Indigenous peoples are often perceived as custodians of nature owing to their close relationship with their environment and their nature‐based livelihoods. This paper investigates the kinds of environmental agencies that are constructed for, and by, indigenous peoples within the United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PF) and the Arctic Council. The particular focus of this research is the issue of responsibility. The article brings together empirical materials from the two forums and engages with them using Foucault‐inspired approaches. We offer a critical discussion of indigenous peoples' environmental agency in international politics, addressing the need to problematize representations of indigenous agency that to date have been largely unchallenged in both the practice and study of international politics. We identify three perspectives through which the environmental agency of indigenous peoples is validated and justified: having particular knowledge, being stakeholders, and having a close relationship with nature. Certain kinds of expectations are inscribed in each of these perspectives; responsibility becomes intertwined with agency.

No abstract

Indigenous peoples and indigenous lives have historically been the targets of colonial practices. In current politics, the brutal actions these entailed have changed into more subtle forms of governing. Drawing on the context of international politics (the Arctic Council and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues), we argue that the demand/need for adaptation is one of the rationalities by which power is exercised over indigenous peoples and indigeneity today. We view this as a form of biopower that fosters and steers indigenous life. The paper highlights three concurrent and overlapping strands of the vocabulary of adaptation: a call for agency, a sustaining of authenticity and a politics of placation. Together, these signal what the adaptive indigenous subject should be like, an unceasing demand for adaptation that is subtler but no less colonial than exercises of power past. * This paper is part of the research project "BIOS-Biopolitics of Sustainable Development in the Barents Region" and we wish to thank our colleagues Julian Reid, Monica Tennberg, Oliver Belcher and Joonas Vola for their support. We are also thankful for the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions. Many thanks for the comments received when presenting a previous draft of this paper at the

Amid the clouds of unpredictable change, there always seems to be a sliver of light-of hope-on the horizon. In promising something new, something better and potential change, hope encourages and engenders faith in the future. The utility of hope has not gone unnoticed in politics. Even though, or perhaps precisely because, the environmental, social and economic insecurity we see in the world today could be better described in terms of hopelessness, politics has intensified its quest for hope. In the process, it has redefined 'hope' as a strength to draw on, a counterforce and a means to achieve empowerment. This special section reflects on the contemporary politics of, in and through hope. It presents some of the discussions on the politics of hope that took place in a seminar at the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen Business School in November 2017. The politics of hope deals in potential, in anticipated opportunities that give rise to hope, in political and legal visions as well as material and lived realities. Despite the salience of the topic, the interlinkage between politics and the heightened expectations it invests in hope has remained underresearched. The articles in this section provide multidisciplinary insights on politics that appears and functions through hope. They demonstrate how the dynamics of hope pervade a broad range of phenomena. The contributions by Eva Ottendörfer, Claes Tängh Wrangel, Valeria Guerrieri and David Chandler illustrate, respectively, that processes as diverse as transitional justice, counterterrorism measures, efforts to map energy resources and coming to terms with the Anthropocene all reflect manifestations of a (seemingly) ubiquitous hope. Through

translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.