The postcolonial Arctic represents a way of looking at contemporary approaches to being in and engaging with the Arctic that recognises the region as radically and rapidly transformed by a number of factors. These include political change/political agency, climate change and new forms of travel practices. It is important, however, not to lose sight of the colonial structures which have determined relations in the Arctic prior to these new engagements.
The conference at Roskilde University seeks to shed light on the complex situation of the Arctic in relation to a number of interdisciplinary practices, relations and narratives associated with travel/writing, including film and photography, in and about the Arctic. Narrative is not only a form of re-presentation, it is also a practise, a form of engagement and a form of emplacement. Furthermore, to quote from Stephen Greenblatt’s Marvelous Possessions ‘Representations are not only products but producers, capable of decisively altering the very forces that brought them into being’ (Greenblatt 1991: 6).
We are inviting scholars from all disciplines to submit papers and suggest panels. If you are planning to propose a panel, please note that we will need abstracts from all participants. Not excluding research into other Arctic areas, holding the conference in Denmark means that we particularly welcome scholars working on Greenland and relations between Denmark and Greenland.
A number of more specifically defined interrelated and overlapping themes can be identified that scholars are invited to relate to, when submitting their abstracts. These include:
• Arctic tourism
• Environment and Arctic tourism
• Narratives and travelling in the Arctic
• Eco-tourism and indigenous tourism
• Tourism and political change in the Arctic
• Arctic travel and decolonisation
• Postcolonial Arctic travel writing
• Tourism, resources seen through a postcolonial prism
• Theoretical and/or methodological considerations of the Arctic as a postcolonial/decolonial space
To find out more about the conference and ENCARC, visit our website, www.arcticencounters.net Arctic Encounters – Contemporary Travel/Writing in the European High North (ENCARC) is an EU funded HERA project launched in September 2013. New Narratives of the Postcolonial Arctic is part of this project. Folding together tourism and travel writing as travel/writing this project explores discrepancies between the needs of the environment, indigenous and non- indigenous inhabitants, and tourists to the region within the overarching context of an increasingly interconnected but incompletely decolonised world.
Organised by Arctic Encounters – Contemporary Travel/Writing in the European High North (ENCARC)
Venue: Roskilde University, May 27-29, 2015
Confirmed keynotes:
Aqqaluk Lynge, recently retired Chairman of ICC;
Professor Marianne Elisabeth Lien, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo;
Stefan Jonsson, Professor of Ethnic Studies, Linköping University
Ph.D.-students delivering papers and attending the conference will be able to claim ECTS-points for their participation.
Please send your abstract of 250 words to Lars Jensen, hopeless@ruc.dk, by December 1, 2014.