The VIII International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences was held in the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), Prince George, Canada, in May 2014. The Northern Political Economy (NPE) research team actively participated in the conference. One of the contributions by the team was to organise a session on critical Arctic studies. The session welcomed presenters that identified with a critical approach to the current research, concepts and phenomena in the Arctic. The aim was to foster a dialogue between research disciplines, researchers and approaches in order to grasp the current Arctic developments more fully, and to see beyond the short-term political needs and desires.
The session “Is there a place for critical Arctic studies?” took place on the first day of the conference. It attracted a fairly large audience of a few dozen people. The NPE team leader Monica Tennberg, Susanna Gartler from the University of Vienna, Trine Kvidal from Norut Alta, and NPE team members Marjo Lindroth and Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen presented their research. The topics span from regionalism and subsistences to economy, sustainability, gender and indigeneity. One of the common themes that the presentations had was a critical analysis of the contemporary discourses of the Arctic and the ways in which questions, such as, gender, indigeneity and development are conceptualised and constructed in those discourses. The session was chaired by Marjo and Heidi.
The session was a launch for the research project “Critical Arctic Studies” led by Monica Tennberg and conducted by an international research network comprising researchers from Scandinavia, Russia and North America. The project examines complex contemporary Arctic phenomena that entail overlapping issues of resources, development and diverse forms of political agency. In terms of the future development of the project, the ICASS conference offered a great opportunity to connect with other researchers conducting critical research and to present the work of the NPE team to a greater audience.
On top of the academic program, we had the chance to enjoy the many social events organised for the conference participants. In one of the events that took place in the student pub “Thirsty Moose” on the UNBC campus, Arctic Centre’s own DJ Tundra pulled the crowd to the dance floor. During the evening we also shared a drink with the Thirsty Moose himself.
Text and picture by Marjo Lindroth & Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen