Analysing the Danish-Greenlandic debate on Greenland’s plans to extract and export uranium, the article advocates bringing the fields of extraction studies and cultural studies into dialogue. Drawing on discourse analysis, critical theory and the “emotional turn” in social sciences, the article demonstrates how the current discussion about secession is linked to a Danish-Greenlandic affective economy instituted during the colonial era. Conceived as the antithesis to the unhappy condition of present postcoloniality, independence has become the ultimate political goal for the Greenlandic nation. The reasoning is that history has made the Greenlanders citizens in a foreign nation, which has left them in a state of alienation. In order to lock colonialism away firmly in the past and attain future happiness, the Greenlanders must attain statehood. Uranium is supposed to promote this goal and is thus circulated as a “happy object”, positioning opponents of uranium mining as “affect aliens” or “killjoys” in the independence discourse. In Denmark, the Greenlandic detachment has led to “postcolonial melancholia” – and to a greater receptiveness to the Greenland desire for equality. In Greenland, disappointed expectations of rapid economic progress and growing distrust of large-scale projects have sparked a discussion about the significations of the concept of “independence”.

In 2009, the Act on Greenland Self-Government was adopted. It recognises that “the people of Greenland is a people pursuant to international law with the right of self-determination”. Within this framework, the people of Greenland have gained significant control over their own affairs and the right to access to independence. Yet, the extent to which this framework ensures the right of self-determination in accordance with fundamental human rights can still be questioned. From a human rights perspective, the right of self-determination is not a one-time right. It is fundamental human right that applies in different contexts beyond decolonisation and which has implications not only for colonial countries and peoples but also for the population of all territories, including indigenous and minority groups. From this perspective, this contribution seeks to disentangle and analyse the different facets of self-determination in Greenland while considering the implications of the right based on the multifarious identity of the peoples living in the country as colonial people, citizens, indigenous and minority groups, including their claim to control mining resources.

This article discusses the evaluation of the management of the Laponia World Heritage site (Laponia WHS) in northern Sweden. After inscription on the World Heritage list in 1996, difficulties emerged in establishing a common understanding about the involvement of various stakeholders into the site’s management model, the key point of contention being the influence of the representatives from indigenous Sami people and how that should be organised. In 2011, the management organisation led by Laponiatjuottjudus (the Sami name for the Laponia WHS management organisation) was established and implemented. This organisation gave Sami representatives a majority in the Laponia steering board and the position as chairperson in the board. This marked a remarkable shift in the Swedish national management system of land in not only handing over a state decision-making power to the local level but also to representatives of the indigenous population. The evaluation of the management model presented by Laponiatjuottjudus resulted in a number of responses from several stakeholders participating in a consultation process. These responses, from stakeholders with conflicting positions in relation to the issue described above, are the subject of this study. The analysis of these data collected reveals the existence of four major approaches or narratives to the Laponia WHS, with narratives connected to nature, the indigenous population and local governance, the economic effects of the existing system, and lastly the local community narrative. The study concludes that present management of Laponia WHS, the Laponiatjuottjudus, is a unique attempt to widen the management and planning process that partly interferes with the existing national planning model. At the same time, the analysis reveals that the Sami demands for influence over land management in the north still faces major challenges connected to its colonial legacy.

Wollar is a small village located in the Mid-Western Region in New South Wales, Australia. Geographically removed, climatically different and culturally distinct from the Arctic, it might seem as a distant case for the exploration of Arctic Uchranotopias and resource extraction; the topic of this Special Issue. Yet, the affective and temporal dimensions of mining are not necessarily restricted to distinct regions, and there are theoretical opportunities for cooperative analysis across diverse regions. By bringing forward this case study, I aim to illustrate how the concepts of mining emotions and Uchranotopia have applicability beyond the polar region and how a broader theory of mining emotions may be advanced. Through the notion of “mining voids,” I investigate how discourses of extraction as prosperity clash with lived experiences at the coal face. Mining voids—both present and future—have become markers for physical and social landscapes and, as a metaphor, it embeds the contradiction between utopian narratives of a coal-sponsored future and dystopian imaginings at the coal face. Through analysis of the discourses of mining voids and how, as the voids materialise, emotions are mined, I will tie this case study to the debate of Arctic resource extraction and community making, affect and temporality.

This article argues that the concept of diligence provides a useful role in clarifying (and perhaps narrowing) the discretionary powers of the State with respect to the development of natural resources. The claim has two branches. First, the concept of due diligence plays an important role in bridging the normative gap between the harms caused by private actors and the international law of State responsibility. It is the vehicle by which States can be made to assume responsibility for private developments within their jurisdiction and control that cause harm to other States. Second, the concept of due diligence plays an important role (a “generative role”) in teasing out the detailed logical implications of more abstract primary norms such as the duty of prevention. These derivative duties include the duties to make a preliminary assessment of whether the proposed activity may cause a risk of significant transboundary harm: to conduct an environmental impact assessment (EIA) if there is a risk of significant harm and, if the EIA confirms that risk, to notify and consult with respect to possible measures to prevent or mitigate that risk. The article demonstrates both of these claims through an examination of the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and arbitral awards. Finally, the article applies these claims in the context of possible resource developments in Alaska, British Columbia and Yukon that may have transboundary implications.

Mining activities in the Arctic often have a strong impact on people living here and the sustainability of their communities. The article takes as its point of departure two widely different cases relating to Arctic communities: the former mining city of Qullissat in the Greenlandic Disko Bay area and the rural village of Sakajärvi, which is threatened by expansions of the Aitik copper mine in the Norbotten County, Sweden. The cases differ in terms of time span, the number of people affected and the intensity of the affective economies, but they go through comparable processes of giving rise to emotional communities as a result of the termination or expansion of mining activities. Based on field observations and social and web-based media, the author argues that various actors with diverging purposes here compete to install their respective temporalities and narratives in the processes of communitification, i.e., by articulating borders or performing as community. In both cases, the communities employ narrative strategies of uchronotopia: aiming towards better futures by narratively breaking with the past. The agency of these communities depends to a high extent on the intensity of their affective economies, a symbolic capital that may hold considerable potential for creating desirable futures.

Under the influence of a rapidly warming climate, abrupt changes have been observed along the coast of Greenland. This commentary is based on a Japanese research project initiated in 2012, in which we examined the recent changes in the coastal environment and their impacts on human society in Qaanaaq, a village in northwestern Greenland. Initially, our research sought to quantify the mass loss of glaciers and its interaction with the ocean in the Qaanaaq region. Over the course of the project in collaboration with local communities, we soon realised that the changes in glaciers and the ocean directly impacted the ~600 residents of Qaanaaq. We observed natural disasters triggered by climate change. Environmental changes are also important for local economy and industry because loss of sea ice may lead to growth in transportation, tourism and mineral resource exploration. In order to share the results of our study with the Qaanaaq community, and to gain understanding of local and traditional knowledge, we organised an annual meeting in the village every summer since 2016. Our experience demonstrates the critical importance of performing a long-term multidisciplinary study, including participation of the local communities to understand the changing environment, and to contribute to a sustainable future in Qaanaaq.

The Arctic is the last potential source of hydrocarbon left on Earth which makes it a quite attractive area for oil and gas company expansion and development. However, this development cannot proceed without the support from the Russian government. There are non-negligible risks which cannot be evaluated by pure economics as well as various challenges that must be overcome. This commentary will explore those risks and challenges and evaluate the recent acceleration of Arctic oil and gas development in Russia. It will also set the stage where the discussion on the sustainability of Russian Arctic resource development should be focused.

Research on the demographic impacts of mining in sparsely populated areas has focused primarily on relatively large towns. Less attention has been paid to smaller villages, which may experience different impacts because of their highly concentrated economies and their small populations, making them more vulnerable to demographic “boom and bust” effects. This paper examines demographic change in four small villages in northern Sweden, which are located close to several mining projects but have evolved through different degrees of integration with or separation from mining. Using a longitudinal “resource cycle” perspective, the demographic trajectories of the villages are compared to understand how different types of settlement and engagement with mining have led to different demographic outcomes in the long term. While the four villages experienced similar trajectories in terms of overall population growth and decline, their experiences in relation to more nuanced indicators, including age and gender distributions and population mobilities, were different, and potential reasons for this are discussed. Due to data limitations, however, the long-term demographic consequences of mining for local Sami people remain unclear. The paper problematises this research gap in light of general concerns about mining impacts on traditional Sami livelihoods.

In recent years, two soft law instruments have emerged to promote sustainable development in the Arctic, namely the Arctic Investment Protocol by the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Arctic and the Arctic Economic Council’s Code of Ethics. These instruments seek to foster sustainable development through responsible investment and good business practices. The emergence of these soft law instruments by non-State actors demonstrates an interest from the business sector and Arctic stakeholders to develop business norms and standards of sustainable development that are specific to the region. In understanding the potential and scope of these instruments, this paper considers the role of both instruments in driving sustainable development in the Arctic.

Since its inception, the Arctic Council (AC) has focused on biodiversity, under its working group on the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna. By adopting a holistic, cross-sectoral approach to biodiversity governance, the AC has acknowledged that biodiversity is not only a matter for the Council and its governments: also non-state actors must be involved. This article analyses whether and how three essential non-state actors – science, business and NGOs – influence AC processes on Arctic biodiversity, comparing the roles of these actors on biodiversity governance in the wider international context. AC work on biodiversity has remained largely scientific, with fewer political commitments for states and the Council as such: science has had a significant influence, whereas there has been limited space for the involvement of the business sector. NGOs have served mainly as contributors and partners in scientific work, increasingly also assuming policy advocacy roles. This article notes the need for closer political cooperation on biodiversity in the AC, with firmer commitments for states and the AC, inspired by work in other AC focal areas.

In past discussions regarding development (of non-living resources) and indigenous people, a strong tendency existed to understand the act of development as a one-way impact from an outside society. This was often labelled as “environmental racism” and interpreted as a form of ethnic discrimination deeply intertwined with environmental issues. However, this view contained an element of confirmation bias regarding development and indigenous people. For example, it has been reported that in Alaska and elsewhere, indigenous people have taken initiative in developing non-living resources, making it clear that indigenous people are not necessarily passive subjects on whom development is unilaterally imposed. In this paper, after examining recent trends in the development of non-living resources, I shall take up the development of such resources in Greenland with the goal of sorting out and extrapolating the main arguments in the debate, especially within the self-rule government, regarding how the wealth obtained through the development of non-living resources should be enjoyed, while focusing on the notion of sustainable development and taking into consideration previous studies from the field of political science.

Recent initiatives in polar research like Women in Polar Science and Women of the Arctic have shone a light on the strengths of female polar researchers and the struggles they have faced in their respective careers. These initiatives have started and contributed to ongoing conversations in the polar research community about increasing diversity and making the field more inclusive. In this commentary, we discuss the need to focus on intersectionality in diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives in polar research, and to address intersecting barriers faced by members and would-be members of our fields. These barriers are varied, often overlapping, and include, but are not limited to: gender identity; sexuality; socio-economic status; language; disability; and race. Polar research is poised to benefit from a tremendous diversity of ideas and approaches if we as a community can fully commit ourselves to understanding and addressing overlapping, interconnected barriers to equality and progress in polar research.

This article provides an historical account and analysis of the repurposing of Ny-Ålesund from Arctic coalmining settlement to Norwegian-administered international research base in Svalbard. Three levels of analysis are employed to explain the settlement’s transformation and its rising geopolitical significance, focusing primarily on the period of rapid internationalisation and expansion of scientific activities starting in the late 1980s. The local level examines Norway’s efforts to maintain effective occupation of greater Kongsfjorden by promoting research, underpinned by the economisation of the area’s near-pristine natural environment as a non-extractive resource for science; the global level applies the concept of telecoupling to consider the role of events and processes at larger spatial scales that facilitated Ny-Ålesund’s transformation; and the “glocal” level explains how the interaction of Norwegian and global actors in the locality of Ny-Ålesund have collectively shaped the community’s institutions over some 30 years. The article also reflects on recent policy changes signalling more assertive Norwegian administration and greater coordination of research in Ny-Ålesund.

This study argues that collective memory is a relevant concept that can be used to analyse how the outlooks on industrial futures are shaped in remote northern locations. The case in question is the Sydvaranger iron mine in Kirkenes in the north-easternmost part of Norway. By drawing attention to the long periods of time often involved in forming collective memory, this study questions the viability of top-down processes of forming opinions aiming to set local minds on the track towards either “place-renewal” into an unknown post-industrial future or towards attaining a “social licence to operate” for any new or continued raw material producing industry. This exploration includes a discussion of memory studies, an overview of the industrial history of Kirkenes as part of a Euroarctic borderland and a study of the manifestations of collective memory in the contemporary local media. Revealing insights were obtained in Kirkenes through informal conversations and participant observation.

Although the Arctic is emerging as a promising region for energy development and maritime transportation, navigational safety is a persistent and growing concern. What can international trade regulations do to ensure the safe transportation of natural resources on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the sustainable development of the Arctic region? Government support is almost inevitable for shipyards, particularly in a highly competitive market. Shipyards build large-scale vessels that navigate the Arctic Ocean. However, excessive export competition will soon lead to over-production and exportation of substandard products. Assuming that even a single incident in the NSR could have a disastrous impact on the flora and fauna of the entire Arctic region, the potential for substandard vessel use represents a significant risk and potential damage to the environment. Although the World Trade Organization (WTO) has detailed rules for this purpose with an effective dispute settlement mechanism, the history of WTO disputes has proven that WTO proceedings sometimes result in unintended consequences. As an alternative option, along with negotiations under the WTO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), this paper suggests the possibility of a critical mass agreement to mutually allow more flexible government support for vessels only if they have superior environmental performance.

Like the northern periphery regions of other Arctic countries, the Russian North had a higher male–female sex ratio than the rest of the country. During the two decades following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the male sex ratio in the Russian North declined considerably, from 101 males per 100 females in 1989 to 92 in 2010. The regions and population of the Russian North were greatly impacted by the shift in northern development approaches from the centrally planned system of the Soviet Union to the market-oriented system of Russia. This paper examines the decline in the male population in the Russian North based on data from the 1989, 2002 and 2010 population censuses. The paper finds that only one quarter of the decline in the male sex ratio in the Russian North can be attributed to higher male outmigration and that three quarters are the result of significantly higher and widening gaps between females and males in life expectancy. The conclusion is that men in the Russian North coped with the social and economic upheavals by dying prematurely not by migrating. The leading causes of death for men were cardiovascular diseases and external causes such as murder, suicide and accidents.

As a collaborative production, the exhibition New Arctic aspired to explore postcolonial versions of the Arctic. For this purpose, the exhibition included, among others, an installation called a map machine, seeking to display the Arctic as a site of ongoing ontological politics. To our audiences, the map machine visualised how an inhabited Arctic continues to become a periphery, open to new resource exploitation, a Dreamland “out of space and time.” In this text, I mimic the work of this map machine by describing a series of outside interventions on the Varanger Peninsula, in the Sámi core areas of Norway. The case that initiates the set of actions described in this text is a proposed expansion of a quartzite mine in the small village of Austertana. I illustrate how maps and bureaucratic processes as working political technologies introduce new cartographic visions of this land–water interface, counteracting other existing versions of the same landscape. The case illustrates how exactly such new visions impose urgently meaningful single-action landscapes, or how the Tanafjord was literally reworked from a landscape of endangered species to a landscape defined by an issue of maritime security.