The production of knowledge in and about the Arctic is inherently contested. While some work has explored the role of experts in East-West diplomacy, others have acknowledged the importance of Indigenous knowledge systems and situated expertise. But what should be considered expertise and how should we mediate between different forms of knowledge that all have an important role to play in a nuanced conception of what the Arctic is?
The Arctic region is home to a variety of different knowledge-production processes, from the vast array of Arctic conferences, to key Arctic universities and think tanks, and the tight-knit community of Arctic experts that have described themselves as a ‘family.’ So too is the integration of expert knowledge into regional governance processes deeply embedded in structural conditions that influence how the Arctic is narrated.
In this series on Knowledge Production in the Arctic, we are interested in contributions that highlight these and other dynamics of knowledge production in the Arctic with a focus on Indigenous expertise, science diplomacy, and expertise. We ask: How is knowledge produced in the Arctic? Who has the authority to produce knowledge and on what topics? Are certain forms of knowledge valued more than others? What is the process of knowledge production, whether in the Arctic Council, key Arctic universities, or local settings? How can we better understand the structural environments that condition how knowledge is created and integrated into regional governance? In short, what are the (geo)politics of who gets to be an expert and whose knowledge gets to be judged as expertise?
With this series, we hope to showcase a diverse set of authors with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We welcome contributors from any discipline or education level. Contributors can submit a commentary (a 700-800 word short opinion or analysis piece), an article (a 1,000-3,000 word analysis), or a multimedia contribution (we have published videos, audio, infographics, and poetry) focusing on how knowledge is produced in the Arctic. Articles may be academically oriented publications for a general audience, policy-oriented analyses, or personal narrative forms.
If you are interested in contributing, please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words, as well as a short paragraph about yourself to the series managers, Gabriella Gricius (gabriella.gricius@thearcticinstitute.org) and Trym Eiterjord (trym.eiterjord@thearcticinstitute.org), as well as TAI’s editor-in-chief Alina Bykova (alina.bykova@thearcticinstitute.org) by June 30 (Sunday), 2024, 23:59 EST.
You can read more about the Arctic Institute here at www.thearcticinstitute.org and specifically about submissions here. In addition to our web-based publications, we have a weekly newsletter of over 5,000 subscribers from 90+ countries and average hundreds of thousands of web-publication hits each month.