1st Edition

Rethinking Greenland and the Arctic in the Era of Climate Change New Northern Horizons

By Frank Sejersen Copyright 2015
    238 Pages
    by Routledge

    248 Pages
    by Routledge

    This ground-breaking book investigates how Arctic indigenous communities deal with the challenges of climate change and how they strive to develop self-determination. Adopting an anthropological focus on Greenland’s vision to boost extractive industries and transform society, the book examines how indigenous communities engage with climate change and development discourses. It applies a critical and comparative approach, integrating both local perspectives and adaptation research from Canada and Greenland to make the case for recasting the way the Arctic and Inuit are approached conceptually and politically. The emphasis on indigenous peoples as future-makers and right-holders paves the way for a new understanding of the concept of indigenous knowledge and a more sensitive appreciation of predicaments and dynamics in the Arctic.

    This book will be of interest to post-graduate students and researchers in environmental studies, development studies and area studies.

    1. Introduction: Climate change and the emergence of a new Arctic region  2. Resilience, human agency and Arctic climate change adaptation strategies  3. Mega-industrializing Greenland  4. Reforming a society by means of technology - an ongoing discussion  5. Place consciousness and the renewal of Maniitsoq  6. The social life of globalization and scale-makers  7. Indigenous knowledge and future-makers

    Biography

    Frank Sejersen is Associate Professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

    "Sejersen’s central proposition emphasizes what people may become as a result of these massive changes.  Not for general readers but for specialists in environmental and Arctic studies. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty/professionals." - CHOICE, J. C. Perry, Tufts University