In the last 30 years, we have become to know the Arctic as a resource region for fossil fuels and minerals, a science lab for climate change, adaptation and resilience, a home of Indigenous peoples, a site of international cooperation and conflict, and a pleasure periphery for global tourism. In 2022 the Arctic as we have known it has been challenged due to COVID-19 restrictions and repercussions of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Many established forms of pan-arctic cooperation have been frozen for unknown period of time.

The question is what remains of the Arctic as we have become know it in the last 30 years, and what new, different ways to make the Arctic matter may materialize after the recent crises in terms of climate and energy politics, different conceptions of security, human-nature relations, patterns of migration, sustainability, and cooperation beyond state-centric approaches.  The current crisis of circumpolar, state-centric cooperation might be also interpreted as a start of something new, different.

The Northern political economy symposium in 2022 welcomes presentations which will focus in making sense of the year 2022 for the Arctic and its repercussions as well as to reflect critically on contemporary world-making practices and their alternatives, including post-anthropocentric approaches, about the Arctic.

The event is an activity of the UArctic thematic network “Critical Arctic Studies” (CAS) and organized in collaboration with the doctoral programme of the University of Lapland “The Arctic in a Changing World”.  The event will be organized in a hybrid mode. The program includes a panel discussion (the panelists TBC), presentations by individual researchers and a symposium dinner (for those in Rovaniemi).

Doctoral candidates of the University of Lapland can earn credits by participating (1 ECTS) or presenting a paper (2 ECTS) at the symposium (TUKO1293 Current issues in Arctic research).

The deadline for abstracts of proposals is 15 September 2022. The abstract should be 200-300 words long and include the name(s) of the presenter(s), affiliation(s) and contact information for the presenter(s). Please also indicate whether you plan to attend the symposium in person (at own cost) or online. The accepted abstracts and symposium program will be announced by 30 September 2022.

Abstracts and inquiries should be sent to research professor Monica Tennberg, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland (monica.tennberg@ulapland.fi).

Warmly welcome!