The Politics of Sustainability in the Arctic
Reconfiguring Identity, Space, and Time
Routledge Studies in Sustainability Series

The Politics of Sustainability in the Arctic argues that sustainability is a political concept because it defines and shapes competing visions of the future. In current Arctic affairs, prominent stakeholders agree that development needs to be sustainable, but there is no agreement over what it is that needs to be sustained. In original conservationist discourse, the environment was the sole referent object of sustainability; however, as sustainability discourses have expanded, the concept has been linked to an increasing number of referent objects, such as society, economy, culture, and identity.

This book sets out a theoretical framework for understanding and analysing sustainability as a political concept, and provides a comprehensive empirical investigation of Arctic sustainability discourses. Presenting a range of case studies from Greenland, Norway, Canada, Russia, Iceland, and Alaska, the chapters in this volume analyse the concept of sustainability and how actors are employing and contesting this concept in specific regions within the Arctic. In doing so, the book demonstrates how sustainability is being given new meanings in the postcolonial Arctic and what the political implications are for postcoloniality, nature, and development more broadly.

Beyond those interested in the Arctic, this book will also be of great value to students and scholars of sustainability, sustainable development, and identity and environmental politics.

Preface 1. Introduction: sustainability as a political concept in the Arctic Ulrik Pram Gad, Marc Jacobsen and Jeppe Strandsbjerg 2. The sustainability of what? Stocks, communities, the public purse? Rikke Becker-Jacobsen 3. Sustainability understandings of Arctic shipping Kathrin Keil 4. Digging sustainability: scaling and sectoring of sovereignty in Greenland and Nunavut mining discourses Marc Jacobsen 5. "Without seals, there are no Greenlanders": colonial and postcolonial narratives of sustainability and Inuit seal hunting Naja Dyrendom Graugaard 6. Scaling sustainability in the Arctic Frank Sejersen 7. Same word, same idea? Sustainable development talk and the Russian Arctic Elana Wilson Rowe 8. The right to "sustainable development" and Greenland’s lack of a climate policy Lill Rastad Bjørst 9. Building a Blue Economy in the Arctic Ocean: sustaining the sea or sustaining the state? Philip Steinberg andBerit Kristoffersen 10. Saving the Arctic: Green Peace or oil riot? Hannes Gerhardt, Berit Kristoffersen and Kirsti Stuvøy 11. Sustaining the Arctic nation state: The Case of Norway, Iceland, and Canada Ingrid Medby 12. ‘How we use our nature’: sustainability and indigeneity in Greenlandic discourse Kirsten Thisted 13. Sustaining Denmark, sustaining Greenland Johanne Bruun 14. A new path in the last frontier state? Transforming energy geogragrahies of agency, sovereignty, and sustainability in AlaskaVictoria Herrmann 15. Geo-assembling narratives of sustainability in Greenland Klaus Dodds and Mark Nuttall 16. Conclusion: sustainability reconfiguring identity, space, and time Ulrik Pram Gad and Jeppe Strandsbjerg

Jeppe Strandsbjerg is Editor-in-Chief for Social Science at Djøf Publishing. Previously, he was Associate Professor at the Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

Ulrik Pram Gad is Associate Professor of Arctic Culture and Politics at Aalborg University, Denmark