1st Edition
Stories of Change and Sustainability in the Arctic Regions The Interdependence of Local and Global
This book presents stories of sustainability from communities in circumpolar regions as they grapple with environmental, economic and societal changes and challenges.
Polar regions are changing rapidly. These changes will dramatically effect ecosystems, economy, people, communities and their interdependencies. Given this, the stories being told about lives and livelihood development are changing also. This book is the first of its kind to curate stories about opportunity and responsibility, tensions and contradictions, un/ethical action, resilience, adaptability and sustainability, all within the shifting geopolitics of the north. The book looks at change and sustainability through multidisciplinary and empirically based work, drawing on case studies from Norway, Sweden, Alaska, Canada, Finland and Northwest Russia, with a notable focus on indigenous peoples. Chapters touch on topics as wide ranging as reindeer herding, mental health, climate change, land-use conflicts and sustainable business. The volume asks whose voices are being heard, who benefits, how particular changes affect people’s sense of community and longstanding and cherished values plus livelihood practices and what are the environmental, economic and social impacts of contemporary and future oriented changes with regard to issues of sustainability?
This volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainability studies, sustainable development, environmental sociology, indigenous studies and environmental anthropology.
Introduction: Being in-between stories
Tony Ghaye, Rita Sørly, and Bård Kårtveit
1. Concerned Arctic peoples: Characteristics of conversations-that-matter
Tony Ghaye
2. Disappearing flexibility: The story of Gielas reindeer herding district
Jan Åge Riseth
3. Stories transmitted through art for the revitalization and decolonization of the Arctic
Timo Jokela and Maria Huhmarniemi
4. Mental health research in an Arctic Indigenous context: The presence of silent dominant narratives
Rita Sørly, Vår Mathisen and Vigdis Nygaard
5. Stories of empowerment, resilience and healing: A participatory research project with two Indigenous communities in Québec
Liliana Gomez Cardona, Kristyn Brown, Mary McComber, Echo Parent-Racine, and Outi Linnaranta
6. Learning through lived experiences: A structural narrative analysis of one person’s journey of recovery and implications for peer support services.
Rita Sørly, Tony Ghaye, and Wibecke Årst
7. The decline and changes in the tundra today: The nature of state systems and services as a critical factor in the condition of minority indigenous peoples in Russia
Zoia Vylka Ravna
8. Overcoming isolation in the Arctic during COVID-19 times through new ways of co-writing research
Rita Sørly, Bård Kårtveit, Vigdis Nygaard, Anne Katrine Normann, Ludmila Ivanova, Svetlana Britvina, and Larissa Riabova
9. Green colonialism: The story of wind power in Sápmi
Bård Kårtveit
10. Transforming Arctic municipalities: The winding road to low-emission communities
Nils Aarsæther and Hege Westskog
11. The quest for fresh vegetables: Stories about the future of Arctic farming
Doris Friedrich
12. Greening discourses of the Nordic Arctic region: The region as vulnerable, late bloomer or the arena of possibilities?
Trond Nilsen and Jukka Teräs
Reflections: What can we create together?
Tony Ghaye, Rita Sørly, and Bård Kårtveit
Index
Biography
Rita Sørly is an Associate Professor in Social Work at UiT The Arctic University of Norway and a Senior Researcher at the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), Norway.
Tony Ghaye is a Professor at the Loughborough University in London, UK.
Bård Kårtveit is a Senior Researcher in the Department for Regional Development at the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), Norway.
