The Arctic and sub-Arctic are places where communities already live, produce knowledge and self-govern. Yet recent geopolitical and economic involvement are bringing renewed interest in the region.
Since the 1990s, research output about the Arctic has doubled, with approximately 11,000 Arctic-focused publications now produced annually. Global Arctic funding likely exceeds US$1 billion each year, based on summing expenditures reported by the United States, Canada, and Nordic and European countries. How these research investments are oriented is an important question, but one that comes loaded with colonial baggage.
Given increasing geopolitical tensions and economic interest in the region, what will shape the future of research in the Arctic? How can academic research support those who live in and depend on the Arctic?
To think through these questions, a panel of 14 Arctic scholars and scientists came together from Canada, Iceland, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Indigenous nations located in the Arctic and sub-Arctic of Canada and Russia.
Convened by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), this panel — of which we were a part — has co-authored a report on how researchers can engage constructively with a changing Arctic in the decades ahead. A key need we identified is better integrating research with Indigenous and local priorities, knowledge and communities.
Our panel considered future scenarios and ideas to generate, debate and discuss research themes in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. We focused on themes that challenge outdated, colonial and human-centric models and approaches. Three research agendas emerged from our discussion: mobility as place, Arctic kinfrastructures and integrative modelling.
Mobility as place
(Tatiana Degai), Author provided (no reuse)
Climate research about forced human migration often links mobility to vulnerability, damage and survival. When involuntary, migration is often traumatic. In the Arctic, however, mobility might also be seen as an adaptive strategy and a response to environmental changes. This idea calls back to earlier and varied Indigenous practices based on long term, dynamic relations with lands and waters.
The Arctic is full of dramatic examples of mobility: human and animal migrations, but also changing treelines and shifting ice and permafrost. Thinking about the Arctic and sub-Arctic this way decentres humans. It recognizes multiple kinds of movement, transforming the apparent contradiction between mobility and a stationary sense of place.
Thinking about mobility helps us to engage with the region as one that is dynamic, fluid and informed by lived experiences. It breaks down binary thinking and disciplinary boundaries, integrates multiple timescales and systems, and creates opportunities for new collaborations that are vital to understanding the Arctic on its own terms.
Research questions could change how we recognize human and animal agency in migration, what gets considered “invasive” or stationary, and what is worth preserving and over what timescales. How models and forecasts matter, to whom and why, become foundational questions for researchers to address.
Arctic ‘kinfrastructures’
When thinking about infrastructure, what often comes to mind are roads, ports, electrical grids and other physical development. By viewing kinship as a form of infrastructure, we can better understand humans, animals and the environment as in relation to one another.
A kinship approach considers both how future generations will navigate change and what it means to give and take. During our deliberations, we synthesized a new term for this: kinfrastructure.
Kinfrastructure has the potential to transform how we think about physical and organizational structures, what it means to flourish as a society that includes humans, animals and the environment, and our ethical obligations towards one another. The report asks:
“If we understood permafrost as kinfrastructure, how might that change our relationship to it and the actions we take? If we understood bridges, mines, and buildings as kinfrastructure, how might that alter our approach to civic and industrial development, decommissioning old structures and the legacies and obligations they create?”
(Patrick White), Author provided (no reuse)
Colonialism in the Arctic ushered in an era of rapid military and industrial development. It prioritized both state power and geopolitics and defined the region in terms of its military and economic significance.
Kinfrastructure offers a different starting point. It recognizes Indigenous presence and sovereignty, and potentially distinct ideas about mobility, stability, development and change.
Integrative modelling
The massive ecological changes underway in the Arctic include the ocean, the atmosphere, cryosphere and terrestrial ecosystems. Tracking these changes requires bringing together research efforts across disciplines.
This would enable experts to better forecast how the Arctic is changing and develop strategies to protect the region. New integrated models are needed that reflect and serve local, regional and global needs.
The report proposes a digital twin – a virtual representation of the real world – that would integrate two categories of data: environmental (like sea ice and permafrost dynamics, atmospheric forcing and ocean circulation) and global socioeconomic (such as population growth, industrial emissions and geopolitics).
Integrating various forms of knowledge against a backdrop of increasing uncertainty is not a small task. However, this approach to modelling might allow researchers and policymakers to begin to assess what new system behaviours are emerging in an increasingly ice-free Arctic.
(Élise Devoie), Author provided (no reuse)
Crucially, this model would allow us to predict how complex interconnected climate, ecosystems and human systems might respond to major and minor changes. This, in turn, could provide insight and early warning for challenges ahead.
A digital twin raises questions about who would govern access to and use of Arctic predictive models. What safeguards are needed, and how will outputs be translated and speak to a larger set of questions? Importantly, we see these questions connecting back to the proposed “mobility as place” and “kinsfrastructure” themes that guide and underscore the importance of this report.
Insights from the CIFAR report suggest that the future of Arctic research should not require us to master complexity and uncertainty. Rather, complexity and uncertainty should help us think through how researchers might operate responsibly within whatever futures may arise.
How we account for who and what is and is not at the table in discussions and decisions about the Arctic will also determine the viability and usefulness of our research and actions.
