failure of development in a society; and they confuse the boundaries of national “state” peoplehood (Appadurai 2006, 45). The complexity of the globalization-localization axis increases when people get involved with goods, scapes, and flows beyond the time and space of their immediate closeness. This kind of involvement can bring severe social, economic, and cultural problems to the people concerned. The two cases also indicate that oppressed people need strong political leadership and networked relationships. “The powerful normally determine what is said and sayable” (Frye 1983, 105). The local can be empowered if there is enough sensitivity to the local and regional particularities and circumstances while having a dynamic relationship with global landscapes and flows.

ack now ledgements

The author thanks Jouni Häkli and Jarno Valkonen for their remarks on an early draft of this article. Special thanks go to Florian Stammler and anonymous reviewers for their remarks and comments on the almost final version. Thanks also go to Francis Joy for the linguistic editing of the text.

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Nielsen, Reidar. 1986. Folk uten fortid. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. ———. 1998. Fjordfiskere og ressursbruk i nord. Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal. ———. 1999. “Naeringstilpasninger og ressursbruk i samiske ­fjordströk.” In Norsk ressursforvaltning og samiske rettighetsforhold. Om statlig styring, allmenningens tragdie og locale sedvaner i ­Sápmi, ed. Ivar Björklund, 89–105. Oslo: Ad Notam Gyldendal. Nilsen, Ragnar. 2003. “From Norwegianization to Coastal Sami Uprising.” In Indigenous Peoples: Resource Management and Global Rights, ed. Svein Jentoft, Henry Minde, and Ragnar Nilsen, 163–184. Delft: Eburon Delft. Nuttall, Mark. 1992. Arctic Homeland. Kinship, Community and ­Development in Northwest Greenland. Anthropological Horizons. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Nyseth, Torill, and Paul Pedersen. 2005. “Globalisation from Below: The Revitalization of a Coastal Sámi Community in Northern Norway as Part of the Global Discourse in Indigenous Identity.” In Discourses and Silences: Indigenous Peoples, Risks and Resistance, ed. Garth Cant et al., 71–85. Christchurch: University of Canterbury. Ottar. 1981. Alta-Sak-Samesak. Urbefolkningssak. Ottar. Populärviteskapelig tidsskrift fra Tromsö Museum 129. Tromsö: Universitetet i Tromsö. Pedersen, Steinar. 1994. “Bruken av land og vann i Finnmark inntil förste verdenskrig.” NOU 21:13–133. ———. 1997. “Samisk bruk av sjöressursene i Finnmark.” In Innstilling fra Samisk fiskeriutvalg. Oppnevt av Fiskeridepartementet 21. juli 1993. Innstilling avgitt 10. april 1997, 20–44. Petersen, Hanna, and Birger Poppel, eds. 1999. Dependency, Autonomy, Sustainability in the Arctic. Aldershot: Ashgate. Ravna, Öivind. 2002. Kampen om tundraen. Nenetserne og deres historie. Diedut 4. Guovdageaidnu: Sámi Instituhtta. Robertson, Roland. 2004. “Globalisation or Glocalisation.” Journal of International Communication 1(1):33–52. ———. 1995. “Glocalisation: Time-Space and HomogeneityHeterogeneity.” In Global Modernities, ed. Mike Featherstone et al., 25–44. London: Sage.

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Sak 13/39. Innstilling fra samisk fiskeriutvalg. Oppnevnt av Fiskeridepartementet 21. juli 1993. Innstilling avgitt 10. april 1997. Simpson, Leanne. 2004. “The Colonial Context for the Indigenous Experience of Human-Induced Climate Change.” In Snowscapes, Dreamscapes: Snowchange Book on Community Voices of Change, ed. Elina Helander and Tero Mustonen, 25–29. Tampere: Tampere Polytechnic. Sirina, A. Anna. 2006. Katanga Evenkis in the 20th Century and the Ordering of Their Life-World. Northern Hunter-Gatherers Research Series. Edmonton: CCI Press. Smith, Anthony D. 1990. “Towards a Global Culture.” In Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity, ed. Mike Featherstone, 171–191. London: Sage. Smith, Carsten. 1990. “Om sameness rett til naturresurser -saerlig ved fiskerireguleringer.” In Lov og rett, Norsk Juridisk Tidsskrift, 507–534. Stammler, Florian. 2004. “The Commodities of Reindeer Herding in Post Soviet Russia: Herders, Antlers and Traders in Yamal.” In Segmentation und Komplementarität. Organisatorische, ökonomische und kulturelle Aspekte der Interaction von Nomaden und Sesshaften, ed. B. Streck. Mitteilungen des SFB “Differenz und Integration” 6. OWH 14:104–122. Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Regionalstudien. Halle-Wittenberg: Martin Luther Universität. ———. 2005. Reindeer Nomads Meet the Market: Culture, Property and Globalisation at the “End of the Land’.” Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia 6. Münster: Lit Verlag. ———. 2009. Personal communication. Stammler, Florian, and Bruce C. Forbes. 2006. “Oil and Gas Development in the Russian Arctic: West Siberia and TimanPechora.” Arctic Oil and Gas Development. IWGIA Indigenous Affairs 2/3:48–57. Stammler, Florian, and Vladislav Peskov. 2008. “Building a ‘Culture of Dialogue’ among Stakeholders in the North-West Russian Oil Extraction.” Europe-Asia Studies 60(5):831–849. Stammler-Gossmann, Anna. 2009. “Negotiating the Indigenous Sta-

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tus in the Russian Federation.” Arctic & Antarctic: International Journal of Circumpolar Sociocultural Issues 3(3):7–51. St.meld. n. 51. 1997–1998. Perspektiver på utvikling av norsk fiskerinaering. Suominen, Karina. 2004. “Between the Tundra and the ­Mainland— People of Bugrino of Kolgyev Island on the Coast of Barents Sea.” In Snowscapes, Dreamscapes: Snowchange Book on Community Voices of Change, ed. Elina Helander and Tero Mustonen, 398–403. Tampere: Tampere Polytechnic. Tauli-Corpuz, Victoria. 2006. “Our Rights to Remain Separate and Distinct.” In Paradigm Wars: Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance to Globalization, ed. Jerry Mander and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, 13–21. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. Tuisku, Tuula. 1999. Nenetsien ankarat elämisen ehdot tundralla ja kylässä. Poronhoidon sopeutumisstrategiat ja delokalisoitumisprosessi Nenetsiassa. Acta Universistatis Lapponiensis 23. Rovaniemi: Lapin yliopisto. ———. 2002. “Transition Period in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug: Changing and Unchanging Life of Nenets People.” In People and the Land: Pathways to Reform in Post-Soviet Siberia, ed. Erich Kasten, 189–205. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. ———. 2005. Reindeer in the Life of the Nenets People, http://www.arcticcentre.org (accessed February 16, 2007). Urry, John. 2002. “The Global Complexities of September 11th.” Theory, Culture & Society 19(4):57–69. ———. 2003. Global Complexity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Vorren, Örnulv, and Ernst Manker. 1976. Samekulturen. En ­kulturhistorisk oversikt. Tromsö: Universitetsforlaget. Wessendorf, Kathrin. 2005. An Indigenous Parliament? Realities and Perspectives in Russia and the Circumpolar North. Copenhagen: IWGIA 116. Young, Oran R. 1983. “Fishing by Permit: Restricted Common Property in Practice.” Ocean Development and International Law Journal 13(2):121–170.

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globalization and security in the circumpolar north

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Lassi Heininen

The twentieth century brought a hot war as well a cold one into northern regions, and with them came the militarization of the Arctic, an implementation of classical geopolitics in the circumpolar north. The geopolitical situation has, however, significantly changed since the end of the Cold War. It has shifted from a high military tension and the confrontation of the two superpowers and their military blocs into international cooperation in many civilian fields and the increase of political stability. New approaches of (geo) politics now exist and more human-oriented concerns, such as human capital, social responsibility, and identity politics, are present (Chaturvedi 2000). In addition, these significant regional and partly structural changes of the international system and its security environment in the 1990s have affected the security of, and security matters in, the circumpolar north, although they have not changed the situation dramatically, particularly when dealing with traditional security. By the turn of the century, the military presence in the circumpolar north had contracted, and there was a clear decrease of military tension. At the same time, increasing international cooperation on civilian and some military-related issues generated a greater sense of stability and cooperative security (Östreng 1999, 48–51). Further, when looking at the region now it is possible to 221

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argue that there has been a ­significant change toward a broader understanding of both geopolitics and security. Since the Cold War period, the very meaning of security in the North has also been extended beyond traditional concerns with “military” threats to focus on environmental and societal problems such as pollution, health and cultural survival, and even freedom of expression (Heininen 1991; Griffiths 1993). At the same time, the region has retained its high strategic importance due to the rich natural resources, particularly energy resources, potential new global sea routes, and nuclearweapons systems. The main aim of the chapter is to describe and analyze both the state of security in the circumpolar north in the early twentyfirst century in the context of globalization and the development of northern security in the second half of the twentieth century. The chapter starts with a brief discussion of different discourses and concepts of security as well as global problems influencing security. Following this is a brief overview of the history of security matters in the High North during the second half of the twentieth century. The chapter ends with a description of the state of military security today, including some examples of relevant military structures, functions, and activities, and discusses how globalization—and its so-called global problems, such as long-range pollution and climate change—influence and define security, or types of securities, in the circumpolar north. defining securit y a nd globa l (securit y ) problems

In the twenty-first century, there are many ways to understand, define, and interpret security as well as insecurity and what is meant by danger, risk, and threat—and hence there are several discourses on, and concepts of, security (e.g., Heininen 2007a). A narrow traditional interpretation and definition of security refers to national (military) security (Newcombe 1986) against threats and enemies coming from outside. In this traditional definition, a state is the

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main subject of security. The international system is seen as “anarchy” and based on hegemonic competition between states (Waltz 1979), such as that seen during both World War II and the Cold War. This concept of security also dominated the circumpolar north through the twentieth century, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, when the region’s security policy and military importance were much studied and discussed (e.g., Posen 1985). The situation, however, started to change in the 1980s due to several reports by the United Nations (e.g., Common Security 1982) and new discourses on interrelations between peace, development, and the environment. As well, nonmilitary points of view, such as social, economic, and environmental ones, were discussed as security issues (Buzan 1991, 363–374). The definition of security was thus exposed and widened toward a more human-oriented approach, a new notion that came to see security as relative and depending upon a particular context, and thus socially constructed. A result of this change in interpretation is a new comprehensive notion of security emphasizing environmental or ecological aspects of security (e.g., Dalby 2002) as well as relations between security and the environment (Galtung 1981; Heininen 1991). This new notion was applied to northern regions and northern seas (Heininen 1994; Langlais 1995). As environmental protection became an important concern in the North, and as it was the first field of multilateral cooperation between the arctic states in the 1990s, several studies and reports were produced that stressed nuclear safety in the North, particularly the nuclear problem of the Barents Sea region (Bergman et al. 1996; Arctic Pollution Issues 1997). Human security has a focus on human beings as individuals. It focuses on the everyday security of ordinary people as affected by pollution, climate change, or the large-scale utilization of natural resources (Huebert 2001; Hoogensen 2005). The approach of human security was first adopted by the Canadian government in the 1990s (Dwivedi et al. 2001). Since the 1980s several perspectives of comprehensive security have emphasized environmental or human aspects as an alternative point of view to the narrow approach of

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military security based on the interests of southern centers. Impacts of global warming—such as food security—are now perceived as ­security ­matters (Paci et al. 2004). Civil security emphasizes human beings as citizens with rights and duties (Heininen and Lassinantti 1999). Correspondingly, the term civility has become a political concept based on an idea of a good polity of citizens, which in the circumpolar context might be interpreted as a kind of “arctic community” (Griffiths 1993). Though a part of traditional security, increasing attention is paid to energy security, which emphasizes a scarcity of fossil resources, especially that of oil, and the strategic role of energy in our modern world. If energy security traditionally meant security of supply and access to an energy source, a comprehensive definition also includes security of transportation and other facilities; access to pipelines, storage facilities, and a reserve for strategic internal use; investment security; environmental security; and finally an energy dialogue (Austvik 2006, 18; Moe 2007). Because of the strategic importance of hydrocarbons, energy security is closely related to traditional security concerns, including internal defense and external conflicts, which is seen in the use of slogans such as “energy weapon” and “petropolitics” in world politics (Smith 2006, 29–32). Indeed, in the early twenty-first century, energy issues are assuming a central position in the relations between North America, Europe, and Russia, particularly in 2005 and 2006 when interruptions of Russia’s energy supplies “made energy security a central topic” with her European neighbors, and security relations became “re-energized” (Dunay and Lachowski 2007, 23). All in all, security is not objective but relative and can be interpreted as being related to almost everything (Westing 1989, 129). The term securitization, as defined by the so-called Copenhagen School, has meant that almost all issues are securitized (Buzan 1991). Security is, however, complex and still includes nationalistic and militaristic aspects (Deudney 1999). This is the case with actual environmental problems and risks stemming from military activities (Häyrynen and Heininen 2002). Questions such as “whose security are we talking about?” or “who are the subjects of

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security?” indicate that security can be interpreted to be socially constructed. This is the central point when trying to define regional security, which is not that of a group of like-minded countries or a security community (Bailes and Cottey 2006), but that of a loose international cooperative region such as that seen in the circumpolar north through institutionalized international cooperation (Heininen 2007a, 215–216, 232–235). Through the lenses of globalization this is easier, since the entire world with all its peoples is the subject of security. In the early twenty-first century, the world, and the circumpolar north as a part of it, has become economically, culturally, politically, and environmentally globalized and influenced by several flows of globalization. These include flows of raw material and goods, capital and labor, migration and tourists, information and communication, and pollutants and diseases and illnesses. With heightened mobility and new opportunities offered by globalization, transnational flows have increased in number and in terms of their geographical reach. Some of these flows, such as raw material and movement of peoples and trade, are not new phenomena in the circumpolar north, but others, such as capital and tourists, information, and pollutants, are new, and many are as a result of globalization. Here geo-economics is extremely important, since it has become one of the main factors of power in world politics. And further, securing strategic shares on the global energy markets has become one of the top priorities of foreign and security policy, such as in the context of Russia (Godzimirski 2005, 17). In the world there are, and have been, changes and challenges, which people(s) and societies as well as states face and easily take as threats to their life, society, and environment. These are seen in issues such as natural catastrophes, climate changes, scarcity of resources, migration, and wars and conflicts between states and nations. Further, these are seen as real threats to the everyday life of peoples and societies, as issues of traditional, environmental, human, or civil security. Many of these problems are worldwide and do not respect national borders, and thus they can be defined as global problems.

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Global problems can be defined to include the following (­Hakovirta 2005, 33–36; also Hakovirta 1996)1: •

First, global security problems such as the worldwide arms race, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and international terrorism;

•

Second, overpopulation, poverty, and other problems related to the economy and development;

•

Third, scarcity of natural resources such as energy and fresh water, which has the potential to produce ­conflicts and wars over strategic resources, such as the Gulf War in 1990; the so-called group-identity conflicts, such as migration caused by environmental degradation or lack of natural resources; and insurgencies as a direct challenge to a state, such as the struggle of the Zapatistas in Mexico (Dalby 2002, 46–51). For consumers, a scarcity, together with increased demand for strategic raw materials, such as energy, can mean increasing dependence on imports of these resources, as is the case with the high dependence of most European Union member states on energy sources from Russia;

•

Fourth, pollution, ozone depletion, climate change, and other problems causing environmental degradation are global, regional, and local environmental problems arising from the utilization of natural resources for industrial use, transportation, and heating. Climate change (whether global warming or cooling) is a universal phenomenon. Its impacts are not only physical impacts; there is also the uncertainty and insecurity associated with climate change. Further, it creates government concern about the future of countries and nations due to the fact that it can be interpreted to threaten state sovereignty. Thus, climate change has be-

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come a new factor in security discourses, and has possible security implications (Huebert 2001; Borgerson 2008; Gleditsch 2008, 706). While ­counter-arguments claim there is no evidence that climate change is an issue of military security (e.g., Vaahtoranta 2007), it makes sense to discuss climate change in the context of security studies and analyze its possible security implications (Heininen, in press); •

Fifth, refugees and other human right problems;

•

Sixth, diseases and pandemics such as HIV/AIDS; and

•

Seventh, other problems such as international crime, meteors, and space refuse. In addition, the world of the twenty-first century is influenced by “bio-invaders,” a new global threat to plant and animal life. They include migrating species, such as the African land snail, a side effect of both the growing flows of goods and tourists as well as climate change, and the combination of the two (Margolis 2007).

Unlike traditional security, where the state, as defined by political and economic elites, is the main subject, this chapter views security from the perspective of both traditional security and comprehensive security. One of the most interesting features of security in the north lies in the fact that there are several types of northern security, or securities, which are closely related with global issues (Northern Eurasian Geopolitics 2007). securit y in the high north in the t w entieth century: differ ent stages a nd specia l featur es

Based, on the one hand, on military presence and activities and security policies of the arctic states, and, on the other, on ­environmental

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and human dimensions of security, I have defined three stages in the state of security and military security in the circumpolar north of the twentieth century and recognized five special features of ­northern ­securities at the turn of the twenty-first century (see Heininen 2007a).

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di f f e r e n t s tag e s o f s e c u r i t y i n t h e n o r t h

The first stage, militarization of the Arctic, was started by World War II. This period was characterized by hot warfare and an arms race and included many deadly conflicts in the region, such as the German submarine warfare against the Allies’ supply transports to Murmansk and the heavy bombings of the harbor of Kirkenes in Norway and the harbor and town of Murmansk in the Soviet Union. The background to this stage was that state sovereignty had finally reached the northernmost regions of the globe, which together with advanced technology transferred these regions from frontiers and borderlands into controlled national borders. While the dominant characteristic of this period was an increase in strategic and military tensions, it also included increased United States–Soviet cooperation in civil aviation across the Arctic Ocean based on the so-called airman point of view to use the shortest geographical distance between Eurasia and America (Stefansson 1944, 218–219; Henrikson 1975, 40–44). This innovative cooperation was cut short by the warfare of World War II and hampered after the war by the growing military tension of the Cold War (Henrikson 1989). As a result of the ideological, political, economic, and military competition between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1949 between the United States, the United Kingdom, and some other Western European countries. It was the first, and still the only, intergovernmental military organization and security community covering the circumpolar north. The First and Second World Wars were worldwide, but the latter one was truly global and brought international cooperation and the first flows of globalization into the North. If the Second World War made it obvious that the region had an increasing importance for war and peace, then the Cold

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War completed the militarization of the region. As such northern security became dominated by traditional, military-based security. The second stage, “military theater,” covers most of the Cold War period, which saw not warfare but political and military competition and an arms race between the superpowers. The circumpolar north was transformed first “from a military vacuum prior to World War II, to a military flank in the 1950–1970 period and to military front in the late 1980s” (Östreng 1999, 22). In the North there was a gradual military buildup as a response by one superpower to the military developments of the other (Posen 1985; Miller 1986). Nuclear weapon systems, particularly strategic nuclear submarines and bombers carrying nuclear bombs, from both the United States and the Soviet Union, were deployed into the region, and the new maritime strategies of these superpowers were developed for the High North (Till 1987). These strategies included the hiding of strategic nuclear submarines in northern waters with the potential to launch ballistic nuclear missiles at specific targets; sonar detectors, such as the LORAN-C and OMEGA navigations stations, to detect the need for a potential attack; and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) with attack nuclear submarines to “shallow” strategic nuclear submarines Militarization, together with growing industrialization, also meant an increase in population and the establishment of towns and cities, and northern peripheries started to become nationally important resource areas. Increasingly in northern regions there was less room and interests for civilian activities and international cooperation but more for military activities (Arkin and Handler 1989), and a growing number of conflicts of interests. In spite of arms control and disarmament agreements between the Soviet Union and the United States, military tension in northern seas became more intense at the end of the 1980s; for example, this period was the height of Soviet long-range bomber incursions into the North Atlantic (Bjarnason 2007). All in all, by the end of this stage, the circumpolar north was wholly militarized, which meant threat perceptions and enemy pictures that could have multifunctional and long-lasting impacts. Further, the region became one of the most important platforms for nuclear weapon systems and the global

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military competition between the United States and the ­Soviet Union, as well as an important site of the maritime strategies of the two superpowers. “Transition period” is not an exciting name for the third stage of northern security, but it is an appropriate one due to the significant change in circumpolar geopolitics and the whole international ­system. Change meant fewer military bases, radar stations, and troops in fewer geographical places in the North and, thus, less military tension and international cooperation instead of confrontation. The change was mostly due to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, both significant developments with multifunctional and global influences and side effects. In the circumpolar North regional developments had an effect on these changes. These included changes in the position of northern indigenous peoples and a growing concern about the environment. These developments meant increased regional and international cooperation by nonstate actors (Heininen et al. 1995). The transition was inspired by the Murmansk speech of thenSoviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (1987) and its proposals both to decrease military tension and start civilian cooperation in several fields such as economics, environmental protection, and science (see Heininen, chapter 9, this volume). Although the speech asserted that “security lay in the political rather than military sphere” (Östreng 1999, 29) and indicated that the Soviet Union is ready for arms control and disarmament in the North, the West was neither able nor willing to interpret it as such (Scrivener 1989). Although numerous ideas, proposals, and official initiatives for arms control and confidence-building dealing with northern seas did exist (Purver 1988), formal East-West agreements rarely embraced the region in any direct way. The speech was, however, influential since it resulted in increased international cooperation in science and for environmental protection, such as the acceptance of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) between the eight arctic states in 1991. In spite of the discourse noting the close relationship between the environment and security including the military, military security is mostly excluded from official international northern cooperation

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by governments such as the Arctic Council (1996). Consequently, security policy continued to be highly strategic and became a special field (Heininen 1999, 136–139). There were, however, claims stating that the environmental security concept “is of particular relevance to the Arctic” because of its vulnerable ecosystem (Östreng 1999, 1). Indeed, “northern security” was broadened by discourses on environmental, or ecological, security to include nuclear safety due to severe problems and risks of nuclear waste and accidents. (Much of this was due to the Chernobyl accident, which was emphasized by northern indigenous peoples, NGOs, and scholars.) All in all, the third stage represents a transformation from military tension and confrontation into international and interregional cooperation, when civil cooperation became the main activity. An important and interesting notion is that the arctic states took environmental protection as a new field of foreign policy and started to move toward “more civilized forms of behaviour,” where “civility” was used as a political concept to replace the concept of military security (Griffiths 1993; also Heininen 1999, 270–274).

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s pe c i a l f e at u r e s o f n o r t h e r n s e c u r i t y

These stages can be used to highlight special features of the various contemporary notions of northern security. These include, first, implementation of the technology models of geopolitics; second, nuclear safety; third, relations between the environment and the military; fourth, relations between indigenous peoples and traditional security; and finally, climate change, which I discuss later as one of the global problems. All these features deal with either the discourse on traditional security or that of comprehensive security. Most of them deal with the environment, and many also deal with peoples and societies, either directly or through environmental degradation. While the technology model of geopolitics is related to militarization, most of the others represent alternative discourses on security. Finally, nuclear safety has caused a change in problem definition on security discourse(s) and premises, and climate change has the potential for introducing new points of view in the theoretical discourse on and premises of security.

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From the point of view of classical geopolitics, the militarization of the Arctic is based on an application of the technology models of geopolitics, which claim that if technology allows man to introduce the military into any geographical region, then it will occur (Apunen 1991). At the same time, relations between technology, the ­environment, and societies have become more important due to severe risks, as Ulrich Beck (1992) has argued in his theory of a risk society. These kinds of risks are linked to the use of nuclear energy for military and civilian purposes. Radioactive waste and its storage and transportation are real regional risks but also universal risks. Increased risk due to militarization has been the case in the circumpolar north as strategic and attack nuclear submarines, bombers, radar stations, and military testing sites show (Miller 1986). The technology models used in the region can be interpreted to be a legacy of the Cold War period, since many technological developments—such as the use of nuclear energy in marine vessels, longrange bombers, radars, and missiles—are linked to the deployment of the military in the region during this period (Heininen 1991). While these developments started during the Cold War, they continue to impact the region today. This is simply because the basic military structures are still there, and frequent military activities by the United States, Russia, and other states continue to take place. Behind this reality is the general notion that, since the end of the Cold War, arms control and confidence-building measures have not been particularly focused, and hence there has been no real nuclear disarmament, either within or dealing with the circumpolar north. This could be done, however, under such agreements as the 1992 Russian–U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Umbrella Agreement for Russia (Kile 2007, 505), or the Russian-US Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I Treaty), and its follow-up treaty, to reduce the number of the deployed strategic warheads to more than 3,000–25,000 each (SIPRI Yearbook 2007, 684–685). In addition, the NATO Russian Council would allow cooperation in military fields such as arms control. Although traditional military security and military presence has lost much of its importance in geopolitics and visibility in interna-

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tional politics because of this and the growing importance of economics and globalization, military doctrines are still critical in national security and state sovereignty to respond to perceived external, internal, and transboundary threats; to define security priorities; and to take into consideration national interests, such as economic interests (Tavaila et al. 2004, 4–12, 53–55). As one of the results of the implementation of the technology models in northern regions, in the 1980s a public environmental “awakening” occurred. This was accelerated by, on one hand, images of environmental degradation from such things as the nuclear tests in Novaya Zemlya and radioactive waste dumped in the Barents Sea and, on the other hand, by the lethal accidents of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, the Komsomolets class submarine in the Norwegian Sea in 1989 (Heininen 1991), and later by the loss of the Kursk nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea in 2000. Especially important was the nuclear problem of the Barents Sea region. High risk hot spots, such as the nuclear waste storage of the Russian Navy in the Andrejevan Bay, became symbols of Russian environmental catastrophes and their socioeconomic impacts (Bergman et al. 1996; AMAP 2002, 59–76; Heininen and Segerståhl 2002). The main issue was a risk of radioactive contamination from nuclear accidents in northern seas. This possibility was taken seriously in the 1980s by Icelanders and by Norwegians living on the coast and led the Icelandic government to advocate for environmental protection (Pa’lsson 1987). Canada had already passed the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act (AWPPA) in the 1970s due to concern about the environment of its Arctic archipelago (Degenhardt 1985, 219–220). Environmental organizations such as Greenpeace International, civil organizations such as the Nordic Saami Council, a few scholars and scientists, and local and regional authorities became increasingly concerned about and active in the study of environmental degradation caused by the military. Governments increasingly agreed with these concerns and started international cooperation on environmental issues (Siddon et al. 1991; AMAP 1997, 111–127), and environmental protection became a new field in foreign policy. This was linked to a growing understanding that a nuclear accident would lead to a

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high possibility of real environmental damage with serious societal impacts. Even rumors of a radioactive leakage would damage the fishery in northern regions, which is of great importance to the economies of Greenland, Iceland, and northern Norway (Heininen 1999, 270–274). Nuclear safety became a special issue in international northern cooperation in the 1990s, gathering together several international actors with joint funding. Intergovernmental organizations, such as NATO, the European Union, and the G8 group, became active for nuclear safety. The nuclear problems of the Barents Sea region became especially important. Member states of the Barents EuroArctic Council and the European Union agreed to the principles for a ­Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme, and Russia became the target area for much assistance (Barents Euro-Arctic Council 1999). The G8 promised financial support for decommissioning the former Soviet Union’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. One priority issue was the dismantlement of nuclear submarines (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade 2005). Part of the international cooperation on nuclear safety was the development of new technologies for cleaning up radioactive wastes (OMRI 1996). This was the primary purpose for the establishment of the Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC) between the United States, Norway, and Russia in 1996. However, it was not only nuclear safety but also the more general relationship between the environment and security that was stressed by the North’s inhabitants, nongovernmental organizations, and local and regional authorities. While most of the governments of the arctic states do not see the relationship as relevant, or only as a legacy of the Cold War period, the AMEC can be taken as evidence that governments and intergovernmental organizations listened to the concerns relating to environmental impacts by the military and redefined nuclear safety as one of the main priorities in environmental protection in the Arctic. Nuclear safety was influential enough to cause a change in problem definition on security discourse and premise in the North, at least among the arctic states (Heininen 2007a). It is not clear, however, how real this change is or for how long it will last. For example, the

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environmental threat posed by the Kursk nuclear reactors was an issue of some concern to the Russians, and even the Russian government, but it has not yet been linked to environmental problems, and as a result there has not been a costs-benefits calculation (Häyrynen and Heininen 2002). If nuclear safety was the immediate reason for governments to change their ideas of security, especially in the context of northern securities, the broader context behind the change is the close relationship between the environment and security. This relationship is universally recognized (Galtung 1982; Westing 1989), as are relations between the environment, sustainable development, and security (Heininen et al. 1995). The environmental impact of weapons-oriented traditional security consists of all possible elements and aspects of the presence and activities by armies as they deal with nature, peoples, and societies (e.g., Renner 1991; Heininen 2000). Though this relationship is global, there are good reasons to include it among the special features of northern securities, as these relations led to the development of the proposal “to make the Arctic into a region of enhanced civility” (Griffiths 1993, 16). It is no wonder that the issue became relevant and acute at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, when many environmental impacts caused by the military could no longer be hidden but became public, such as the above-mentioned nuclear accidents of submarines and bombers carrying hydrogen bombs with radioactive pollution. An example of the latter kind of nuclear accident is the crash of the U.S. B-52 bomber in Thule, Greenland, in 1968, which caused damage to the snow, water, and land outside the air base, and also to the Inuit who were hired to clean up the site (Shaun 1990). Further, the intensive military presence in the Arctic for decades has had a direct impact on the environment, even without nuclear accidents. Military bases and garrisons, radar stations, and training areas use and pollute land and waters in many parts of the circumpolar north (Heininen 1994; Heininen 2004, 219). For example, the radar stations of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line and its equipment have polluted many parts of the Canadian north and Alaska (Poland 2001) and have impacted land traditionally used for fishing, hunting, and reindeer herding. In Franz Josef Land in the Russian north, there are about

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s­ ixty-five tons of oil containers left by the Soviet Army (OTC 2007, 17). Finally, the increase in oil and gas drilling, and related transportation issues, might bring more military activities into the region as energy security becomes more important, which could also mean more traffic, more noise, and more pollution (Austvik 2006, 21–22). As the environment also includes the entire human-built environment and peoples, northern residents have also been impacted by the presence and activities of the military. This issue was definitely sensitive and secret for northern residents in the Cold War period due to the geopolitical position of northern peripheries as the military front and political competition by the two superpowers (Doctorow 2007; also Cronenwett 2001). The issue is still complex and deals with attitudes toward, and information about, traditional security among northern residents, and, as a result, it is little known and discussed. It is, however, possible to say that northern peoples and communities, especially indigenous peoples, have been victims of, and therefore had to become adaptable toward, the “military machines” of the two superpowers (Heininen 1991). This can be shown in numberous examples: First, the Thule air base was founded in 1953 in the northernmost part of Greenland by a secret agreement between the U.S. and Danish governments that forced the Inughuit to leave their traditional land and living area (Brösted and Faegteborg 1985). Second, when the Soviet Army built up the nuclear test sites in Novaya Zemlya in the middle of the 1950s, the Nenets had to leave their traditional hunting and fishing area and move onto the mainland. Because of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, mostly above Novaya Zemlya, in the 1950s and early 1960s, many indigenous people, in particular the Sami and the Inuit, were exposed to high concentrations of radioactivity. This was known at the time but did not cause any widespread public concern (Heininen 1994, 155–157). Third, the construction of the DEW Line meant “a sudden industrialisation of a remote region thinly populated by hunting and trapping people,” with a minimal contract with the agencies of government (Williamson 2003, 2), or an invasion of “an imperious southern military-industrialism” (Griffiths 1993, 3). In addition to its social impacts, the DEW Line caused environmental degradation

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through the introduction of toxic substances and radioactive wastes. A final example is the conflict impacting the Innu in Labrador and eastern Quebec as a result of intensive low-level flight training of the NATO air forces in Goose Bay in the 1980s and 1990s (Lloyd 1989; Barker and Soyez 1994, 17–18). The relationship between the environment and the military has been, however, a contradictory issue among northern peoples, since armies are seen to have brought development to northern peripheries and for indigenous peoples. Benefits include employment during the construction of new infrastructure for armies, needed services, tax revenues, and flight routes inside the northern peripheries. As a result, many northern residents have supported the military presence in the North. Many indigenous groups, however, think that they should have some representation in national decision making on defense (Gaup 1990; Jull 1990). Further, there are counterarguments to the environmental concerns surrounding the military in the North. Some believe there is space enough for both human activities, such as traditional livelihoods, and for military activities, such as weapons testing and military training, or that there are more serious sources of pollution such as long-range air and sea pollution, and industry, and bigger environmental threats like climate change. Finally, although some recognize the problem, they no longer see it as relevant in northern regions, because military presence and activities have decreased and the cleanup of the environmental mess has started. Others deal with these apparent contradictions by saying that the whole viewpoint of the military as a polluter is complicated, not much discussed, and political. It has been seen as a real problem only for a short time, and hence, more monitoring and evaluation about environmental impacts and socioeconomic influences are needed in order to have more knowledge and a better understanding. The relationship between indigenous peoples and traditional security is a relevant issue, and one of the special features of northern securities. It needs to be addressed in a comprehensive understanding of the growing importance of human security in the North.

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In summary, the previously mentioned stages of security in the circumpolar north in the twentieth century show that the region was first taken over by military strategies and militarized, and then influenced by a significant geopolitical change that led to a decrease in military tension. This was accompanied by an increased concern with environmental degradation and nuclear safety and, hence, the human aspects of security. If the former indicates that security in the North has been dominated by traditional security—that is, the national security of the arctic states—the latter indicates that there has increasingly been a broader understanding of security. The third stage of security in the North shows, on one hand, the combination of traditional security and comprehensive security and, on the other, an indication that global problems and globalization have relevant impacts for northern securities.

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globa l problems defining securit y in the north

In the 1990s there was a significant and fundamental, even structural, change in the international system as well as in its security environment. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the consequent dissipation of East-West tension, were followed by cooperation and partnerships, even a sort of euphoria of peace and friendship. This was strengthened by concrete arms-control actions such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and global and regional security arrangements. This change moved the international system from a state of two-polar multifunctional competition based on a nuclear arms race, balance of deterrence, and arms control of the two superpowers into a new, uncertain, and unstable stage characterized by a new kind of dominance and hegemony by one superpower. While this decreased military tension and reduced military facilities on a global level, and meant some results in arms control, it did not bring clear nuclear disarmament. Rather, even new armament has occurred, and new members have joined the nuclear weapon club, such as Pakistan and North Korea. Indeed, in 2007 worldwide nuclear forces consisted of 11,530 deployed (and thus operational) nuclear warheads

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by eight nuclear-weapons states,2 thousands of which “are kept on high alert, ready to be launched within minutes” (Kile et al. 2007, 514). Parallel to this there has been a rationalization of the military with economic and technical developments emphasizing quality over quantity, a general and global arms race, and a growing arms trade. While NATO was established in the Cold War period as a military union to contain communism and the military dominance of the Soviet Union, NATO is still the regional military block of the circumpolar north. Its role and mission, however, have changed as northern geopolitics have changed. NATO’s role fluctuates between its traditional one “as a transatlantic organization for collective defence in Europe” and serving as an instrument in the global policy of the United States (Godzimirski 2005, 27). At the end of the Cold War, the Partnership for Peace (PfP) and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) were established to bring together all the European states and the former republics of the Soviet Union. The NATO Russian Council was also established with an idealistic idea of bringing the NATO member states and the Russian Federation together to work as “equal partners.” It could be argued that most global problems, which are often defined as threats, deal with security, since they often include aspects of traditional security, human security, and environmental security. Correspondingly, many global problems impact the circumpolar north, either by being physically present in the region, as in the case of nuclear arms and long-range air and sea pollution, or through different indirect impacts. As such it is becoming important to discuss how global problems and globalization influence and possibly redefine northern securities. Climate change especially is a global environmental problem that has had a special influence on redefining northern securities (Huebert 2004; Heininen 2007a). g l o b a l s e c u r i t y pro b l e m s

Although it was one of the hottest military theaters of the Cold War, at the early twenty-first century the circumpolar north has been transformed into a stable and peaceful cooperative area. Currently there is no danger of war or armed conflict, no serious internal

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s­ ecurity issues such as (international) terrorism and a fight against it. Further, security in the North is influenced by two, partly contradictory, phenomena. First, there is less political tension, less military presence, and fewer military activities; increasing stability and more international cooperation, both civilian and military; and a certain confidence among the northern actors (e.g., Heininen 2004). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia did not have economic resources either to continue the same military volumes or to construct new military facilities, so Russia had to decrease military activities in the north. The United States and other NATO countries have also made important changes, cutting and rationalizing their military strategy and policies in the North. For example, American troops left the Keflavik Naval Air Station in Iceland in September 2006, a decision which was taken as “a great disappointment and a setback for defence co-operation” by the Icelandic government (Haarde 2006, 4). Second, the circumpolar north still continues to host important military structures and armies, especially the nuclear weapons systems of the United States and Russia. Further, though most of the large and sparsely populated north is stable and peaceful, the region continues to be a strategic area for the deployment of the nuclear weapon system and testing of new weapons and arms systems. Military presence in the circumpolar north, either for routine military defense and normal control of sovereignty and national borders by the arctic states or for global and strategic military hegemony, consists of several kinds of military structures, functions, and activities. These include navies with strategic and attack nuclear submarines; air forces with nuclear bombers patrolling intensely in and above northern seas; the Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) system with radars; testing of new weapons, arms systems, and military applications; military training and exercises; and intelligence work. Especially important is the presence of nuclear weapons systems, such as strategic nuclear-powered submarines carrying ballistic missiles with (multiple) nuclear warheads (SSBNs) and long-range bombers carrying, or designed to deliver, nuclear bombs. The Arctic

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Ocean has retained most of its military strategic significance as a safe bastion sea area for SSBNs, which are permanently present in the ocean, because it is easy for them to hide under the multiyear ice cover. This is the case particularly with the United States and Russia, who have their strategic nuclear submarines permanently present in the Arctic Ocean to guarantee the capability for a revenge strike by nuclear weapons. The long, shallow, and partly ice-covered coast of the Eurasian north was once regarded as a national waterway for Soviet SSBNs (Östreng 1999, 25). The rationale behind these activities, one of the legacies of the Cold War, is that by being present and mobile you might manage to be invisible, which is the best way to maintain the capability for a revenge strike by nuclear weapons (Salminen 2004). There are also attack nuclear submarines to “shadow” the strategic ones; for example, the U.S. Navy continues to patrol both strategic and attack nuclear submarines in northern waters (e.g., Huebert 2004) and especially in the Barents Sea close to Russian naval bases. Because of this, and despite several arms control and disarmament treaties, there is not (yet) any real evidence of disarmament in northern regions. However, military presence has been much decreased since the Cold War period. For example, the total number of military vessels in the Russian Northern Fleet (from 1991 to 1998) was reduced by more than 50 percent (Hönneland and Jörgensen 1999, 120–122). Most of the remaining thirteen SSBNs, forty other submarines, and thirty-two large battleships in use are deployed in the naval bases of the Kola Peninsula (Tavaila et al. 2004, 46–48). Russia is also developing a new class of submarine, Project 955 Borei, with three-stage submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMS) (Kite et al. 2007). The Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence system plays a very important role in military strategy, especially for the nuclear-weapons systems of the Russian Federation and the United States. In the Cold War period, both superpowers built massive and comprehensive early warning and defense systems in the rim lands of the Arctic Ocean, such as the DEW Line and the North American Air Defense (NORAD) system in North America. At the beginning

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of the twenty-first century, the United States and NATO have several radar stations in operation covering the North Atlantic and North America, such as the radar stations on the island of Vardö in north Norway; the missile-defense radar sites in Adak, the Aleutians (Walker 2007); and the U.S. strategic radar installation in Thule, northern Greenland (International Institute for Strategic Studies 2007, 39). Of these the Thule radar station has a particular and special strategic importance as it is one of the main radar stations for the U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) system to defend against possible attacks of ballistic nuclear missiles by North Korea or China. Another strategic location of the NMD system in the North is Alaska, as one of the main sites of underground silos for missile interceptors is constructed close to the U.S. airbase in Fort Greely (Burns 2002). Another function of the military presence in the North is the testing of new weapons, both traditional and nuclear; arms systems and military applications; and military training and exercises. Weapon testing and military training have even increased and become more intense in some parts of the region (Salminen 2004). For example, Russia has tested a new torpedo, which caused the lethal accident on the Kursk in 2000, and the strategic Topol-M ballistic missile (Kite et al. 2007) and has had annual military maneuvers in northern seas (Inkinen 2004; Tavaila et al. 2004, 56–57). In northern Norway there is a plan to expand an existing military training area used for testing of cruise missiles and military exercises by occupying land that is part of a traditional Sami reindeer-herding area (Nelleman 2003). The importance of these activities in the North is influenced by the political attitude of the Western democratic countries, which believes that while military testing and exercises, such as bombing and low-level flying, are neither politically possible nor correct in densely populated locations such as southern metropolitan areas, they are politically possible and technically suitable in sparsely populated, almost “empty” areas such as the northern peripheries. It is ironic that when some arctic states such as Finland, have lost much of their national interest and control in their northernmost counties (Moisio 2006), in part through devolution in politics and legal arrangements (Bankes 2004), these peripheries become more important as areas for military testing and training.

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Further, because of the significant geopolitical change from confrontation into cooperation and the other, contin­uing ­military-political importance of northern regions, the ­geopolitical and security-political situation of the region is complex. While in some parts of the circumpolar north military bases and radar stations have been closed, troops have been withdrawn, and activities finished or decreased, in other parts military areas have been extended, and new areas are being used. The complexity of the situation is especially evident in regions that have a long history of strategic importance and military presence, since after the Cold War period they may have experienced both demilitarization, such as the relocation of military facilities, and remilitarization, such as a new military function. Examples of regions with both a continuing high strategic importance and existing military structures are Alaska, northern Greenland, northern Norway, the Kola Peninsula, the Barents Sea, and the Arctic Ocean. The relative strategic importance of the Kola Peninsula has actually increased during the early twenty-first century. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the peninsula became the only Russian territory with free access to the Atlantic Ocean (Skorve 1991). This is why the Russian strategic nuclear submarines are stationed there and why the Northern Fleet, one of the four fleets of the Russian Navy, is strategically the most important one (Tavaila et al. 2004). Consequently, the U.S. Navy also continues patrolling in the Barents Sea close to Russian waters. In addition, the drilling of oil and natural gas resources in the shelf of the Barents Sea has increased the strategic economic importance of the area and has introduced the new factor of energy security. As well, the Kola Peninsula has recently become a main platform for the transportation of Russian oil and natural gas exports, coming either from offshore fields or through pipelines from West Siberia or the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Correspondingly, being just beside the Kola Peninsula, the northernmost part of Norway was strategically and politically important throughout the whole Cold War period. The strategic situation of the area, however, changed and became more stable due to the

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collapse of the Soviet Union and the start of a new kind of regional and international cooperation, such as the Barents Euro-Arctic Region (BEAR) and its council, across the former Iron Curtain (see ­Heininen, ­chapter 9, this volume). Norway had to redesign both its foreign policy and its place in a situation in which NATO had lost its interest in the European north as a result of increasing NATORussian institutional cooperation, and the United States and the European Union had mutual interests in energy cooperation with Russia (Godzimirski 2005, 27–32). One result was the emergence of the opinion that north Norway had lost its strategic importance and was no longer a part of NATO’s military front, because the Russian military was no longer considered to be the military challenge to the West that it was in the Cold War; rather, it was more of an environmental threat due to the nuclear problem. Despite these changes, the security and military importance of north Norway has remained high for both Norway and NATO (Nokkala 2002, 68–71). Evidence of this is found, for example, in the plan to extend the military training area in Lakselv, the development of radar stations in Vardö, and, as a result of the resumption of Russian bomber flights in the North Atlantic, the relocation of the main operational headquarters of the Norwegian army to Bodö. These actions also result from certain skepticism about trusting the assistance of NATO in the case of an armed conflict between Norway and Russia. This mistrust is supported by the geopolitical fact that Norway is much alone in the North (Bailes 2007) when it comes to resisting the militarily strengthening Russia. This is even more relevant with the increasing transportation of oil and natural gas along its northern coast. Norway feels a need to put up a credible defense of its sovereignty and natural resources, and to maintain sufficient control of environmental protection (Austvik 2006, 22), at a same time when it has committed to both bilateral cooperation with Russia and multilateral one with other arctic states in the north. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, therefore, global security problems have a significant presence in the circumpolar north. Furthermore, the region is of great importance in the global strategic thinking of the United States and Russia and will likely continue to

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“play a significant role in preserving the strategic balance between the nuclear powers also in the foreseeable future” (Östreng 1999, 50). Also other arctic states such as Canada and Norway, and also the United Kingdom as a nonregional power,3 continue to maintain military forces and activities in northern regions (Pettis 2004; Huebert 2004). These security problems are, however, potential and not the source of immediate threats except as a risk for environmental and human security due to the possibility of nuclear accidents. A challenge for the residents and communities of the region, the object of human security, might be how to avoid this; how to decrease the influence of, and the region’s dependence on, outside forces, such as those who interpret the region primarily either as a potential military arena or as a reserve of natural resources; and how to promote stability and sustainability within the region (Heininen et al. 1995, 141–158). Further, changes related to globalization are bringing about a potential danger of escalation of warfare into the North, particularly if the trend of continuous global war, which started after September 11, 2001, continues. The challenge is how to keep peace in the North, and even improve it, under such worldwide pressures as the competition over strategic energy resources, new disputes and conflicts such as competition over drinking water, uncontrolled traffic, and potential exposure to the war against terrorism. The other part of the challenge is that it would be good for northern communities not only to be capable of defending themselves, but to be able to use nonviolent methods and thus promote peace. Here the north, employing democracy, transparency, and good governance could play an important role by adopting the Nordic model of peace (Archer 2003; Heininen 2005). scarcit y of energy a nd miner a l r esources

Scarcity of energy resources, freshwater, or any other resource defined as strategic is a global problem, and if strategic resources become

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increasingly scarce, it would create a growing interest in access to these resources. Further, this usually results in either competition for strategic resources or more trade and cooperation. This also means a real need to protect such resources, as well their ­transportation and export, against possibilities of terrorist attacks or hostile activities by their rivals. Thus, in addition to everyday routine patroling to defend national security and state sovereignty, there are responsibilities to protect such resources as oil and natural gas deposits and their transportation, environmental protection, and energy security. Energy security has a growing importance among national interests. A nation-state’s actions to ensure energy security is an important element of its foreign policy. Countries’ efforts to ensure access to natural resources affects security dynamics, particularly in those parts of the world that are crucial for global energy security (Proninska 2007, 227–228). Energy security includes not only security of supply; security of investment, the environment, energy cooperation, and dialogue between actors like the European Union and Russia, the United States and Russia, and China and Russia render energy security an increasingly important political and geopolitical issue. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is a key part of the foreign policy of countries like Russia (e.g., Smith 2006). The potentially rich natural resources of the circumpolar north are well known, almost a cliché, and the North is seen as “an immense reservoir of resources” for the rest of the world. There are rough estimates that about 25 percent of the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas are to be found in the Arctic (Austvik 2006, 4) and that a big share of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas, approximately 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, is north of the Arctic Circle (USGS Fact Sheet 2008). A large portion of these huge potential resources are in the Russian north (Tavaila et al. 2004, 45). In addition, fish and marine mammals are the traditional renewable resources of northern regions, although many northern seas are running out of fish. The annual gross product of the whole circumpolar north, currently estimated at $225 billion, consists mostly of activities related

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to oil and natural gas (Duhaime and Caron 2006). About 80 percent of this comes from the Eurasian north, and the Barents Sea region is now referred to as a “big oil playground” and a “geopolitical hub” (Brunstad et al. 2004; UPI News 2005). Russia is the world’s biggest producer and exporter of natural gas and the second largest of oil (Austvik 2006, 7), and both Russia and Norway (another large producer of oil and natural gas) have moved their energy focus into the North. Linked to these developments is a growing need for transportation of raw materials from the Kola Peninsula to Europe and North America. Further, a relevant issue here for the future development of the region is how the disputed area, the so-called Loophole between the Norwegian and Russian Exclusive Economic Zones in the middle of the Barents Sea, will be solved. It also remains to be seen if there will be an agreement under the auspices of the UN Convention of the International Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) on an enlargement of the utilization of natural resources of the littoral states of the Arctic Ocean outside their Exclusive Economic Zones. (Russia’s 2007 expedition to the Arctic Ocean shelf proved that the Lomonosov Ridge is a natural extension of the Eurasian shelf [Lomagin 2009].) In northern regions there is thus increased utilization and transportation of natural resources, and a need for new sea routes and more infrastructure. This has made the (mostly potential) energy resources of the north very attractive and strategically important, and of concern to both arctic states and major states outside the region, such as the United Kingdom, Japan, and China (e.g., Heininen 2007b). Furthermore, northern regions have become geopolitically interesting and economically attractive in both European and world politics, particularly among countries that suffer a scarcity of energy resources or depend on energy import, and thus have a low level of energy security. Energy security has become a new significant factor of the North’s strategic importance. Access to the region’s rich energy resources (particularly those of Norway, Russia, and the United States), and the safety of their export, is guaranteed by the military, which is very much in line with the traditional viewpoint to emphasize state

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­ egemony and national interests.4 Thus, there are growing economic h and political, even strategic, interests surrounding energy resources in the North. Yet in spite of some visions and predictions (e.g. ­Borgerson 2008), there are neither immediate conflicts nor real reasons for them between arctic states, or between them and states outside the region.

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g l o b a l e n v i ro n m e n ta l pro b l e m s

Environmental degradation has been affecting the circumpolar north, one of the last pristine regions of the globe, for decades, although the issue became known rather late. The degradation is the result of both internal and external sources. Internally, sources include the exploitation of nonrenewable natural resources through mining and oil drilling, local industry, transportation and traffic, settlements and cities in the region, and military activities. External sources include transboundary, long-range air and water (sea and river) pollution from southern latitudes involving such things as DDT, toxics, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and radioactivity. Environmental degradation arising from these sources is responsible for environmental conflicts that are often interpreted as conflicts between man and nature (Osherenko and Young 1989), although their origin as environmental conflicts is often mostly socioeconomic and political (Käkönen 1994). Radioactivity is a local and regional pollutant of the circumpolar north due to radioactive leakage and nuclear wastes from such things as nuclear tests in the atmosphere (Novaya Zemlya), old storage areas of dumped nuclear wastes in the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea, accidents involving nuclear submarines and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons, and radar stations such as those of the DEW Line (­Heininen and Segerståhl 2002). Several severe nuclear accidents, mostly by submarines, have occurred in northern seas over the last decades, and other minor and less-severe accidents happen occasionally due to an intense military presence in the North. In a nuclear accident there is always a danger of local and regional environmental damage. Even rumors of a possible radioactive leak can damage the reputation of local fisheries, an important livelihood for Iceland, as mentioned earlier, and part of a global industry. In addition to these

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regional sources, radioactivity has been brought into the region both by ocean currents, such as those of the North Atlantic bringing radioactivity from the Sellafield nuclear processing plant in the United Kingdom, and by rivers such as the Ob River from Cheljabinsk in the southern Urals (Heininen 2007a). Indeed, global environmental problems or threats are transboundary. This is the main reason for an increased interest in international cooperation on environmental protection of the Arctic, institutionalized first under the auspices of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) and later under the Arctic Council with several programs such as the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP). Northern indigenous peoples have become increasingly concerned about and active on environmental threats such as radioactivity and toxins. Their concerns and actions were largely responsible for pushing governments to sign the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants. This is an important success story of fruitful cooperation between northern indigenous peoples and the arctic research community (AMAP 2002, 36; Meakin and Fenge 2004). More environmental catastrophes are expected to happen in northern regions due to increased utilization of oil and natural gas, growing transportation of exported Russian heavy oil and liquid gas from new Russian oil terminals in the Barents Sea region to central and southern Europe and North America (Frantzen and Bambulyak 2003; UPI News 2005), and other intensive sea traffic. c l i m at e c h a n g e

Perhaps the most challenging global environmental problem is climate change and its various impacts. Among its physical impacts in the north are thinning and melting of sea ice, particularly that of the Arctic Ocean; melting of glaciers, such as the ice sheet of Greenland; and melting of permafrost (ACIA 2004). These phenomena are expected to continue and even increase in rapidity. For example, in ­September 2007, the multiyear sea ice of the Arctic Ocean was the smallest ever, and for the first time there was no sea ice in the ­Northwest Passage (Brigham 2007).

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If this continues, there will be more and more ice-free areas in the Arctic Ocean and its sub-seas. Correspondingly, this will ­easily mean increased traffic in the two passages of the Arctic Ocean and the opening up of new trans-arctic sea routes for transportation of raw ­materials and for other traffic such as passenger yachts (e.g., Gunnarsson 2005). This creates new and better possibilities for the utilization of natural resources, transportation, and other activities into the North, such as military patrolling, smuggling, and other associated crimes (e.g., On Thinning Ice 2002). Even more dangerous, increased traffic, especially for the transportation of oil and natural gas, in northern sea routes means a growing risk of severe accidents by large oil tankers. In the long term, the impacts of climate change might also intensify competition on, even conflicts over, northern resources like freshwater, due to scarcity of food and water (due to increasing hunger and thirst in the developing countries). These represent challenges to the sovereignty and national security of the littoral states of the Arctic Ocean. The issue is especially relevant for Canada and Russia, who have the longest coastlines of the Arctic Ocean and who have also claimed their sovereignty to include the Northwest Passage, in the case of Canada (Degenhardt 1985; ­Huebert 2001), and the Northern Sea Route, in the case of Russia. In Canada this has given rise to a public debate on increasing military activity in the North and suggestions that Canada should adopt “hard power” to defend its sovereignty over the Arctic (­Pulsifer and Taylor 2007). The question is not, however, first of all about state sovereignty, since the reality of climate change comes through the impacts of high rates of projected warming on natural systems and human communities (IPCC 2007, 9). Indeed, climate change has already caused uncertainty and insecurity among northern inhabitants and within communities, especially in areas where residents are still very much tied to traditional livelihoods, such as hunting and fishing (e.g., Report and Recommendations 2006). Consequently, the continued availability of and access to traditional diet and country food is endangered by climate change, which has raised concerns about food security (Paci et al. 2004). In addition, industrial activities and

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the whole man-made infrastructure of the region are facing new challenges, such as the thawing of permafrost, which constitute an important environmental and social problem in many cities in the Russian north. Climate change with its physical impacts and “the uncertainty associated with climate change” (Gleditsch 2008, 705–706) have therefore become an important security issue for northern peoples and their settlements and the northern environment. Further, while climate change has its environmental dimension, it also affects state sovereignty and national security of the arctic states. Followed from this, climate change has relevant security dimensions in general, has become a particularly relevant security factor in the north, and is thus one of the special features of northern security (see Heininen, in press). As a consequence, the issue may appear as a traditional security issue demanding traditional answers, such as more military defense, which is problematic, as climate change needs a more comprehensive approach to security—one that includes issues relating to both environmental and human security. As such it becomes extremely important to discuss and redefine the security dimension of climate change so that it becomes a global factor that could “promote stability and peace between parties in conflict” (Carius 2006–2007). di s e a s e s a n d pa n de m ic s

The history of colonialism in northern regions includes records of communities suffering through various epidemics as new diseases were brought to the North by the early European explorers. European whalers often brought pandemics that could wipe out entire villages (Huebert 2004, 1). Correspondingly, in the 1990s HIV/ AIDS reached the North and had an especially severe impact on northern Russian cities such as Murmansk due in part to the rapidly weakened health-care system after the collapse of the Soviet Union and in part to globalization. This and other kinds of flows of globalization influence human security in the North, especially for the majority of northern residents who live in cities, since these

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communities are both isolated but also integrated into the rest of the world (Bogoyavlenskiy and Siggner 2004).

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conclusion

This discussion of the security dimensions of global problems in the circumpolar North leads to several conclusions concerning northern security, or securities. First, security in the North in the early twenty-first century includes two main phenomena that are closely connected: there is less political tension, less military presence, and fewer military activities, and instead stability and more international cooperation and a certain confidence. At the same time the circumpolar north continues to host important military structures and armies, especially those of the United States and Russia, and thus continues to be a strategic area for the deployment of the nuclear-weapons system. Second, though there is less military tension, fewer military bases, and fewer troops, the region remains strategically important for the testing of weapons and military training and maneuvers by arctic states and major military powers. Third, the strategic importance of northern energy resources is growing due to the increased scarcity of energy resources and the growing importance of energy security. Fourth, while traditional military security continues to be important, there now exist new kinds of security approaches and factors, such as environmental degradation, nuclear safety, and impacts of climate change. The most obvious example of this is the last, which, through its physical impacts and the associated uncertainty, has direct effects on environmental and human security, as well as impacting national security and state sovereignty. As a result there is an increasing need to redefine security, have a new security agenda, and establish a more holistic approach to security (Heininen 2006, 361–363; also Heininen and Nicol 2007). Finally, we must increasingly recognize that there is not one type of northern security but several, from the traditional notions of security via the increasing importance of energy security to more com-

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prehensive notions of human and environmental security. Furthermore, among northern residents and civil societies there are both an increased consciousness about the environment and growing concern in security issues of their region. This has been accompanied by a degree of political empowerment that has the potential to transform traditional notions of security into more comprehensive and less mystifying ones and, as such, significantly improve the real security of the region and its peoples.

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notes 1. According to this classification, global problems as those that: are human or social problems with a real global dominance; become global either by spreading from one country into another, or are divided into different countries and continents; threaten all or most of societies; and finally, whose effective treatment requires comprehensive international cooperation and commitment. 2. The number includes 4,545 nuclear warheads from the U.S., 3,284 from Russia, 348 from France, about 160 from England, and about 145 from China (Kile et al, 2007, 515). 3. The presence of the British Navy in northern waters was indicated by the accident of the British nuclear-powered submarine Tireness in the middle of the Arctic Ocean in March 2007. 4. In order to do so oil companies are preparing for military defense through use of their own private military troops such as Russian Gazprom is planning to use.

r efer ences

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Tampereen yliopisto. Politiikan tutkimujksen laitos. ­­­­­Rauhan ja kehitystutkimuksen yksikkö. Julkaisu 44. Tampere. Archer, Clive. 2003. Introduction to The Nordic Peace, ed. Clive Archer and Pertti Joenniemi. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. Arctic Council. 1996. Declaration on the Establishment of the Arctic Council. Ottawa. Arkin, W. M., and J. Handler. 1989. “Naval Accidents 1945–1988.” Neptune Papers 3 (June 3). Austvik, Ole Gunnar. 2006. Oil and Gas in the High North—A Perspective from Norway. Security Policy Library 4, 3–25. Oslo: Norwegian Atlantic Committee. Bailes, Alyson J. K. 2007. “A Nordic Defence Pact?—And what it would mean for Iceland.” Speaking Notes for Alyson J. K. Bailes at the Atlantic Treaty Association, Reykjavik, October 3. Bailes, Alyson J. K., and Andrew Cottey. 2006. “Regional Security Cooperation in the Early 21st Century.” SIPRI Yearbook 2006: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. New York: Oxford University Press. Bankes, N. 2004. “Legal Systems.” In Arctic Human Development Report. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Barents Euro-Arctic Council. 1999. Declaration of Principles regarding a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation. The Sixth Session of the Barents EuroArctic Council. Bodö. Barker, Mary L., and Dietrich Soyez. 1994. “Think Locally—Act Globally? The Transnationalization of Canadian ResourceUse Conflicts.” Environment 36(5):12–20, 32–36. Beck, Ulrich. 1992. “From Industrial Society to Risk Society: Questions of Survival, Social Structure and Ecological ­Enlightenment.” In Cultural Theory and Cultural Change, ed. M. Featherstone. London: Sage. Bergman, R., A. Baklanov, and B. Segerståhl. 1996. “Overview of Nuclear Risks on the Kola Peninsula. Summary Report.” IIASA Radiation Safety of the Biosphere. Laxenburg: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

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Frantzen, Björn, and Bambulyak, Alexei. 2003. Oil Transport from the Russian Part of the Barents Region. Barentssekretariat. Svanhovd miljösenter. Galtung, J. 1982. Environment, Development and Military Activity: Towards Alternative Security Doctrines. ­Oslo-Bergen-Trondheim: Universitetsforlaget. Gaup, O. 1990. Indigenous Peoples and the Militarisation of the Arctic. Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), Copenhagen. Godzimirski, Jakub M. 2005. The New Geopolitics of the North? Security Policy Library 2. Oslo: Norwegian Atlantic Committee. Gleditsch, N. P. 2008. “The Liberal Moment Fifteen Years On.” International Studies Quarterly 52(4):691–712. Griffiths, Franklyn. 1993. Defence, Security and Civility in the Arctic Region. Presented at the Nordic Council’s Arctic Conference, Reykjavik. Gunnarsson, Björn. 2005. Geopolitics of the Northern Sea Route. Presented at the Conference on Dynamics of ­Socio-Economic Processes in Northern Regions, Apatity, Russia. Haarde, Geir H. 2006. Report by Geir H. Haarde, Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade. Delivered at the Althing at its 132nd legislative session, 2005–2006, April 6, 2006. Ministry for Foreign Affairs, http://www.mfa.is/speeches-andarticles//nr(3024 (accessed October 8, 2007). Hakovirta, Harto. 1996. Globaaliongelmat ja globaalipolitiikka: koeporauksia. Turun yliopisto. Valtio-opin laitos. Turku. ———. 2005. Muutama suositus ihmiskunnan uudelleenkoulutukseen. Globaaliongelmat ja niiden hallinta. Kosmopolis 35(4):30–45. Häyrynen, Nina, and Lassi Heininen. 2002. “Changes in Problem Definition: A Case Study of Nuclear Risks in the Barents Sea Region.” In Proceedings from the 5th International Conference on Environmental Radioactivity in the Arctic and Antarctic, ed. Per Strand, Torun Jölle, and Åse Sand. Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, Norway, June 2002, 113–115.

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Heininen, Lassi. 1991. Sotilaallisen läsnäolon ympäristöriskit Arktiksessa—Kohti Arktiksen säätelyjärjestelmää (The ­Environmental Risks of Military Presence in the Arctic—Toward the Arctic Regime). Tampere Peace Research Institute. Research Report No. 43. ———. 1994. “The Military and the Environment: An Arctic Case.” In Green Security or Militarized Environment, ed. Jyrki Käkönen. Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth Publishing. ———. 1999. Euroopan pohjoinen 1990-luvulla. Moniulotteisten ja ristiriitaisten intressien alue (The European North in the 1990s—A Region of Multi-functional and Conflicting Interests). Acta Universitatis Lapponiensis. Arctic Center Reports 30. Rovaniemi. ———. 2000. Sodan ja sotilaallisen toiminnan ympäristövaikutukset (Environmental Influences of War and the Military). Kosmopolis 30(4):99–126. ———. 2004 Circumpolar International Relations and Geopolitics. In Arctic Human Development Report. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. ———. 2005. Impacts of Globalization, and the Circumpolar North in World Politics. Polar Geography 29(2):91–102. ———. 2006. “A New Northern Security—Relevant Approaches and Factors.” In European Union Enlargement of 2004 and Beyond: ­Responding to the Political, Legal and Socio-Economic Challenges, ed. Roswitha King and Tatjana Muravska. Riga: University of Latvia. ———. 2007a. “Turvallisuuden monet sisällöt ja pohjoisen turvallisuuden kehitys.” In Miksi Pluto ei ole planeetta? Johdatuksia politiikan tutkimukseen, ed. Petri Koikkalainen and Sam Krause. Rovaniemi: P.S.C. Inter. ———. 2007b. “The Geopolitics of a ‘Melting’ North.” Journal of NordRegio 4(7):4–6. Heininen, Lassi. In press. “Climate Change Influencing Geopolitics and Becoming a Relevant Security Factor in the High North.” Climate Change and Human Security: The Calotte Academy 2008 Book. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.

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Heininen, Lassi, Jyrki Käkönen, and Olli-Pekka Jalonen. 1995. Expanding the Northern Dimension: The Final Report of the International Arctic Project of TAPRI. Tampere Peace Research Institute Research Report No. 61. Tampere, Finland: University of Tampere. Heininen, Lassi, and Gunnar Lassinantti, eds. 1999. Security in the European North: From “Hard” to “Soft.” Arctic Centre Reports 32. Rovaniemi, Finland: Arctic Centre, University of Lapland and Olof Palme International Center. Heininen, Lassi, and Heather N. Nicol. 2007. “A New Northern Security Agenda.” In Borderlands: Comparing Border Security in North America and Europe, ed. Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Heininen, Lassi, and Boris Segerståhl. 1975. “The Map as an ‘Idea’: The Role of Cartographic Imagery During the Second World War.” American Cartographer 2(1):19–53. ———. 2002. “International Negotiations Aiming at a Reduction of Nuclear Risks in the Barents Sea Region.” Containing the Atom: International Negotiations on Nuclear Security and Safety, ed. Rudolf Avenhaus, Victor ­Kremenyuk, and ­Gunnar Sjöstedt. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Henrikson, Alan K. 1989. A New “Arctic Mediterranean”: ­Normative Regulations for Arctic Cooperation. Presented at the Conference Legal Problems in the Arctic Regions, Rovaniemi, Finland. Hönneland, Geir, and Anne-Kristin Jörgensen. 1999. Integration vs. Autonomy: Civil-Military Relations on the Kola Peninsula. Farnham: Ashgate. Hoogensen, Gunhild. 2005. Human Security in the Arctic. Presentation to ICARP II. Copenhagen. Huebert, Rob. 2001. “Climate Change and Canadian Sovereignty in the Northwest Passage.” Isuma 2(4)(Winter 2001). ———. 2004. Arctic Security: Different Threats and Different Responses. A discussion paper for the 3rd Open Meeting of the Northern Research Forum, September 15–18, 2004, Yellowknife, NWT, Canada.

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Inkinen, Pertti. 2004. Interview by the author at Department of Strategic and Defence Studies of National Defence College of Finland in Helsinki on May 12, 2004. Personal notes. International Institute for Strategic Studies. 2007. The Military ­Balance. Glasgow: Routledge. Jull, P. 1990. “Social Change in NATO’s Far North.” NATO Review 38(2):23–28. Käkönen, Jyrki. 1994. Green Security or Militarized Environment. Brookfield, VT: Dartmouth. Kile, Shannon N. 2007. “Nuclear Arms Control and Non-­ Proliferation.” In SIPRI Yearbook 2007: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kile, Shannon N., Vitaly Fedchenko, and Hans M. Kristensen. 2007. “World Nuclear Forces, 2007.” In SIPRI Yearbook 2007: ­Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Landau, Emily. 2001. “The NMD/Arms Control Balance: A Message for the Middle East?” Strategic Assessment 4(1):17–20. Langlais, Richard. 1995. Reformulating Security: A Case Study from Arctic Canada. Ph.D. diss., Humanekologiska skrifter 13. Göteborg, University of Göteborg. Lloyd, B. 1989. “Low-Level Training Flights.” Peace Magazine, June– July:12–13. Lomagin, Nikita. 2009. “Russia’s Perception of the Arctic.” Seeking Balance in a Changing North. The Proceedings Papers from the 5th Northern Research Forum Open Assembly in Anchorage, Alaska, September 24–27, 2008. Margolis, Mac. 2007. “Attack of the Aliens.” Newsweek, January 15: 36–41. Meakin, Stephanie, and Terry Fenge. 2004. “Indigenous Peoples and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.” Arctic Human Development Report. Reykjavik: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Miller, Steven E. 1986. The Maritime Strategy and Geopolitics in the High North. A background paper for the international project

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on Arctic Development and Security by the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI), Finland. Moe, Arild. 2007. Energy Security. Presented at the Conference on Emerging from the Frost: Security in the 21st Century Arctic. Tromsö, Norway. Moisio, Sami. 2006. Remaking Finland: Geographical Peripheries in a New National Setting. Conference presentation at the 1st Theme Session of the Calotte Academy in May 2006 in Inari, Finland. Nelleman, C. 2003. “New Bombing Ranges and Their Impact on ­Saami Traditions.” POLAR Environmental Times 3 (October):1–2. Newcombe, Hanna. 1986. “Collective Security, Common Security and Alternative Security: A Conceptual Comparison.” Peace Research Reviews 10(3):1–8, 95–99. Nokkala, Arto. 2002. “Disclosing the Military Dimension? Futures of Broad Northern Security and Finland’s Policy.” In ­Yritystoiminnan tutkimus—ja koulutuskeskus (Northern Borders and Security—Dimensions for Regional Cooperation and Interdependence), ed. Lassi Heininen. Turku School of Economics and Business Administration. Northern Eurasian Geopolitics. 2007. Draft Plan for the Research Project on Northern Eurasia Geopolitics: Challenges and Opportunities for the Nordic Region. January. O’Hanlon, Michael. 2007. “An Intelligent Test?” Newsweek, February 5: 22–23. On Thinning Ice. 2002. Presentation Abstracts from Climate Change and New Ideas about Sovereignty and Security in the ­Canadian Arctic, January 25–26, Ottawa, Canada (Canadian Arctic Research Committee, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, Canadian Polar Commission). Osherenko, Gail, and Oran R. Young. 1989. The Age of the Arctic: Hot Conflicts and Cold Realities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Östreng, Willy. 1999. National Security and International Environmental Cooperation in the Arctic—The Case of the Northern Sea Route. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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Offshore Technology Center (OTC). 2007. Venäjä-uutisia (News from Russia) 1(8). Paci, James, C. Dickson, S. Nikels, L. Chan, and C. Furgal. 2004. Food Security of Northern Indigenous Peoples in a Time of Uncertainty. Position paper for the 3rd NRF Open Meeting. Yellowknife, NWT, Canada. Pa’lsson, Thorsteinn. 1988. “Islannin ulko- ja turvallisuuspolitiikka.” Paasikivi-Seuran monistesarja, no. 77. Poland, John S. 2001. “The Remediation of Former Military Stations in the Canadian Arctic—Its Relevance to Antarctica.” Canadian Antarctic Research Network Newsletter 13:4–5. Posen, Barry. 1985. The US Military Response to Soviet Naval Developments in the High North. A presentation at the Harvard Nordic Conference. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University. Proninska, K. 2007. “Energy and Security: Regional and Global Dimensions.” In SIPRI Yearbook 2007: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pulsifer, Peter L., and D. R. F. Taylor. 2007. “Spatial Data Infrastructure: Implications for Sovereignty in the Canadian Arctic.” Meridian (Spring–Summer):1–5. Purver, P. G. 1988. Arctic Arms Control: Constraints and Opportunities. Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security Occasional Papers No. 3. Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Internal Peace and Security. Renner, Michael. 1991. “Assessing the Military’s War on the Environment.” In State of the World. London: Worldwatch Institute. Report and Recommendations. 2006. “The Arctic and Canada’s Foreign Policy,” a workshop sponsored by the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, October 4–5. Salminen, Pentti. 2004. Interview by the author at the Department of Strategic and Defence Studies of National Defence College of Finland in Helsinki on May 12, 2004. Personal notes. Scrivener, D. 1989. Gorbachev’s Murmansk Speech: The Soviet Initiative and Western Response. Oslo: Norwegian Atlantic Committee.

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Shaun, G. 1990. The Hidden Cost of Deterrence: Nuclear Weapons Accidents. London: Brasseys Ltd. Shelley, Toby. 2005. OIL: Politics, Poverty & the Planet. London & New York: Zed Books. Siddon, T., B. Haarder, S. Pietikainen et al. 1991. Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy: Declaration on the Protection of Arctic Environment. Rovaniemi, Finland. SIPRI Yearbook 2007: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Annex A: Arms control and disarmament agreements. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skorve, Johnny. 1991. The Kola Satellite Image Atlas: Perspectives on Arms Control and Environmental Protection. Oslo: Norwegian Atlantic Committee. Smith, Keith. 2006. Russian Energy Policy and Its Challenge to Western Policy Makers. Security Policy Library. Oslo: Norwegian Atlantic Committee. Stefansson, Vilhjalmur. 1944. “The North American Arctic.” Compass of the World: A Symposium on Political Geography, ed Hans W. Weigert and V. Stefansson, 215[en dash]265. New York. Tavaila, Arvi, Forsström Pentti, Inkinen Pertti, Puistola Juha-Antero, and Siren Torsti. 2004. Venäjän asevoimat ja sotilasstrategia. Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu—National Defence College, Department of Strategic and Defence Studies. 2(2), Tutkimusselosteita Research Reports No. 28. Till, Geoffrey. 1987. Modern Sea Power: An Introduction. Exeter, UK: Brassey’s Defence Publishers. USGS 2008. “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle.” Fact Sheet 2008-3049. Vaahtoranta, Tapani. 2007. “The Wars of Climate Change.” European Security, OSCE review 15(3):2. Walker, Tom. 2007. “Adak: Northern Latitude 51.87N–176.63 W.” Alaska 73(1):46–49, 68–72. Westing, A. 1989. “The Environmental Component of Comprehensive Security.” Bulletin of Peace Proposals 20:2, 129–134.

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Williamson, Robert G. 2003. Arctic Defence Impacts and Future Sea Lanes. The Old DEW Line and the New Northwest Passage Research Proposal Outline.

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Lassi Heininen

In today’s globalized world, cooperation across national borders is becoming increasingly important to foster political security. It may help decrease political tension and military confrontation and thus increase stability in a region. Further, cooperation can also promote human development and democracy and strengthen the role of civil society (Heininen et al. 1995, 95–107; Östreng 1999, 16–17). Starting in the late 1980s, international and interregional c­ooperation in the circumpolar north has increased to the extent that a new regional identity is emerging, with numerous political initiatives and new forums, and particularly with many international actors, both old and new, intergovernmental and nongovernmental. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the circumpolar north is a stable and peaceful region, with increased international cooperation within the region and growing global interest in the region. International relations and geopolitics in the region can be characterized and defined using the following main themes, or trends, found in the Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR) (Heininen 2004). The first is the increasing circumpolar cooperation of indigenous peoples’ organizations and subnational governments, while the second is region building with unified states as major actors. The third theme is the relationship between the circumpolar north and the outside world (the north-south relationship). Two 265

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questions arise: First, are the current circumpolar cooperation and the new international institutional structures strong enough to continue and promote a regional identity under the growing pressure of flows of globalization, global problems, and global interests in the region? Second, how will the global north-south relationship be changed in the twenty-first century?

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historica l background

The circumpolar north, or the Arctic, has been seen and defined along a spectrum of visions—from a purely colonial external image of a frozen and extreme periphery to an internal image of a homeland of people(s). In classical geopolitics, the North has been seen from the point of view of a state, as a reserve of natural resources and/or a military “theater” for patroling and deployment and testing of weapons (see Heininen, chapter 8, this volume). Relations between peoples within and across the circumpolar north, however, started long before any state with national interests came to the North; national borders are a rather new phenomenon associated with the colonization and militarization of the region. Travel, trade, and other relations between northern regions and lower latitudes have existed for thousands of years. Early networks and crossroads of cultures included frequent traveling, exchanges of goods and experiences, trade, marriages, migration, and mutual visits within the circumpolar north (e.g., ­Schweitzer 1997; Golovnev 2001). A thousand years ago, during the Viking Age, Scandinavian peoples created networks of communication between the North Atlantic, northern Europe, and Russia, with east-west as well as north-south trade connections. Centuries later, European traders and explorers went to the high north to fish, catch marine mammals, and explore the globe. The Dutch and the English came into northern seas in the sixteenth century to search for a new sea route to China and India, and although they failed in this particular task, they stayed and started to trade with the local people in the White Sea region. Explorers were followed by whalers, with whom indigenous peoples, such as

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the Inuit, established long-lasting contacts based on trade and sale of labor, and following whalers came fur traders and missionaries (e.g., Abele and Rodon 2007, 49; see Southcott, chapter 2, this volume). The socioeconomic development of northern regions has been fairly linear, and the shift from a hunting and gathering economy into industrialization happened in a short time. This development would not have been possible without influence from outside the region and interrelations with other regions and communities. This does not, however, necessarily mean that peripheries such as the northernmost regions of Europe would be more dependent on global connections than centers that are dominated by international economic relations through flows of world trade (Kerkelä 1996, 96–101). World War I did not directly concern the circumpolar north, but just after the war, in 1920, the first international agreement dealing with the region, the Treaty of Spitzbergen, was signed. World War II brought modernization and international activities into the circumpolar north, mostly based on the military. The Cold War period meant the militarization of the north, which effectively decreased circumpolar connections and divided the region between two rivals: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which includes five of the arctic states (the United States, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, and Norway), and the Warsaw Treaty Organization led by the Soviet Union. Finland and Sweden were nonaligned. This period is also characterized by the completion of state sovereignty in the region, and, as a result, state hegemony was at its highest point. In spite of this high military and political tension, international and interregional cooperation in, or dealing with, the north was not totally frozen during the Cold War: indigenous cooperation continued and became more institutionalized. There was some limited international scientific cooperation, including the International Geophysical Year in 1957–1958 and the Northern Sciences Network under UNESCO’s Man in the Biosphere Programme (e.g., Scrivener 2000). One example of multilateral international treaties relevant to the Arctic signed during this period is the Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears reached in 1973. There were also a few examples of institutionalized international and interregional cooperation, such

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as the North Calotte Committee as a part of Nordic cooperation between the northernmost regions of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and the triennial North Calotte Peace Days, a forum for civilian cooperation between peoples in, and civil societies of, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Soviet Union aimed at promoting peace and disarmament (e.g., Kainlauri 1975; Heininen 1999, 242–243). In the North Pacific, transboundary cooperation between counties and provinces started in the 1970s in the context of international conferences between Hokkaido in Japan, Alberta in Canada, and Alaska in the United States. The general state of northern cooperation in the 1970s is summarized in the first comprehensive political and economic overview of the circumpolar north undertaken by Armstrong, Rogers, and Rowley (1978). At the end of the Cold War, state control also reached the northern seas when the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was signed in 1982 (UNCLOS Convention 1985). It came into force in 1994, and by 2009 all the arctic states except the United States had ratified it. The UNCLOS defines the rights of navigation for everyone, and it gives coastal states the right to establish an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) up to two hundred nautical miles out to sea and to exploit natural resources on and within the zone. All five littoral states of the Arctic Ocean—Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States—as well as Iceland have established their own economic zones. This was particularly important for Iceland, which used to depend heavily on fishing, and in fact, the only interstate conflict in the arctic region after World War II was the “cod war” between Iceland and the United Kingdom in 1973 due to Iceland’s protection of its fishing waters. Canada and the former Soviet Union also made claims of sovereignty in the two northern passages, Canada over the waters of the Northwest Passage and the former Soviet Union over the Northern Sea Route. By the 1980s, however, times were changing, and northerners began to consider the circumpolar north’s potential as a means of reestablishing horizontal connections and functional cooperation across the Cold War political divide. Among northern indigenous

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peoples, the Inuit of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska (and later the Russian Far East) and the Sami, living in Norway, Sweden, and Finland (and later those of northwest Russia), had already started their nation-building. Inspired by the international movement of indigenous peoples in the 1960s and 1970s and by a desire to recognize and interpret the circumpolar north as a region, they began defining themselves as one nation and organizing their joint political bodies, such as the (Nordic) Saami Council and the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Other transnational and international nongovernmental organizations, especially those dealing with the environment, such as Greenpeace International and the World Wildlife Fund, started activities and demands for environmental protection in northern regions. Greenpeace (1987) organized a campaign against nuclear waste and for nuclear disarmament in northern seas. This new situation of growing, “wild” international cooperation, or connectivity, between nonstate actors pushed the arctic states to react and to become active in northern cooperation, especially on issues related to the arctic environment. A number of bilateral agreements on scientific and environmental cooperation between the Soviet Union and other arctic states were signed in the 1980s, and soon environmental protection became a new field of foreign policy in many northern countries. In October 1987, a speech by the then–Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev (1987) in Murmansk gave the initial impetus for the current intergovernmental cooperation in the Arctic. It outlined six proposals. The first two were about establishing a nuclear-weapons-free zone in northern Europe and reducing military activities. The others discussed confidence-building measures in northern seas, civilian cooperation in developing natural resources, coordination of scientific research, cooperation in environmental protection, and the opening of the Northern Sea Route to foreign ships. The speech was an early indicator of a change in the closed nature of the Soviet north and represented an important turning point for the Arctic (e.g., Scrivener 1989). This soon led to a significant geopolitical change and the start of broad international cooperation in the circumpolar north—for example, the so-called

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Rovaniemi process and the creation of the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) in 1991. More generally, the end of the Cold War was accompanied by the rebirth of connections between northern peoples and societies, and the dawning of a new era of arctic international cooperation. While the Murmansk speech opened a door for new connections, the ­collapse of the Soviet Union permitted a dramatic change in the circumpolar north, as Cold War tensions gave way to an atmosphere of eagerness, even excitement, to cooperate internationally and regionally. It is, however, important to understand that relevant changes within the region had already started in the 1980s and that the frozen, divided, and militarized circumpolar north started to become warmer in the end of the Cold War period, not due to the end of it. A new kind of regional dynamic, based on increased international and interregional cooperation between peoples, civil societies, and arctic states—and with some concrete results such as friendship flights across the Bering Strait (Sheldon 1989)—was created in which the state-centric and military issues that had dominated arctic geopolitics ceded ground to more human-oriented concerns (Chaturvedi 2000). New critical geopolitical aspects, such as environmental protection and an emphasis on identities, were implemented. The transition since the Cold War period has also involved the large-scale utilization of natural resources in the circumpolar north, which together with globalization have had an important impact on the region. New conflicts over the environmental impact of resource use and transboundary pollution illustrate the complexity of current interests in the region (e.g., Osherenko and Young 1989; Heininen 1999), and have attracted the interest of major international environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace International and the World Wildlife Fund. Northern regions have been integrated more tightly into globalized world economics, and relations have intensified. This has meant, on one hand, exposure to different flows of ­globalization and global (environmental) problems (see Heininen, chapter 8, this volume) and, on the other, increased utilization of energy resources. All this goes beyond the traditional distinction between a core and a periphery.

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circumpol ar cooper ation by indigenous peoples a nd subnationa l gov er nments

Recently there has been an intensive growth in cooperation involving indigenous peoples and subnational governments across the circumpolar north. This is partly based on traditions of social and trade networks among northern peoples and can be interpreted as a renaissance of pan-arctic cooperation, but it is also much influenced by the significant geopolitical change at the turn of the 1980s–1990s transferring the region from confrontation into cooperation. In the background is also the idea that northern regions share special features that set them apart from other areas of the world, making it important to have a dialogue among local and regional decision makers and with politicians at the national and international levels.

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i n dig e n ou s pe opl e s a s i n t e r n at io n a l ac t o r s

Most northern indigenous peoples are minorities in their countries but have a long tradition of traveling, trade, and other kinds of (inter) regional activities, also across national borders. The trend of internationalization, even that of globalization, is therefore logical as they attempt to make their legal position as an indigenous people clear and assert their right to self-determination against unified states. This can even be interpreted as continuity with their traditional networks of communications and external relations practices from the past, as witnessed by Inuit oral history and early written records, through colonial times to the present (Abele and Rodon 2007, 45–47; see Nuttall, this volume). The homeland of the Sami people is physically and juristically divided by the national borders of four different unified states, but mentally there has been a strong feeling of one nation. This is seen in the establishment of the Nordic Saami Council (since 1992 the Saami Council in 1956). In 1980–1981, the Alta movement against the harnessing of the Alta River in northern Norway mobilized and united Sami across national borders to reassert their identity as an indigenous people and to strengthen their demands for ­self-determination in

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o­ rder to achieve the “collective right to decide their own future,” which had become the main aim of the worldwide movement of indigenous peoples (UN International Decade of Indigenous Peoples 1997). Although this radical transnational movement lost its fight over the dam, it spawned a national awakening, especially among young Sami and Sami artists (e.g., Declaration of Murmansk 1996). A result of this was the self-recognition of a nation and thus a natural pan-national actor (Heininen 2002a). Correspondingly, the Inuit living in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and the Russian Far East implemented their traditional understanding of their homeland and built ­pan-circumpolar connectivity through their transnational organization, the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), in 1977 (Abele and Rodon 2007). One of the concrete results was the 1992 Alaska-Chukotka Accord for visafree travel for Inuit within the region (Krauss 1994). Greenland, where Inuit consist of almost 90 percent of the population, is a special case, having achieved a legal subnational government in 1979 after being under the Danish Rule. Since that time the Home Rule government has acquired more responsibility and greater autonomy in several areas, such as decisions on language and the utilization of natural resources (Loukacheva 2007, 30–32; see McBeath, this volume). Greenland cannot be classified as a subject of international law, but through the referendum it received self-government— which can be interpreted to mean near-independence—in 2009, though it is juristically under Danish rule. Northern indigenous peoples also started to build more connections and deeper cooperation between each other within the region (for example, between the Sami and the Inuit Circumpolar Council) and across the Bering Strait between Alaska and the Russian Far East (Fenge 1999; Simon 2003). In addition, links were built with other indigenous peoples in other parts of the world in a more global context. An institution, the Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat, which supports their activities in the Arctic Council, was created to be responsible for “internal and external relations” of northern indigenous peoples. All this fits with the global trend to redefine and treat indigenous peoples as international actors—nations with a population, an identity, a right to self-determination, and, it is hoped, a territory in

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the future. The right to self-determination has been the main goal and has been increasingly recognized by the governments of most of the arctic states. Although the Saami Council and the Inuit Circumpolar Council contributed to the Rovaniemi process almost since its very beginning and supported the establishment of the Arctic Council, the involvement of indigenous organizations was neither automatic nor clear for some time. Indigenous peoples’ organizations were not made founding members when the Arctic Council was created to replace the AEPS in 1996 (Ottawa Declaration 1996). Rather, the ICC and the Saami Council, together with the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), were designated “Permanent Participants.” The same position was later accorded to the Aleut International Association, the Arctic Athabaskan Council, and the Gwich’in Council International. The status in international cooperation enjoyed by the Arctic Council’s Permanent Participants is rare, if not unique, for indigenous peoples. It has opened many doors and created a platform for discussing human development and sustainability with the governments of the arctic countries. The indigenous peoples’ representatives, however, do not have equal status to the governments, as they are also citizens of the states of those governments (e.g., Lynge 2004), and they have very limited financial resources to support their participation in the meetings of the council and its working groups. Long-range pollution and regional environmental wastes from past and present industrial and military activities have, in the last decades, been concentrated in northern regions and are thus a threat to indigenous peoples and their traditional livelihoods and cultures. Thus, it is no wonder that northern indigenous peoples and their organizations have become active in international work on environmental protection both with their own agendas and in close collaboration with the AEPS and the Arctic Council. They have been actively pushing governments to be involved. They have been acknowledged, for example, in the work of the Arctic Monitoring Assessment Programme (AMAP) in identifying the impacts of pollution in the Arctic (Paci 2003). They used the findings of this program to push ­governments

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into signing the global Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which can be seen as a success story of fruitful cooperation between northern indigenous peoples and the arctic scientific community (AMAP 2002, 36; Meakin and Fenge 2004). The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA 2004) and the effects of climate change on northern traditional livelihoods are also examples of this collaboration. While not all efforts to highlight arctic concerns in international forums have been particularly effective, such as the Johannesburg Declaration of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (ICC 2002), impacts of climate change have recently been taken seriously by governments and intergovernmental organizations, largely based on the scientific information coming from the Arctic and the concerns northern indigenous peoples have shown. Many of the northern indigenous peoples’ homelands have strategic importance, both in military terms and as a result of their natural resource endowments. Further, environmental degradation, coupled with the fact that national interests often differ greatly from those of the indigenous peoples, made environmental protection a sensitive international issue in the Arctic and put it on the foreign policy agendas of the unified states (e.g., Brösted and Faegteborg 1985, 213–238; Abele and Rodon 2007, 56; see Heininen, chapter 8, this volume). This has led to disagreement, even conflicts, between indigenous peoples and state authorities when discussing the utilization of natural resources, particularly fisheries and the catching of marine mammals, and trying to define how to use land and waters. This might be continuing when, at the early twenty-first century, northern regions and their resources attract not only the arctic states but also actors with varying interests from outside the region. r e g io n a l c o ope r at i o n a n d e x t e r n a l r e l at io n s b y s u b n at i o n a l g ov e r n m e n t s

Subregional governments have also become increasingly active in developing contacts across national borders. An example of this is the Northern Forum, which was established in 1991, and represents subnational or regional governments. At the beginning of the twenty-first

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century, this organization had about twenty member regions drawn from the arctic states and Mongolia, China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. This wide geographical coverage can generate controversy, as the Northern Forum is not an exclusively arctic organization and it is sometimes difficult to identify interests shared by all member regions. Representation of northern indigenous peoples is weak within the organization, except from some of the Russian member regions. Nunavut and Greenland, both of which have a majority of indigenous peoples, are not members of the forum. The Northern Forum represents its member regions in international forums. The United Nations has officially recognized it as a nongovernmental organization, and it is among the permanent observers of the Arctic Council. The Northern Forum and the Arctic Council can be seen as contrasting entities. The Arctic Council does not have a regional level, nor does it include representation of subnational units of the circumpolar countries, although, as mentioned above, it does include representation from indigenous peoples’ organizations. In the Northern Forum, indigenous peoples constitute a small minority of both the constituency and their representatives. This discrepancy may limit the role that the forum can play in deepening interregional cooperation. Projects within the Northern Forum are aimed at sustainable development and cooperative socioeconomic initiatives among ­northern regions. For example, the project on reindeer-herding management provides training to workers in order to improve the quality of reindeer meat and to develop related products, and the project on a sustainable model for arctic regional tourism, run jointly with the Arctic Council, collects and analyzes best practices relevant to sustainable arctic tourism (e.g., Northern Forum 2002). These examples indicate that the work of the Northern Forum is directed more at practical and concrete matters than at broader foreign policy concerns. Lack of experience of international relations may limit deeper international cooperation relevant to sustainable development. Some of the member regions, such as Alaska and the Sakha Republic, however, have been very active on the international stage, acting in part independently of their countries, while the Finnish province of ­Lapland

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even manifested its own regional “foreign” policy in the 1990s (Pokka 1996). Also, the Norwegian county of Finnmark is actively implementing Norway’s High North policies in interregional cooperation in the European north (Torvinen 2008). A visible example of local bottom-up cooperation across national borders is the Finnish town Tornio and the Swedish municipality Haparanda creating the twin town, or eurocity, of Haparanda & Tornio (e.g., Ronkainen and Bucht 2007), and a joint project “På gränsen- Rajalla” (on a border). This cooperation can be seen as a laboratory on how a border, or a borderland, influences the identity and culture of a society and region. It has in fact promoted integration across national borders in the Nordic countries and been used as a model for intermunicipality cooperation in Europe, showing a sort of readiness toward globalization (Zalamans 2001). Northern cooperation, including new international and regional organizations and forums, has offered northern peoples and societies useful channels for sharing information and platforms for discussing and planning activities together. Devolution of power and legal political innovations without disrupting existing national legal structures have both played an important role as northern regions work to strengthen their self-determination, and, consequently, they can be considered relevant factors behind recent success stories of the north, such as innovative political and legal arrangements based on the devolution of power across the region (e.g., Bankes 2004; Young and Einarsson 2004, 236–237). Further, being active in international cooperation on many levels, northern voices are more clearly heard in capitals and in world politics. These new forms of international cooperation acting outside national governments can, however, highlight different interests and sometimes cause tensions. Deeper panarctic and intergovernmental cooperation is relevant for promoting sustainability and human development in the region and can also create better capabilities for coping with the challenges of globalization. Despite slowly increasing attention to regional cooperation in the literature on the development and cooperation of the circumpolar north, such as the Arctic Human Development Report (2004), there are gaps in knowledge and thus a need for more research adopting

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a comprehensive circumpolar approach that would complement the still-dominant national perspectives (Heininen 2004, 222).

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r egion building

Since the late 1980s, there have been many attempts to redefine the circumpolar north, or the Arctic, of the post–Cold War period into a new kind of geopolitical state (Heininen et al. 1995), or as a distinct international region.1 This attitude informed the idea to make a report on human development of an international cooperative region, not only a single country, as the starting point of the AHDR (Young and Einarsson 2004, 18–19). These initiatives fall into three categories: intergovernmental circumpolar-wide cooperation, subregional cooperation, and academic cooperation. These endeavors provide new platforms and channels for dialogue between the unified states and have the potential to secure a stronger voice for arctic interests in a global context. Region building in the circumpolar north is part of an important trend in international relations and represents a new geopolitical approach: rather than seeking to control through the exercise of power, it focuses on achieving a socially stable and environmentally sustainable order. The vision is largely based on academic discourses of regionalism and region building as one of the main themes and trends of circumpolar geopolitics and international relations, although there is also criticism of this academic discourse (e.g., Keskitalo 2002). Behind this thinking is the idea that by establishing organizations and institutions that specifically deal with northern issues the dual aims of building trust after the Cold War and promoting environmental protection and sustainable development in the circumpolar north will be achieved. The vision has, however, been supported by both northern indigenous peoples’ organizations such as the ICC (Abele and Rodon 2007, 57) and governments as “the Arctic is becoming a spatial entity of political and geographical contiguity between the Arctic states—an area for joint implementation of pan-Arctic decisions” (Östreng 1999, 45). Actually, the entire process of region building in the north has mostly been organized and controlled by governments. In the

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b­ ackground there is the geopolitical reality that the circumpolar north consists of eight unified states, the so-called Arctic Eight: Canada, Denmark (due to Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden and the United States (due to Alaska).2 Thus, the circumpolar north is politically and juristically divided by the national borders of these eight unified states.

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t h e a rc t ic c ou n c i l

Intergovernmental arctic cooperation officially started in June 1991 during the first ministerial meeting of the eight arctic states, where the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) was signed (Siddon et al., 1991). Three northern indigenous peoples organizations were also present in the meeting. Although the original idea was to have an umbrella-type political forum for governments, indigenous organizations, and different interest groups (Arctic Council Panel 1991), the established Arctic Council did not become a political forum for open political discussion when the arctic states replaced the AEPS with the Arctic Council as a high-level intergovernmental forum for arctic international cooperation (Ottawa Declaration 1996). The resulting council was a compromise and the process also took longer than its supporters anticipated. The Arctic Council was not established until 1996 due in large part to a debate over the Terms of Reference for the Sustainable Development Program (e.g., Scrivener 2000). Almost concurrently, parliamentarians from the arctic countries with an interest in northern affairs began to collaborate, and the first parliamentary conference concerning the arctic regions and cooperation was held in 1993. One output was the Standing Committee of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region (SCPAR). A primary aim of both the conference and the standing committee was to support the establishment of the Arctic Council and, later, to stimulate as well as promote its work, and the work of the governments of the arctic region, in areas of human development such as education, science, and information and communication technologies (e.g., Conference Statement 2006). The activities

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of the arctic parliamentarians and their gatherings have helped draw some of the highest decision makers and law makers of the arctic states into intense international cooperation in, for example, human development and to promote arctic governance with an aim to create a legal regime for the region (Kristiansen 2007). As the environment-related working groups of the AEPS were subsumed by the Arctic Council, one of its two main areas of attention would naturally be the Arctic ecosystems, including human populations, and thus the identification, reduction, and elimination of pollution, as well as nature conservation. The initial focus on environmental protection gradually expanded to related fields, notably sustainable development. The Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG) was created, and promoting sustainable and human development became a new priority, expressed through activities such as disseminating information, encouraging education and research on sustainable development, and promoting interest in Arctic-related issues (Arctic Council 2002). This wider mandate also included discussions on transportation and communication, how to create a connected Arctic, and initiatives in telemedicine and infrastructure. In this way, the agenda has broadened considerably in a fairly short time, with the Arctic Council and its working groups conducting a large number of projects covering many diverse fields (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iceland 2002). The growing number of projects under the auspices of the Arctic Council has, of course, created new challenges for the member states and the permanent participants, which is seen more concretely as a lack of time in the meetings of senior arctic officials (e.g., Arctic Council 2007). In addition, financial and staff resources for the projects and their preparation and coordination remain severely limited. Although the Arctic Council is a high-level forum for international cooperation between governments and indigenous peoples’ organizations, little effort has been made so far to give the council any regulatory functions. Considered a soft-law instrument (­Koivurova 2008), it is essentially an international advisory body providing support to the governments that are seeking consensus-based solutions to common or shared problems in the Arctic. Together with the

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new ­institutional landscape of international organizations, forums, and networks, built mostly in the post–Cold War period, the Arctic Council has been successful in increasing stability and peace, giving a model for sustainability, and emphasizing human security in the north. Sensitive issues such as security policy, however, are excluded from the agenda of the council, whose founding declaration states that it “should not deal with matters related to military security” (Ottawa Declaration 1996). Discussions on issues dealing with the utilization of natural resources, especially marine mammals, have also mostly been avoided (e.g., Salechard Declaration 2006), but issues dealing with oil and natural gas activities have been recently started (Tromsö Declaration 2009), although monitoring, assessment, and action on contaminants, protection of the arctic environment, human and sustainable development, and energy cooperation are among its fields of activity. The domination of the unified states in the Arctic Council and their continuing differences over these delicate issues largely explains their exclusion from the official agenda. Environmental advocacy by international environmental organizations (focusing on curbing nuclear dumping and marine mammal consumption) and protests and claims by indigenous peoples on behalf of their traditional livelihoods (against mining and forestry) have created asymmetric environmental conflicts between indigenous peoples’ organizations, national and regional authorities, local entrepreneurs, and industry. In this context, despite the support of the ICC and the Saami Council, the establishment of the AEPS as well as the Arctic Council can be interpreted as a sophisticated mechanism whereby central governments could regain control, as mentioned earlier, over the fast-growing international cooperation by new international actors and reassert the primacy of their interests as sovereign states (Käkönen 1992). From the perspective of northern indigenous peoples, the Arctic Council can be seen as an international mechanism through which to connect circumpolar environments and thus better understand them (Paci 2003). Some critical questions face the Arctic Council and could act as a barrier to deeper international cooperation. There has been con-

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cern about strengthening the participation of both nonindigenous inhabitants and indigenous peoples of northern regions. As well, concern is expressed around how and the extent to which the Arctic Council can, or indeed should, become the “voice of the Arctic” in global political forums—a matter of both capacity and political will. Another critical question concerns the balance between promoting environmental protection—in which the cooperation has its roots—and other interests surrounding the mass-scale utilization of natural resources, particularly offshore oil and natural gas drilling in the shelves of the Arctic Ocean. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the growing strategic importance of the rich energy resources of the region and the more obvious impacts of climate change, sovereignty is a hot issue in many northern areas such as the Canadian north and in the two Northern Passages. There are also some disputes between the littoral states on how to divide arctic waters and their ocean floors. Much of this deals with governance. Here the critical question is whether the Arctic Council will be able or willing to deal with new and challenging issues on all aspects of security and the large-scale utilization of natural resources (for more, see Koivurova 2009). Or, due to the fact that these issues deal too much with national interests, how ready are governments to discuss the acute, “real” issues of the utilization of the basically untapped natural resource endowments and existing disputes and claims of the region, and energy security, in the context of the main institutionalized instruments of international (multilateral) cooperation, particularly the Arctic Council? Recent voices have been heard stating that civil servants are not allowed to speak about these relevant northern issues (Fenge 2007). Thus, there is the danger that these discussions will perhaps mostly happen in a bilateral context, or multilaterally in the context of some ad hoc arrangements, such as the ministerial meetings of the five littoral states of the Arctic Ocean—the first one in May 2008 in Ilulissat, Greenland, and the second one in March 2010 in Canada in May 2008 in Ilulissat, Greenland (Ilulissat Declaration 2008; also Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway 2007). Such arrangements would easily marginalize the Arctic Council (Heininen 2007a).

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t h e ba r e n ts se a r egion

The Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) was established by the governments of the Nordic countries, the Russian Federation, and the European Union Commission in 1993 as a new kind of ­international forum for multilateral and bilateral cooperation. The Kirkenes Declaration (1993), the founding document, describes the need “to ­promote sustainable development in the region” and defines the BEAC “as a forum for considering bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the fields of economy, trade, science and technology, tourism, the environment, infrastructure, educational and cultural exchange, as well as projects particularly aimed at improving the situation of indigenous peoples.” It is not, however, a legally binding international agreement. From the beginning, the cooperation has focused on practical issues in these fields, with a focus on environmental protection, the first field of Nordic-Russian cooperation (Joint Declaration 1992), and the economy, including recent industry, regional infrastructure, culture, and tourism along the national borders between the Nordic countries and Russia. The main idea behind the council was to develop a new kind of cooperation in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region, the former “military ­theater” of the European north, that would cut cross the former Iron Curtain and create opportunities for cooperating with Russia (Stoltenberg 1992; Wiberg 1995; Hönneland 1998; Heininen 2002c). The ultimate aim was to decrease military tension and increase stability in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, when Russia was still mostly seen as the “Other” (Tunander 1997), with some sort of peace project of the Western countries and alliances (e.g., The Common Strategy of the European Union on Russia 1999; Heininen 2002b, 108–109). Also behind the creation of the region, however, was a strong tradition of rich regional and interregional cooperation in the European north, as exemplified by both the Pomor trade between north Norway and the White Sea region and the multilateral North Calotte cooperation. The cooperative Barents region can thus be interpreted either as a vision of international cooperation that be-

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came a reality (Pettersen 2002) or the continuation of a strong tradition of regional cooperation. This institutionalized cooperation has a two-level governing structure, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council and its Regional Council. This was a new, even innovative, design in the Arctic when dealing with relations between states and regions, especially in light of the fact that the region was established by six state governments and the Commission of the European Union. The Sami were, however, not enthusiastic about the Barents regional cooperation, nor have they been active in it, due to their own Saami Council (covering the entire region) and fears of neocolonialism and their minor position in the cooperation (Helander 1996). The Barents Euro-Arctic regional cooperation has attracted many civil organizations and voluntary groups as an avenue for bottom-up activities across national borders in various areas, including culture. Examples are a network of Barents dancers, the creation of the Barents Press, and cooperation on women’s issues such as a network of crisis centers for women. Recently, official cooperation has also focused more on transboundary issues relevant to everyday life, such as organized crime and the trafficking of drugs and humans. That some regional and indigenous actors feel they have no real means to influence the process, however, complicates its consolidation at the popular level. Moreover, many of the regional actors involved have been frustrated by the many bureaucratic barriers to achieving concrete results. A major limitation of this initiative is that the official cooperation does not cover the Barents Sea, which makes the Barents region somewhat artificial as a region. This reflects the strong national interests of Norway and Russia in competition over the rich natural resources of the Barents Sea continental shelf. Bilateral negotiations in search of an agreed boundary line have continued for many years, and a bilateral agreement of the delimitation is possible in the near future. Security policy is also excluded from cooperation, attesting to the legacy of the Cold War and the highly sensitive strategic role of the ice-free reaches of the Barents and Norwegian seas. At the same time, some aspects of the practical cooperation, such as nuclear safety as an

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internationally well-known and rather successful project, have included, or do include, the Barents Sea and address security-related issues. If the main and ultimate aim of the initiative, at least from the point of view of the governments of the states of the region, was to decrease tension through transboundary cooperation, then the first years of cooperation can be taken as a success: the Barents Sea has emerged from a period of high tension into a phase of international and interregional cooperation and stability (Heininen 2002c). Other, more concrete achievements include environmental cooperation in agreement on environmental action programs and allocating funding, and the opening of a new international border crossing between Finland and Russia. Meanwhile, progress in business and economic cooperation has been slow and has been set back by disappointments such as the Snöhvit project in the Barents Sea by Norway.

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t he ber ing str a it a r e a

Cooperation in the Bering Strait area provides quite a contrast to that of the Barents Sea region. Unlike the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, there is no international institutional body for intergovernmental or regional cooperation in the Bering Strait area (Heininen 2004, 216–217). Instead, there is an intercontinental network for contacts and cooperation that is flexible and based on bottom-up local and regional activities (Schweitzer 1997). The cooperation between Alaska and Chukotka and other parts of the Russian Far East started in the late 1980s as nongovernmental and local community initiatives, supported by the governments of both sides, on common political, economic, and cultural issues, and also to facilitate people-to-people and family connections across the Bering Strait. The indigenous peoples and their organizations played a key role (Gofman 2004) with events on traditional knowledge and on stewardship of the Bering Sea environment. One of the basic ideas is to promote resource management in indigenous communities in Chukotka, especially of whales, polar bears, and fisheries, and to help scientists collect data, for example, on the harvesting of whales (Tichotsky 2004). Correspondingly, a concrete result of the coopera-

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tion has so far been the previously mentioned Alaska-Chukotka accord for visa-free travel for Inuit. Environmental protection was another driving factor and includes an agreement on the conservation of polar bears and an idea to create an international park in the Bering Strait area. The U.S. National Park Service initiated the Shared Beringian Heritage Program with a plan to establish a joint Beringia Park. There are also several structures for scientific cooperation in the region, including the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium to support research infrastructure on both sides. The University of Alaska has been active in promoting the transition to democracy and a free market of the Russian Far East economy through the training of thousands of entrepreneurs, business managers, and government leaders since 1993. The initial euphoria over the Bering Sea collaboration, especially at the political level, decreased in the mid-1990s, when Chukotka experienced political changes and severe economic problems. The process now involves mainly economic cooperation between peoples. Infrastructure improvements, particularly in communication and transportation, are important for trying to improve relations across the Bering Strait and toward Asia. This is especially so from the point of view of Alaska, which for forty years has been a boundary rather than a crossroads (Palmer 2004; Hickel 2004). Although the tradition of contacts has been important, the main driving force, at least from the U.S. side, has been commercial interests in tourism and trade between the two continents (Kraus 1994). Indeed, the Bering Strait area is a part of the North Pacific and its rim, which is considered to be one of the most dynamic regions in the world from the economic point of view (Heininen and Nicol 2009). t h e a rc t ic a s a k n ow l e d g e - b a s e d r e g io n

As mentioned earlier, in the circumpolar north there has been limited scientific cooperation with national and international research projects for decades. University cooperation started at the end of the 1980s through such forums as the Circumpolar Universities Confer-

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ences, and international scientific cooperation came in the context of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). The IASC was founded in 1990, initiated by the Murmansk speech. As the first circumpolar scientific organization, its aim is to encourage and facilitate international cooperation on arctic research in all disciplines. The IASC was followed by other international ­scientific and academic forums, such as the International Arctic Social Sciences Association, the University of the Arctic as a circumpolar-wide network university with multidisciplinary curriculum, and the Northern Research Forum (NRF), a forum for dialogue on contemporary northern as well as global issues between policy makers, business people, NGO activists, and academics (Heininen 2005a). Scientific assessments conducted by the working groups of the Arctic Council, such as the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and the Arctic Human Development Report, both in 2004, have also brought together scientists from different countries using the Arctic as a common ground for cooperation. Another example is the Third International Polar Year, IPY 2007–08, with a focus on the importance of the Arctic and Antarctic in the Earth system and their connections to global climate and their importance to world politics. In conclusion, region building in the circumpolar north is taking place both region-wide and in several subregions. At the pan-arctic level, the Arctic Council serves as a governmental platform for discussing environmental cooperation and sustainable development, but the council does not have a wide regional representation. Correspondingly, the two councils of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region gather both central and subnational governments within northern Europe, and the Northern Forum includes regional and local governments, but both have limited indigenous participation. Region building, which one the one hand promotes civility and sustainability and on the other decreases military and political tension and increases stability, is relevant both throughout the Arctic and at the subregional level in the north. These developments have successfully decreased tension

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and increased stability, and thus have taken away a traditional threat of widespread war in Europe (UPI-raportti 2007, 22). This is even more the case in the circumpolar north with the former main rivals of the United States and the Soviet Union. Region building might be one of the most relevant new trends in international relations, and thus one of the most important lessons learned in circumpolar cooperation (Heininen 2004, 218). It includes a range of actors and can be taken as a step toward regionalization, based on bottom-up activities. A common theme in all these efforts was, and is, the desire to create a new approach to the geopolitics of the North in the post– Cold War period.

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the circumpol ar north as a part of the globe

Traditional security policy and issues surrounding natural resource exploitation dominated the relationship between the circumpolar north and the outside world during the Cold War. With the end of an era, global geopolitics entered into a new phase with implications for the North, where we have seen the rise of new international nonstate actors, including environmental movements and other nongovernmental organizations, ethnic groups, and transnational corporations that act globally and challenge the unified state system. At this point in the early twenty-first century, the situation is more complex, since the circumpolar north retains its high strategic significance in both military-political matters and matters of natural resources for the arctic states, particularly the two nuclear powers. At the same time, the circumpolar north has become more interesting and attractive economically in a global context for many countries from outside the region and plays a more important role in world politics (e.g., Heininen 2005b). Here I discuss the current relationship between the circumpolar north and the rest of the globe through several short case studies, global problems and flows of globalization, “Northern Dimensions,” utilization of natural

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r­ esources and northern economies, and the Arctic in global environmental issues.

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g l o b a l pro b l e m s a n d f l ow s o f g l o b a l i z at i o n

Many kinds of global problems and flows of globalization influence the northern environment and northern communities. Earlier global influences in the area—such as large-scale fishing, the catching of ­marine mammals, and militarization—combine with newer influences like flows of capital and those of labor, flows of information and those of foreign tourists. Long-range air and water pollution due to agriculture and industrialization, mostly in lower latitudes in Europe and North America, illustrates the Arctic’s vulnerability to global environmental problems. Integration into the globalized world ­economy and advances in information flow and communication technology make the region less “remote,” and northern indigenous peoples are being increasingly integrated into the global indigenous world. Climate change creates major challenges and poses major risks to northern communities, forcing them either to adapt or to become environmental refugees (e.g., Report and Recommendations 2006, 12–13; also Nuttall, this volume). In addition, climate change has challenged the security of many of these settlements and communities due to its physical impacts, such as rapid melting of the sea ice, glaciers, and permafrost. There is an urgent need for mitigation and adaptation in the circumpolar context, and even more in the global context, as well as for national policies and measures on adaptation to this global challenge. Finally, climate change has become a new factor for environmental and human security as well as state sovereignty, as discussed in this volume (see Heininen, chapter 8).

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n o r t h e r n di m e n s i o n s

During the late 1990s, the “Northern Dimension” became a political term and policy focus in both the European Union (EU) and Canada. There has also been a corresponding discussion in Russia, both as a more academic discourse about the need to redefine the role of the Russian North as a geostrategically important resource reserve (Neyolov 2004; Alekseyev 2001) and a political discussion about the need for a long-term northern policy, as the former President Vladimir Putin proposed in the meeting of the Russian Security Council in 2004 (ITAR-TASS 2004). The Northern Dimension is thus becoming a metaphor for new kinds of relations between the capitals and the northern peripheries of the arctic states. Initially adopted in 2000, the EU’s Northern Dimension Action Plan is a framework and a process for continuing dialogue on ­cooperation between the EU and its neighbors, especially the Russian Federation, and for coordination, even management, of ­cross-border cooperation across the EU (European Union 2003; also Myrjord 2003). The EU framework covers a geographically broad and diverse area, ranging from Greenland in the west to northwest Russia in the east and from the Arctic to the southern extremity of the Baltic Sea. The main aim is to increase stability and civic security, enhance democratic reforms, and create positive interdependence and sustainable development. The focus has been more on human resources and social issues, such as education and public health, and on the environment. Further, a special focus is on the threats posed by pollution to arctic nature and the health problems affecting people living in the North. Canada launched the Northern Dimension of its foreign policy in 2000. The main objectives were to enhance the security of Canadians and northern peoples, ensure Canada’s sovereignty in the north, establish the circumpolar north as an integrated entity, and promote human security and sustainable development (Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade 2000). These objectives were well in line with other discussions on northern issues in Canada, such as the role of indigenous governance and the

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geopolitical, legal, and economic implications of climate change (e.g., Huebert 2001; On Thinning Ice 2002). Recently within Canada voices are saying that it should focus more on the human dimension—a critical element of all foreign-policy initiatives in relation to the Arctic. Concerns have also been expressed that Canada “should complete the ‘Northern ­Strategy/Northern Vision’ initiative” (e.g., Report and Recommendations 2006, 14–15, 22), as the Government of Canada (2009) did and launched Canada’s Northern Strategy in 2009. The processes of the two Northern Dimensions are different (see Heininen and Nicol 2007). In Canada, its procedure is based on three simultaneous consultation processes: within the federal government, between the federal government and territorial and provincial governments, and with nongovernmental organizations and stakeholders (Simon 2000). The EU’s Northern Dimension has been mostly developed by EU institutions in a process between the member states and partner countries, each with their particular emphasis. In this process, the partner countries and Greenland have had an almost equal voice and have been able to take initiatives (Heininen 2001). The Northern Dimension has also been adopted as a new item in the political dialogue between the European Union and Canada, which signifies at least a potential for using these initiatives as a way to ­cooperate on global and regional challenges (Delegation of the European Union to Canada 2004). Both Northern Dimensions, however, are basically constrained by limited funding. Northern Dimension policies carry the potential for a new kind of relationship between the Arctic and political centers in the south, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. To have the Arctic as a real “cross-cutting issue, main-streamed within each key priority of the Action Plan” (European Union 2003) would emphasize the role of northern societies and thus form new and more fruitful kinds of north-south relations. Though the enlargement of the EU in 2004 was seen to mean less interest toward the north (Browning and Joenniemi 2003), the new Northern Dimension of the European Union, adopted in November 2006, was developed to become the future common policy of the

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EU, the Russian Federation, Iceland, and Norway (Northern Dimension Policy Framework Document 2006). Despite the fact that the new policy framework does not have clear priorities, its main aim is ambitious, and its agenda, particularly the cross-cutting theme, includes aspects to strengthen comprehensive human security in northern Europe (Heininen 2007b).

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u t i l i z at io n o f n at u r a l r e s ou rc e s a n d nort h er n econom i e s

This elevated level of strategic importance is mostly due to untapped rich natural resources such as fish stocks, metallic minerals, and oil and natural gas. The latter are the most interesting ones here, since approximately ninety billion barrels of untapped oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and four hundred oil and gas fields north of the Arctic Circle exist “hidden” on the shelf of the Arctic Ocean (USGS 2008). There is also alternative energy, such as geoenergy and thermo-energy, mostly in Iceland. Northern regions also have other kinds of natural resources. Gold and diamonds are currently experiencing strong market demand and can be seen to be important for future developments in the north. Additionally, there are resources with immaterial values, such as the beauty of nature, attracting mass-scale tourism in many parts of the world, and consequently, the field of tourism has been growing for the last decades. This is likely to continue at least insofar as the northern regions retain snow, darkness, the feeling of emptiness as well as good connections, a modern infrastructure, and convenient accommodation. This is already the case, especially in Iceland, Finnish Lapland, and Alaska. Most of the gross production of the circumpolar north, some USD PPP $225 billion a year, is based primarily on the large-scale exploitation of natural resources such as precious metals and hydrocarbons for the energy needs of the northern developed countries (Duhaime and Caron 2006; see Huskey, this volume). Most of this gross production comes from Russia, which is no surprise, considering that Russia’s rich oil and natural gas resources are generally located in her northern re-

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gions, such as Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The ­second-biggest gross production total is in Alaska, which has the highest figure per capita. In basic economic terms, the Arctic, however, remains a primarily peripheral region with a rather low per capita gross product (Duhaime 2004). This is explained in part by the politico-cultural legacy of state colonialism in the northern peripheries and by a firm residue of “national ­interest” in the eight arctic states’ northern policies. That the northern regions have been taken into the globalized world economy, play a significant role in the world’s natural resources production (see Huskey, this volume), and, based on huge undiscovered oil and natural gas resources, will continue to play in the future, means the increasing utilization of the region’s energy potential and more flows of raw materials out of the region. Further, energy issues are assuming a central position, not only in the traditional relations between the Middle East and the West, but also in the relations between Europe and Russia, North America and Russia, and China and Russia. All this has made energy security a central topic globally and points to the growing importance of energy security also in the north. Since most undiscovered oil and natural gas resources could be located in the shelves of the arctic seas, the UNCLOS plays a strategically ­important role here, as it is a global agreement and the constitution of the seas, and it has a proper procedure on how the littoral states might be able to expand their economic interests beyond their internal waters and EEZs (Macnab 2008). Followed from this, there will likely be increasing development of northern energy resources, including oil, natural gas and coal, and, it is hoped, renewable resources. This means that northern regions of the globe will be subjected to increased drilling for oil and natural gas and increased transportation initiatives such as new and global trans-arctic sea routes. This correspondingly will lead to the building of more infrastructure for drilling and transportation. Further, these higher volumes of production, such as drilling for oil in cold, icy waters, and transportation will mean bigger risks of environmental pollution and accidents to the fragile arctic environment.

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Finally, all this will bring more and new actors from outside the region to the north, such as oil and mining companies and other corporations (either transnational or state), as well as international nongovernmental organizations, such as environmental ones. Indeed, the circumpolar north has become a target area for the growing economic, political, and military interests of both the eight Arctic states and other actors from outside of the region. These include major powers in Europe, such as the United Kingdom and France, and major and growing powers in Asia, such as Japan and China. One impact of globalization is therefore a growing worldwide interest in the circumpolar north.

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t h e c i rc u m p o l a r n o r t h i n g l o b a l e n v i ro n m e n ta l i s s u e s

Earlier activities in the circumpolar north, such as the Second International Polar Year in 1932–33, did not leave any permanent institutionalized arrangement but brought research and scientific work in northern regions and communities. Recently, the circumpolar north has played a critical role in environmental issues, and the Arctic has also been described as an environmental linchpin (e.g., Young and Einarsson 2004, 24–25; see Nuttall, this volume). This vision seems relevant at a time when worldwide, even global, problems, like longrange air and water pollution, radioactivity, and climate change create challenges for northern peoples and communities, for example, concerning food security. The vision is even more relevant because potentially effective responses to such global challenges can only be realized through international cooperation between governments and subregional and civil actors. This is not an easy task, however, since both global and arctic-based environmental problems are closely connected to industrialization, the utilization of natural resources, and the military, and thus are of fundamental interests to unified-states. The circumpolar north could play a critical role in global environmental issues for two reasons. First, the Arctic has been a “laboratory” or “workshop” for science and multidisciplinary research on the environment for decades and recently on climate change and its impacts. The emerging intercourse between science and traditional

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knowledge may further strengthen the knowledge base this provides. Second, the current international arctic cooperation started with environmental protection and has already achieved new technical innovations, for example, in nuclear safety and new attempts to build up the interplay between science and politics (e.g., Heininen 2005a). The global relevance of this knowledge and the know-how in regionwide decision making is sufficient to merit sustained efforts to communicate it to the outside world. Finally, based on the fact that the circumpolar north is stable and peaceful, a few more positive developments have also emerged and are continuing to emerge. Among them are, first, that the diversity of both northern nature and that of northern cultures is remarkable, and second, that there are some successful stories, as mentioned earlier. All this makes it possible to claim that such developments have made the region an interesting and relevant area in the study of world politics.

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conclusion

The circumpolar north is not insulated from developments at the global level but is closely integrated into the forces of globalization and internationalization and as such is no longer a periphery. At the same time, it has its own special regional dynamics based on post–Cold War political changes, such as region building and regionalization. International relations of the early twenty-first century’s north are much based on intergovernmental and interregional, and mostly ­multilateral international, cooperation. Its many international institutions and networks create possibilities for the North to become an active player in world politics, with constructive ways to contribute fresh ideas. Three main themes define the current stage of international relations and geopolitics in the Arctic. The first is the intensive interregional and often circumpolar collaboration among indigenous peoples, subnational governments, and civil organizations. This can be seen as a renaissance of pan-arctic cooperation as it builds on traditions of social contacts and trade networks between northern peoples and societies. The new international actors have created special re-

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gional dynamics in which transborder cooperation is a realistic possibility and constitutes a new resource for development. This is partly connected to political and institutional changes in northern governance, bringing more self-determination and autonomy. As both a precondition and a result of these developments, arctic international politics, as well geopolitics, has moved from state domination and militarization toward a more human orientation. The second theme is region building, which includes defining the Arctic as a distinct, comprehensive region. This has mostly been a top-down, state-initiated activity aimed at relieving tension and fostering stability, such as the Barents Region’s cooperation, but it also includes bottom-up initiatives, illustrated by activities in the Bering Strait area. Preconditions for region building have been the declining relative importance of military-based security and the more acute awareness of the often common objectives of environmental protection and human development. Results of this can mostly be interpreted to be successful, meaning that the ultimate aim—that is, an increase of stability and peace—has been reached. The third theme, which is becoming more relevant and important, concerns the changing nature of relations between the circumpolar north and the outside world as the military significance of the region is being supplemented by its strategic role in the global economy, based on its rich natural resources. Northern economies are increasingly integrated into the globalized world economy, and the importance of northern regions may grow with the increased demand for strategic minerals and energy resources, with larger companies with more capital taking an interest in the region, and with technology creating easier access to raw material sources. This integration is driven more by major states and transnational corporations than by regional actors; new international institutes also play a minor role here. Climate change and related sea-ice thinning will likely bring intensified civilian transportation and military activities in the Arctic Ocean, which complicates the situation. Within a broader concept of security that includes the environment, the economy, and climate change, security policy retains a critical role. It includes issues related

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to state sovereignty and jurisdiction over natural resources, and the region’s continuing global military-strategic significance as well as security implications of climate change and its impacts. In summary, parallel to the fact that international and ­interregional cooperation has become more intensive in northern regions, and that there are new international actors, the influence of global problems and globalization are bringing new flows and new actors from outside in. Much of this is due to the strategic importance of energy security and the interpretation of climate change as a threat. The newest trend among the arctic states might, however, be to emphasize national interests. All this raises the possibility of a change, meaning both challenges, even threats, and opportunities in circumpolar international cooperation and geopolitics in the near future. It is possible to conclude that a significant level of rapid and multifunctional environmental,​ geo-economic, and geopolitical change has occurred in the circumpolar north, particularly with regard to certain factors, such as strategic resources, energy security, global transportation routes, and climate change.

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notes

1. See, for example, the Working Group on Arctic International Rela-

tions run by Dartmouth College (the United States) and the University of Toronto (Canada) in the 1980s; International Research Project on Sustainable Development and Security in the Arctic by the Tampere Peace Research Institute in Finland in 1987–1993; as well as the Introduction of the Arctic Human Development Report (2004). 2. The region also includes two self-governing regions, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which are under the Danish rule, and Svalbard, an archipelago under the auspices of the international Treaty of Spitzbergen and the Norwegian legislation.

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Research Committee, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, Canadian Polar Commission). Osherenko, Gail, and Oran R. Young. 1989. The Age of the Arctic: Hot Conflicts and Cold Realities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Östreng, Willy, ed. 1999. National Security and International ­Environmental Cooperation in the Arctic—The Case of the Northern Sea Route. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Ottawa Declaration. 1996. Declaration on the Establishment of the Arctic Council. Ottawa, 19th day of September 1996. Paci, J. C. D. 2003. “Connecting Circumpolar Environments: Arctic Athabaskan Council and Arctic Council Programmes.” In Circumpolar Connections: Supplementary Proceedings of the 8th Circumpolar Cooperation Conference, 18–26 . Whitehorse: Circumpolar Universities Association and Yukon College. Palmer, W. B. 2004. A meeting of the experts on the Bering Strait area cooperation (V. S. Gofman, L. Huskey, W. B. Palmer, G. Protasel, J. Tichotsky), May 19 at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. Pettersen, O. 2002. The Vision That Became Reality: The Regional Barents Cooperation 1993–2003. Kirkenes: Barents Secretariat. Pokka, H. 1996. A Speech of Governor Hannele Pokka at ­Kansainvälistyvä Lappi Seminar, February 28, Rovaniemi, Finland. Report and Recommendations. 2006. “The Arctic and Canada’s Foreign Policy,” a workshop sponsored by the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, October 4–5. Ronkainen, R., and S.-E. Bucht. 2007. “Tornio-Haparanda—A Unique Result of City Twinning.” In The Borderless North: Proceedings of the Fourth NRF Open Meeting, ed. Jon Haukur Ingimundarson, Embla Eir Oddsdottir, and Gudrun Rosa Thorsteinsdottir, 50–52, http://www.nrf.is/Publications/publications.html (accessed October 1, 2007). Rovaniemi Declaration. 1991. Signed by the Eight Arctic Nations, June 14, Rovaniemi, Finland. Salekhard Declaration. 2006. Salekhard Declaration on the Occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Arctic Council, the Fifth AC

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Ministerial Meeting, October 26, Salekhard, Russia. Schweitzer, P. P. 1997. “Traveling Between Continents.” Arctic Research of the United States 11 (Spring/Summer):68. Scrivener, D. 1989. Gorbachev’s Murmansk Speech: The Soviet Initiative and Western Response. Oslo: Norwegian Atlantic Committee. ———. 2000. “International Cooperation.” In The Arctic: Environment, People, Policy, ed. M. Nuttall and T. V. Callaghan, 601– 620. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers. Sheldon, J. F. 1989. “Across the Ice Curtain: Alaska-Siberia Visits.” Polar Record 25 (154):219–222. Simon, M. 2000. “Canada’s Renewed Commitment to Northern Issues through Policy Development and Partnership-Building.” Luncheon address at the International Colloquium on the North Humanities and Social Sciences, Edmonton, Alberta, May 27. ———. 2003. A Message from Mary Simon, Canadian Ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs. INRIPP 2. Newsletter (October). Stoltenberg, T. 1992. “The Barents Region: Reorganizing Northern Europe.” International Challenges, special issue on the Barents Region, 12(4). Tichotsky, J. 2004. A meeting with experts on the Bering Strait area cooperation (V. S. Gofman, L. Huskey, W. B. Palmer, G. ­Protasel, J. Tichotsky), May 19, the University of Alaska, Anchorage (personal notes). Torvinen, O. 2008. “Regional Levels’ Active Role in Implementing Northern Policies.” In The Proceedings of Calotte Academy 2007 “New Northern Dimension,” ed. Lassi Heininen, 93–101. University of Lapland and Municipality of Inari, Rovaniemi. Tromsö Declaration. 2009. Tromsö Declaration on the occasion of the Sixth Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council. April 29, 2009, Tromsö, Norway. Tunander, O. 1997. “Post-Cold War Europe: Synthesis of a Bipolar Friend-Foe Structure and a Hierarchic Cosmos-Chaos Structure?” In Geopolitics in Post-Wall Europe: Security, Territory and Identity, ed. O. Tunander, P. Baev, and V. I. Einagel, 17–44. London: Sage Publications.

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UN International Decade of Indigenous Peoples. 1997. Common Objectives and Joint Measures of the Saami Parliaments, a declaration of the meeting of the Saami Parliaments during the spring and fall of 1997. UNCLOS Convention. 1985. “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” In Maritime Affairs—A World Handbook. A Reference Guide to Maritime Organisations: Conventions and Disputes and to the International Politics of the Sea, ed. H. W. Degenhardt, Appendix 1, 247–357. London: Longman. UPI-raportti. 2007. “Joidenkin puolustamisesta monen turvaamiseen—Naton tie puolutusliitosta turvallisuusmanageriksi.” Ed. Charley Salonius-Pasternak. Ulkopoliittinen instituutti. USGS. 2008. “Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal: Estimates of Undiscovered Oil and Gas North of the Arctic Circle.” Fact Sheet 2008-3049. Wiberg, U. 1995. From Vision to Functional Relationship in the Barents Region. Umeå: Umeå University, Centre for Regional Science, Northern Studies Programme. Young, Oran R., and Niels Einarsson. 2004. “Introduction: Human Development in the Arctic” and “A Human Development Agenda for the Arctic: Major Findings and Emerging Issues.” In Arctic Human Development Report. Akureyri: Stefansson Arctic Institute. Zalamans, D. 2001. “Transboundary Regionalisation—The Case of Haparanda and Tornio.” In Borders Matter: Transfrontier Regions in Contemporary Europe, ed. G. Bucken-Knapp and M. Schack. Aabenraa: Danish Institute of Border Region Studies.

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index

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

A abuse, 95–96, 127 activism, 158 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears (1973), 170, 267 agriculture. See colonization Alaska creation of the state of, 84 economy in, 48 gold rushes in, 44 homesteading in, 40 military in, 242–243 mortality rates in, 127 oil in, 61–62, 291 pollution in, 235 trade domination in, 37 Alaska Constitution, 95 Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC), 74, 85, 97–98, 159 Alaska Highway, 47 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, 63 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (1971), 74, 82, 84, 95, 98, 159 alcoholism, 127, 205 Aleut International Association, 158 alternative energy, 106, 291 animal husbandry, 41 animal protection, 12, 174 anti-submarine warfare (ASW), 229 antiwhaling nations, 168

archaeological sites, 156 Archangel Oblast, 199, 203 Arctic Athabaskan Council, 158, 273 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), 123, 168, 274, 286 Arctic Council, 278–281 international relations and the, 275 organizations of, 158, 286 Permanent Participants, 273 security and, 231, 249 Sustainable Development Working Group (SDWG), 279 Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS), 230, 249, 270, 273, 278–280 Arctic Human Development Report (2004), 6, 13, 123, 179, 265, 276–277, 286 Arctic Military Environmental Cooperation (AMEC), 234 Arctic Monitoring Assessment Programme (AMAP), 249, 273 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, 58 Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic Environment Report, 123 Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, 98 Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act (AWPPA), 233 Assembly of First Nations, 155 Association of World Reindeer Herders, 201

307 Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-20 01:48:11.

308

Atassut, 105 autonomy challenges in obtaining, 152 hunting and gathering and, 28–30 increase in, 93, 101–105, 111, 272, 294 politics and, 99 reduction in, 52 regional, 11

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

B Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC), 282, 283 Barents Euro-Arctic Region (BEAR), 244, 282 Barents Sea, 181, 188–190, 223, 233, 241–243, 247, 282–284 Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, 285 Beck, Ulrick, 153–154 Bering Straight area, 284–285 Beringia Park, 285 big oil playground, 247 bio-invaders, 227 biological threats, 165–166 bonanza deposits, 62 boom-bust economy, 77 boomerang strategy, 208 bowhead whales, 38–39, 85 brigades, 201 Brundtland Report, 152

C campaigns, 84 Canadian Constitution, 92 Canadian North dependence in, 23 developments in, 98–103 English establishment in, 34–35 industrial activity in, 47, 50 mortality rates in, 127 Northwest Territories, 100–103

Index

Nunavut, 102–103 political changes in, 92 pollution in, 235 sovereignty in, 281 trade domination in, 37 Yukon Territory, 99–100 canneries, 48 Capital Improvements Program (CIP), 97 capitalism, 42, 51, 135–138, 142, 151 caribou, 161–162, 168–173 case studies, 181–184 cash, 68, 94 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 93 Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 231, 233 Christianity, converting to, 33 Circumpolar Coping Processes Project (CCPP), 13, 138 Circumpolar Universities Conferences, 285 citizenship, right of, 72 civility, 224 classical liberalism, 42–44 climate change epistemological conflicts and, 169–171 international relations and, 274, 281, 288–289, 295 security and, 226, 239, 249–252 solutions to, 164 coal, 50, 62, 151, 292 Coastal Management Program, 98 Coca-Colanization, 11 cod, 192–193, 194, 268 “cod war,” 268 Cold War, 228, 230 militarization during, 17 security and, 222–223 colonization, 31, 40–41, 44, 111, 266

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Index

Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I), 240, 241 Commission of the European Union, 283 Commission on Self-Governance (1999), 105 Committee for the Original Peoples’ Entitlement (COPE), 101 Committee of Assistance for the Peoples of the Northern Peripheral Regions, 111 Committee on Sami Culture, 196–197 Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife, 173 communications technologies, 13, 133, 208, 279, 285 Communist Party, 49 communities capacity of, 123, 135, 136–137 economy of, 65 viability of, 120–122 Community Development Quota (CDQ), 72, 85 Community Empowerment Initiative, 130 Community Wellness Movement, 130 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, 238 Constitution Act, 100 constitutional interpretations, 16 constitutional reforms, 93, 112 consumerism, 11 Convention on Conservation of North Pacific Fur Seals, 70–71 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, 156 Cooperative Threat Reduction Umbrella Agreement for Russia, 232 cosmopolitanism, 10, 153 Council of Yukon Indians, 99 crustaceans, 60

309

Cultural Property Implementation Act, 156 culture, 149–175 capital and, 140–141 diversity and, 151, 153, 157 expressions of, 153 extinction of, 152 globalization and, 11–14 heterogeneity and, 11–12 homogeneity and, 11, 151 impacts on, 12 local, 180 protection of, 152, 156 traditions of, 188 czar, 32, 111

D Danish-Greenlandic Parliamentary Self-Government Commission, 105 Danish Realm, 103 Danish Rule, 272 DDT, 248 decolonization, 11, 103 Deh Cho Natives, 101 deindustrialization, 141 demilitarization, 243 Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND), 99, 100 Department of Regional Coordination, 201 dialects, 151 diamonds, 57, 60, 101, 206, 291 Directorate of Fisheries, 182 diseases, 127–128, 227, 251–252 Distant Early Warning (DEW Line), 235, 236, 241, 248 diversification, 139–142, 157 drilling, 236, 243, 248, 281, 292

E ecological sustainability, 162

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310

economics, 107 economy artificial, 75 boom-bust, 77 changes in, 76 dependence on, 94 development of, 158 future of, 77–78 globalization of, 6–9 international, 57, 60––65, 85 local, 57, 65–76, 86 of the north, 59–60 opportunities in the, 94 recessions, 9 remote, 70 role of government in, 83 structures of, 25 sustainable, 77 systems, 26–30 transfer, 75 ecosystems, 169 ecotourism, 138 education, 104, 122, 136 employment, 50, 74, 97, 120, 126 Endangered Peoples of the Arctic, 12–13 endangered species, 168–173, 174 energy alternative, 106, 291 resources, 245–252 security, 224, 246, 292, 296 environment conditions, 58–59 issues, 293–294 management, 160 military and, 237 protection, 79, 158, 233–235, 273, 280, 282, 285 refugees, 288 regulations, 96 epistemology, 16, 157–164, 174–175 Erv, 201–202, 204 ethnicity, 179, 187–188

Index

ethnopolitics, 181, 194, 205 Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), 239 European goods dependence on, 37 European populations economic needs of, 41 European Union, 234 exclusive economic zone (EEZ), 247, 268, 292 expert knowledge, 164–168 external markets, 23 external relations, 274–277

F Faroe Islands, 106–108 Faroese Agricultural Board, 139 Federal Law Guaranteeing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Russian Federation (1999), 207 Federal Law on Agreements Concerning Production Sharing (1995), 206 Federal Law on Specially Protected Territories (1995), 206–207 Federal Law on Territories for the Traditional Use of Nature (2001), 207 felting industry, 35 Fennoscandia, 43–44, 78, 103, 132, 150 global economy in, 9 railways in, 44 Sami-Norse relations in, 30 Finnmark, 109, 189–192, 276 Finnmark Act (2005), 85, 198 First Nations, 15, 99–100, 101, 102 fiscal extraction, 96 fishing. See also hunting commercial, 63 cultural identity and, 207 decline in fish and, 163

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Index

economy and, 60, 67, 76, 120, 134, 138 energy security and, 246 Faroe Islands and, 107 fjord, 189–190 Greeland and, 104 history of, 44 inland, 26–27 locations of, 111 policies on, 193–199 quotas, 72, 85, 182, 192–193 right to, 82 sea, 187 Sea Sami, 188–189 selective, 191 small-boat, 198, 207–208 subsistence lifestyle and, 110 fjord rationality, 190–191 food assistance, 73 security, 250 stores, 69 traditional, 174–175 Fordist, 13, 50–51 forestry, 44, 45, 48, 50, 120 free market, 184 furs arctic fox, 37 beaver, 37 decline in animals bearing, 78 demand for, 30–37 European demand for, 33 harvesting, 25, 32, 37 market commodity of, 30 paying with, 29 sable, 32 trading, 24, 30–37, 35, 78

G G8 Group, 234 gas, 98 extraction, 209

311

production, 60 gathering, 25. See also hunting economic systems of, 26–30, 51–52 extensions of, 41 preindustrial colonialism and, 31 societies, 15, 24 transportation and, 27, 28 gender issues, 95, 131 geo-economics, 225 geography accessibility issues and, 129 barriers due to, 28–29 obstacles of, 52 geopolitics, 221, 231–232, 243, 247, 267–269, 277, 294 ghost towns, 132 glasnost, 112 global economic recession (20082009), 107 global environmental problems, 248–249 global forces, 44, 151, 186, 225–227, 288 global warming, 150, 169 globalization benefits of, 13 cultural, 11–14 definition of, 3–5 economic, 6–9 political, 9–11 responses to, 133–142 glocalization, 12, 13, 208–209 gold, 50 mining, 49, 58, 62 rushes, 44, 45, 47, 48 value of, 62 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 230, 269 government, 45 changing forms of, 91–115 decisions by, 78 employment in, 67 funds, 76

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312

infrastructure, 96 limited, 64 participation from, 84 regulations of, 63 role of, 59 grassroots movements, 154 Great Lakes, 34 Greenland, 103–106 geography of, 116 mortality rates in, 127 recolonization in, 38 subsidies in, 63 Greenland, University of, 104–105 Greenland Association of Hunters and Fishers, 163 Greenland Home Rule Act (1979), 103–106, 159 Greenlandization, 103–106 Greenpeace International, 233, 269, 270 gross domestic product (GDP), 59–60, 64, 72, 83, 124 Guggenheim, 45, 48 Gwich’in Council International, 158, 273

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H halibut, 163 harvesting income from, 67 subsistence, 80 health-care, 111, 125, 128, 129–130, 251 Helander-Renvall, Elina, 17, 18 herring, 192 high north, 222, 227–238, 266, 276 highway construction, 47–48 HIV/AIDS, 251 Home Rule Act (1979), 105, 272 homesteading. See colonization horse and cattle breeding, 26, 52 Hudson’s Bay, 35, 39 Hudson’s Bay Company, 36, 37 human capital, 142

Index

human rights, 152 human security, 165, 223–224 hunting, 25. See also fishing; gathering commercial, 63 economy and, 26–30, 51–52, 67, 76 extensions of, 41 locations of, 111 quotas, 174 right to, 82, 161 subsistence lifestyle and, 110 Huskey, Lee, 15 hybrid identities, 141

I iasak, 32, 33 income, 64, 67, 68, 185 alternative, 138 average, 125 maintenance programs, 73 personal, 124 taxable, 126 Income Security Program, 68 indigeneous peoples contact with other peoples and, 29 indigenous peoples, 110, 155, 205 circumpolar cooperation by, 271 as international actors, 271–274 international movement of, 269 minority status of, 114 movements of, 153, 195 organizations of, 154, 158, 265, 284 rights of, 149–175, 155, 179, 205, 211 Indigenous Peoples’ Secretariat, 272 industrialism, 15, 24, 42–51, 229, 236 activity of, 81 development of, 45 exploitation of, 25, 49 Fordist model of, 50–51 natural resource-based, 43–44 threats from, 154 wealth produced by, 44

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Index

inequality, 123 infant mortality, 126 information technology, 153 institutional change, 83–85 institutions, 164 intellectual property rights, 165 International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), 285–286 International Council for Exploration of the Seas, 182 International Geophysical Year, 267 International Labour Organization (ILO), 155, 197 international laws, 9, 195–196 international markets, 8 International Monetary Fund, 6–7 international relations, 265–296 International Research Project on Sustainable Development and Security in the Arctic, 296 International Wellbeing Index (IWI), 124 International Whaling Commission, 168 Internet, 153, 195, 206, 208 Inuit Ataqatigiit, 105, 106 Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), 109, 155–159, 171, 269, 272–273, 277, 280 Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), 171 Inuvialuit, 101 Inuvialuit Final Agreement (1984), 82, 159 Inuvialuit Game Council, 159 invasive species, 165–166 investments, 136 Iron Curtain, 244

J James Bay, 34–37, 169 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (1975-1977), 159

313

Jarawa Tribal Reserve, 153 jobs, creation of, 72, 74 Johannesburg Declaration of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, 274 J.P. Morgan, 48

K kalaalimernit, 167 Keflavik Naval Air Station, 240 Kirkenes Declaration (1993), 282 Kleist, Kuupik, 106 Klondike Gold Rush, 46, 62 Kola Peninsula, 243 Komsomolets, 233 Kursk, 233–235, 242

L labor cheap, 134 dependence on natives for, 40 division of, 43, 44 forced, 33 Lake Superior, 34 land access, 81 claims, 71, 77, 82–84, 141 ownership, 81–82 protecting, 152 resources, 81 usage, 201 Landscape and Memory (Schama), 164 Landsting, 103 Lappish, 30 law optimism, 198 laws, implementing, 207 legal reforms, Russian North and, 112 liberalism, classical, 44 licenses, 81 life expectancy, 124–127 livelihoods, 149, 179–211 local control, lack of, 23–24

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314

local culture, 180 local identities, redefining, 13 “Local Self-Government,” 113 Logting, 107, 108 lumber industry, 44–45 lumpenization, 70

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M Man in the Biosphere Programme, 267 Management of Social Transformation (MOST), 138 Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 70–71, 79 marine mammals, 75, 76, 246 Marine Mammals Management Office, 171 maritime sources hunting, 26–28 management of, 196 markets economy of, 69 expansion of, 43, 44 forces of, 6 improving, 71 sectors of, 66 transactions in, 68 marriage, connections through, 37 McBeath, Jerry, 15–16 meat, 67–68, 200–201 mental health, 122 migration, 29, 73, 131, 149–150, 189 militarization, 221, 229, 232 military, 295 environmental impacts caused by the, 235, 237 presence, 240, 242 security, 280 structures, 252 theater, 229, 239, 282 mineral resources, 60, 245–252 minimum-wage laws, 70

Index

mining, 44–50, 120. See also gold dependency on, 99 subsurface, 81 Ministry of Agriculture, 201 Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, 182 minorities, 81, 109 mobility, 225 modernization, 153–154 monopolies, 47 Montreal Protocol, 166 Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme, 234 Murmansk County and Northern Norway: An Analysis of Key Economic and Social Indicators (2008), 126

N NANA Regional Corporation, 71–72, 98 NAO, 202, 203, 210 National Coalition of American Indians, 152 natural gas, 61, 246, 247 natural resources, 58, 94, 244, 287 claiming, 165 dependence on, 65, 133 exploitation of, 47, 49 exporting, 60 extraction of, 120, 128, 202, 204 future of, 158 Greenland, 106 nonrenewable, 248 northern economies and, 291–293 production of, 60 products from, 69 scarcity of, 226 utilization of, 270, 280, 281 Nenets, 206, 210 Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO), 181, 183–184, 199–207, 243

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Index

neocolonialism, 283 NGOs, 180, 195, 206, 286 nomadic populations, 111 nonindigenous peoples, 41, 46, 100, 114, 123–128, 158, 280 nonrenewable resources, 71–74, 77, 80, 82, 101, 248 Nordic Saami Council, 233, 271 North American Air Defense (NORAD), 241 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 228, 232–234, 237, 239, 240–241, 244, 267 North Calotte Committee, 268 North Calotte Peace Days, 268 North Slope Borough, 74–76, 84, 91–98, 115 North Slope Borough Permanent Fund, 97 northern dimensions, 288–290 Northern Research Forum (NRF), 274–275, 286 Northern Sciences Network, 267 Northern Sea Route, 50, 250, 269 north-south relationship, 265–266 Northwest Arctic Borough, 98 Northwest Company, 36 Northwest Territories (NWT), 67, 95, 100–103 Norwegian Constitution, 197 Norwegian Fishers’ Union, 182–183, 194, 208 Norwegian Fishery Department, 195, 197–199 Novaya Zemlya, 236 nuclear safety, 222, 231–235, 283 nuclear waste, 121, 248, 269 Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Canada, 121 nuclear weapons, 229, 238, 241, 252 accidents, 245 submarines, 241

315

tests, 233, 236 warheads, 240–241, 253 Nunavut, 84, 101–103 businesses and, 71 government of, 173 Nunavut Agreement (1992), 159 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (1993), 172 Nunavut Wildlife Management Board (NWMB), 171–172, 173 Nuttall, Mark, 16, 185

O obshchina, 81 oil, 48–49, 98 drilling, 236 extraction, 209 industry, 185, 202–205 production, 60 spills, 204 world’s reserves of, 246 okrugs, 111 ontology, 174–175 outside interests, 84 overfishing, 163 ownership, 83, 84, 86

P pan-arctic identity, 14, 24, 271, 277, 286, 294 pandemics, 251–252 parliaments, 109 Partnership for Peace (PfP), 239 pastoralism, 25, 41, 44, 67 patriation, 93, 100 Peoples Party, 107 perestroika, 112 permafrost, 249, 251 Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples, 156 persistent organic pollutants (POPs), 248, 274

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316

petroleum production, 60 physical health, 122 polar bears, 85, 168–173, 267, 285 politics, 107 capabilities of, 93–94 globalization of, 9–11 institutions of, 179 mobilization of, 114 new, 94–95 parties, competition between, 99 protests, 154 security and, 265 structures of, 91, 114 transformation of, 110 pollution, 81, 169, 226, 248, 273, 292 transboundary, 270 population, 77, 123 centralization of, 79 decline in, 120 decline of, 131 increase in, 81 poverty, 121, 122, 128 power issues, 205–206 preindustrial colonialism, 15, 26, 30–42, 52 private-sector, earnings from the, 69 privatization, 201 production, 25, 86 property rights, 83 property taxes, 97 Prudhoe Bay oil fields, 62–63 public goods, global, 164–168 public services, 73 pulp and paper mills, 44

Q Qaujimajatuqangit, 102 quality-of-life, 120 quota systems, 85

R radioactive waste, 233, 236, 248–249

Index

Radisson and Groseilliers, 34–35 railroads, 44, 45, 48, 50 ranching, 41, 44 Red Dog zinc mine, 63, 71–72, 83, 98 refugees, 227, 288 regionalization, 287 regions autonomy of, 11 building, 3, 17, 179, 265, 277–278, 286–287, 294–295 cooperation between, 274–277 security in, 225 regulations, 78 reindeer antlers, 200, 209 breeding, 26, 28, 111 loss of, 203 meat from, 200, 203 migration, 184 pastoralism, 67 pastures, 58, 83 Reindeer Herders’ Union of Russia, 201, 208 reindeer herding culture and, 183–184 economic situations and, 8, 25, 41, 68, 70, 75, 81, 181 future of, 208–209 history of, 44 industrialism and, 110 international relations and, 275 land and, 82, 242 management of, 201–203 Nenets Autonomous Okrug and, 199–207 Sami people and, 109 relocation, 79 renewable resources, 60, 135, 246 Republican Party, 107 resettlements, 70 resources conservation of, 191

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Index

exploitation of, 44 management of, 99, 284 production of, 57, 80–81 regulation of, 191–192 rights and, 160 responding to globalization, 152–157 Riabova, Larisa, 16 risk societies, 232 Risk Society, The (Beck), 153–154 Royal Greenlandic Trade Department, 104 Russia conquest of, 32 economic crisis in, 203 expansion into Siberia and, 78 politics of, 206–207 Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), 112, 158, 205, 273 Russian Far East, 67, 75, 167 Russian Federation, 183–184, 206– 207, 210 Russian North, 49, 150 industrial exploitation in, 49 legal reforms in, 112 patterns in, 110–114 population of, 131–132 postcommunist reforms, 112–114 precommunist era of, 110–111 Soviet period of, 111–112 Russian Northern Fleet, 241 Russian-American Company, 37 Russification, 112

S Saami Council, 158, 233, 269, 273, 280, 283 Sami, 108–109 Barents Euro-Arctic Council and, 283 colonization of, 31 culture of, 194

317

defining, 269 economic growth and, 81, 207–208 exploitation of, 192 fur trading and, 37 governance and, 115 homeland of, 271 identity, 187–188 language of, 30 military presence and, 242 radioactivity and, 236 reindeer herding and, 68, 82 reindeer pastoralism and, 67 rights of, 103, 198 social services and, 130 Sami Council, 109 Sami Parliament, 85, 195–198, 208 sawmills, 43–44, 48 Schama, Simon, 164 schools, 73, 111, 130 sea ice, 169, 249, 295 Sea Sami culture, 187–188, 190, 211 economic growth and, 207–208 fishing society of, 181–183 parliament of, 195–196 resource use of, 188–189 values, 186 Vestertana, 187 seals, 70–71, 79, 192 Second International Polar Year, 293 security, 221–253, 288 defining, 222–227, 238–245, 252 energy, 224, 292, 296 global problems and, 239–245 high north, 227–238 human, 223–224 policies of, 280 regional, 225 stages of, 228 self-determination, 106, 107, 152, 271, 276, 294

Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-20 01:48:11.

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

318

self-government, 16, 91, 92–95, 102, 106–107, 112–113, 141–142 Self-Government Agreement, 105 self-sufficiency, 41, 51–52 September 11 terrorist attacks, 92, 245 Shared Beringian Heritage Program, 285 sharing, culture of, 185–187 sheep herding, 63 shrimp production, 63 Siberia colonization into, 40 furs obtained in, 32 gold mining in, 49 indigenous peoples of, 42, 127, 205 Russian expansion into, 29, 33, 78 Siumut, 105, 106 slavery, 78 small-boat fishing, 198, 207–208 Smith, Carsten, 196–197 snowmobiles, 186 social capital, 142 social change, 153 Social Democratic Party, 107 social dislocation, 122 social policy reforms, 129 Social Sciences Citation Index, 5 social services, 123–124, 128–131 social welfare, 96, 129 socioeconomic development, 267, 275 soft-law instrument, 279 Southcott, Chris, 14–15 sovereignty, 92, 244, 267, 268, 281 Species at Risk Act, 173 Spitsbergen Treaty (1920), 2 St. Lawrence Valley, 34 standard of living, 64, 76, 124, 185, 191 Standing Committee of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region (SCPAR), 278 state farms, 75, 76

Index

stock assessment, 162–163 Stockholm Convention, 274 subnational governments, 274–277 subsidies, 63, 64, 76, 108 subsistence activities, 41, 185 foods, 94 harvesting, 80, 200 hunting, 67 lifestyles, 110 resources, 168 Survey of Living Conditions of the Arctic, 123 sustainability, 79, 158, 191, 193, 275 synthetic products, 40

T Tampere Peace Research Institute, 296 Tana Fjord, 181–182, 189–190, 192, 207 taxes, 31–33, 37, 73–78, 97, 110–111, 129, 204 technology, 191–192 television, influences of, 12 temperature, 58–59 terrorism, fear of, 206 Third International Polar Year, 286 timber, 43–44, 58, 60 tourism, 48, 66, 69, 138–139, 294 toxic chemicals, 150 trading, 24, 30–37 traditional sector, 67 traffic, 250 training, 136 Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, 61 transboundary, 233, 248, 268–269, 283–284 transfers, 66, 72, 77, 94 economy, 75 examples of, 66 income, 86 role of, 74

Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-20 01:48:11.

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

Index

319

transportation air, 66 construction of, 44, 47 importance of, 50, 69 improvements in, 285 international relations and, 279 limits to, 64 oil and, 250 subsidies for, 76 Trans-Siberian Railway, 49 trapping, 67, 110 treaties, 180 Treaty of Spitzbergen (1920), 267 Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START I Treaty), 232

United Nations World Heritage Committee, 166 University of Greenland, 104–105 urban areas, 8 U.S. Endangered Species Act, 171 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 171, 173 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 173 U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act (1972), 170 U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD), 242

U

W

ulippoq, 150 Ullavirki, Suduroyar, 139 Umbrella Final Agreement, 100 unemployment, 65–66, 70–76, 96, 122, 125–128, 134 Union Party, 107 United Nations, 109, 155–156, 180, 195, 223, 275 United Nations Convention on Civil and Political Rights, 180, 197 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 247, 268, 292 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 155–156 United Nations Economic and Social Council, 156 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 138, 156–157, 267 United Nations Human Rights Council, 155–156

wages, 69 war, global, 245 Warsaw Treaty Organization, 267 weapons testing, 242 welfare, 72, 96 well-being, 119–142 indicators of, 121 inequalities and, 124–128 polital dimensions and, 122 trends in, 123–133 Western Constitutional Conference, 102 whales, 97 bowhead, 38–39, 85 hunting, 38–39, 40, 85, 167, 168, 284 wild land recreation, 58 wildlife-management policies, 161 women, discrimination against, 95–96 Working Group on Arctic International Relations, 296 world markets, 85 World War II, 228

V values, 95, 122 viability, 123–133

Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-20 01:48:11.

320

World Wildlife Fund, 269, 270 written languages, creation of, 111

Y

Copyright © 2010. University of Alaska Press. All rights reserved.

Yamal Nenets, 200, 291 Yasavey, 205–206 Yukon First Nation Self-Government Act (1995), 100 Yukon Gold Company, 45 Yukon Territory, 99–100

Globalization and the Circumpolar North, edited by Lassi Heininen, and Chris Southcott, University of Alaska Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kbdk/detail.action?docID=1820956. Created from kbdk on 2020-04-20 01:48:11.

Index