Climate change in context: putting people first in the Arctic

Abstract

Climate change is a major challenge to Arctic and other Indigenous peoples, but not the only and often not the most pressing one. We propose re-framing the treatment of climate change in policy and research, to make sure health, poverty, education, cultural vitality, equity, justice, and other topics highlighted by the people themselves and not just climate science also get the attention they deserve in research on global and regional environmental change. Climate change can often exacerbate other problems, but a singular focus on climate change-as is often the case in much existing environmental literature on the Arctic and elsewherecan distract from actions that can be taken now to improve the lives of Arctic peoples. The same logic also applies elsewhere in the world, where diverse residents face a host of challenges, opportunities, and obstacles, with climate change but one among many issues. Our proposed approach to regional and global environmental change research draws on the ideas of decolonization, emphasizing collaborative approaches and Indigenous voices in research and policy instead of top-down measures designed outside the affected communities. Only in this way of contextualizing human-environmental experiences can the full effects of climate change be understood-and appropriate responses developed and carried out to adapt to global change.

"All the problems in the community are multi-faceted and related to each other": Inuit concerns in an era of climate change

“…As we highlighted above, AV conceptual frameworks stipulate climate change as a significant threat to peoples who lack the capacity to either cope or adapt. The results here suggest that the supposed victims of this threat-who are experiencing climate change in very direct ways-do not view the problem in the same way at all, a phenomenon that has been suggested elsewhere (Huntington et al, 2019;Young, 2020). This leads to a procedural vulnerability because research that begins with questions about climate change prevent other concerns from emerging in the context of interviews.…”

“…Collings (2011), for example, argues that using the geographically-bound settlement (referenced as a "community") as the analytical unit frequently ignores social connections that exist between settlements and makes faulty assumptions about uniformity among residents. Huntington et al (2019) point out that AV research generally begins with a priori definitions of adaptation and vulnerability that may have quite different meanings to Indigenous peoples. Jones, Ready, and Pisor (this issue) address the theoretically problematic uses of the term adaptation.…”

Towards integrated knowledge of climate change in Arctic marine systems: a systematic literature review of multidisciplinary research

“…Interacting drivers and their cumulative impacts are infrequently studied in the Arctic Climate change in the Arctic is known to exacerbate other anthropogenic drivers; for example, by allowing for more shipping and port development, in turn leading to increased pollution (e.g., Bennett et al 2015). In addition, climate change is embedded in complex social-ecological contexts, where it is often one stressor among many othersfor instance in communities that are facing pressing social issues (e.g., communities of Nunavut facing high food insecurity rates; Beaumier et al 2015;Huntington et al 2019), in places where social dynamics lead to different groups of people being affected differently (e.g., children, women, and Elders;Ford et al 2012), or in regions with industrial developments (e.g., oil extraction in Alaska and the Russian Arctic; Bennett et al 2015;Larsen and Fondahl 2015).…”

“…In particular, crossing disciplinary and academic boundaries can generate new knowledge of social-ecological dynamics, such as how they operate in specific contexts, while recognizing the worldviews, needs, and priorities of rights holders (IPBES 2016;Petrov et al 2016;Balvanera et al 2017a;Tengö et al 2017). Transdisciplinary research approaches are in line with new paradigms in Arctic research, where ILK holders are increasingly involved (CAFF 2015; Larsen and Fondahl 2015;Forbes et al 2016;Petrov et al 2016;AMAP 2017;Huntington et al 2019). Although studying SES responses to anthropogenic drivers remains a great challenge in systems worldwide, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches are in rapid expansion and there are several methods that Arctic science could build upon (e.g., Cook et al 2014;IPBES 2016;Balvanera et al 2017b;Calvin and Bond-Lamberty 2018;Guerrero et al 2018).…”

“Exceeding Beringia”: Upending universal human events and wayward transits in Arctic spaces

“…Material scientific data have long been extracted from the Arctic (Bravo and Sorlin, 2002), and continues in contemporary forms such as through icecore technologies (Antonello and Carey, 2017;Elzinga, 2017), as well as drone imagery and satellite data that track ice melt. While much Arctic scholarship attends to Western presences, more recent work offers a fuller inclusion of longstanding Indigenous histories and ongoing politics (Banerjee, 2012;Cameron, 2015;Cruikshank, 2006;Huntington et al, 2019;Routledge, 2018;Stuhl, 2016). Often these contributions arrive in the form of assessing traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous mapping, or examining literary narrations (Aporta et al, 2014;Bennett et al, 2016;Kollin, 2001;Krupnik et al, 2010).…”