Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-lrblm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T13:45:04.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anticipating the Arctic and the Arctic Council: pre-emption, precaution and preparedness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2012

Klaus J. Dodds
Klaus J. Dodds*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX (K.Dodds@rhul.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper considers the role of the Arctic Council (AC) and its relationship to the future or even futures. Factors such as sea ice thinning and melting permafrost, alongside globalisation, have been cited as consequential in transforming the Arctic region. While we might be cautious about the novelty of change per se, there is a need for further debate about how the ‘future’ is imagined and put into practice. Exploring different logics, including precaution, pre-emption and preparedness, consideration is offered on how the AC attempts to anticipate the future. The contentious role of observers is investigated by way of an example, and it is concluded that there is more work to be done in terms of how different futures are assembled, mobilised and put into practice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 193 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ACIA. (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment). 2005. Impact of a warming Arctic: Arctic climate change impact assessment Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Adey, P. and Anderson, B. 2011. Anticipation, materialtiy event: The Icelandic ashcloud disruption and the security of mobility. Mobilities 6: 11–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agnew, J. 2007. Know–where: geographies of knowledge of world politics. International Political Sociology 1: 138–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, A. 2009. After the ice: life, death, and geopolitics in the new Arctic. New York: Smithsonian Books.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. 2010. Preemption, precaution and preparedness: anticipatory action and future geographies. Progress in Human Geography 34: 777–798.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, B. 2012. Affect and biopower: towards a politics of life. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37: 28–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, B. and Adey, P.. 2011. Affect and security: Exercising emergency in UK civil contigencies. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29: 1092–1109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aporta, C. 2011. Shifting perspectives on shifting ice: documenting and representing Inuit use of the sea ice.The Canadian Geographer 55: 6–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arctic Governance. 2010. Arctic governance in an era of transformative change: critical questions, governance principles. Arctic Governance Project (Ways forward report of the Arctic governance project, 14 April 2010. URL: http://www.arcticgovernance.org/agp–report–and–action–agenda.156784.en.html (accessed 13 November 2011).Google Scholar
ASMA. (Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment). 2009. Report. Protection of the Arctic marine environment. Akureyri: AMSA.Google Scholar
Byers, M. 2009. Who owns the Arctic? Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre.Google Scholar
Crate, S., and Nuttall, M. (editors). 2009. Anthropology and climate: from encounters to action. Walnut Creek CA: Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Depledge, D. 2012. Arctic assembly: the polar policies of the UK. London: University of London, Royal Holloway, Department of Geography, unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Dodds, K. 2011. Accessibility, resources and sovereignty in the Arctic Ocean. Global Policy 1: 303–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodds, K. 2012. Graduated and paternal sovereignty: Stephen Harper, Arctic sovereignty and Operation Nanook 10 Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30: in press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
EPPR. (Emergency, Prevention, Preparedness and Response). 2011. Emergency, prevention, preparedness and response Tromso: EPPR Working Group of the Arctic Council. URL: http://eppr.arctic–council.org/content/background.htm (accessed 13 November 2011).Google Scholar
Heininen, L., and Southcott, C. (editors). 2010. Globalization and the circumpolar north Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press.Google Scholar
Koivurova, T. 2011a. Limits and possibilities of the Arctic Council in a rapidly changing scene of Arctic governance. Polar Record 47: 146–156.Google Scholar
Koivurova, T. 2011b. The actions of the Arctic states respecting the continental shelf: a reflective essay. Ocean Development and International Law 42: 211–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koivurova, T., Kokko, K, Duyck, S., Selheim, N., and Stepien, A.. 2011. The present and future competence of the European Union in the Arctic. Polar Record doi:10.1017/S0032247411000295Google Scholar
Massey, D. 1995. Places and their past. History Workshop Journal 39: 182–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moisi, D 2009 The geopolitics of emotion London: Bodley Head.Google Scholar
Muller, M. 2011. Opening the black box of the organization for critical geopolitics. St-Gallen, Switzerland: University of St-Gallen Switzerland (Working paper August 2011 URL: www.martin–muller.net).Google Scholar
Neumann, I. 2012. At home with diplomats. Cornell: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nuttall, M. 2008. Anticipation, climate change, and movement in Greenland. Etudes/Inuit Studies 34: 21–37.Google Scholar
Nuttall, M. 2012. Tipping points and the human world: living with change and thinking about the future. Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment 41: 96–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nuuk Declaration. 2011. Nuuk declaration on the occasion of the seventh ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council, 12 May 2011. Nuuk, Greenland.: Arctic Council. URL: http://www.arctic–council.org/index.php/en/about/documents/category/5–declaration (accessed 13 November 2011).Google Scholar
Ottawa Declaration, 1996. Declaration on the establishment of an Arctic Council, 19 September 1996, Ottawa, Canada. URL: http://arctic–council.org/filearchive/ottawa_decl_1996–3.pdf (accessed 13 November 2011).Google Scholar
SAO. (Senior Arctic Officials). 2011. SAO report to ministers, Nuuk, Greenland: Arctic Council. URL: http://arctic–council.org/filearchive/nuuk_SAO_report.pdf (accessed 13 November 2011).Google Scholar
Search and Rescue Agreement. 2010. Agreement on the co–operation on aeronautical and maritime search and rescue in the Arctic. URL: http://arctic–council.org/filearchive/Arctic_SAR_Agreement_EN_FINAL_for_signature_21–Apr–2011.pdf (accessed 13 November 2011).Google Scholar
Smith, L. 2010. The world in 2050: four forces shaping civilization's northern future. New York: Dutton.Google Scholar
Steinberg, P. 2010. The deepwater horizon, the Mavi Marmara, and the dynamic zonation of ocean space.The Geographical Journal 177: 12–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephenson, S., Smith, L., Agnew, J.. 2011. Divergent long term trajectories of human access to the Arctic. Nature Climate Change 1: 156–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SWIPA (Snow, Water, Ice, Permafrost in the Arctic) 2011. Snow, water, ice, permafrost in the Arctic. Oslo: AMAP. URL: http://amap.no/swipa/ (accessed 2 February 2012).Google Scholar
Tromsø Declaration. 2009. Tromsø declaration on the occasion of the sixth ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council, 29 April 2009. Tromsø, Norway.: Arctic Council. URL: http://www.arctic–council.org/index.php/en/about/documents/category/5–declarations (accessed 13 November 2011).Google Scholar
Wallman, W. (editor). 2002. Contemporary futures: perspectives from social anthropology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wang, M., and Overland, J.. 2009. A sea ice free summer Arctic within 30 years? Geophysical Research Letters 36 L07502□doi:10.1029/2009GL037820.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wassman, P., and Lenton, T.. 2012. Arctic tipping points in an earth system perspective. Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment 41: 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, S., and Romanyshyn, L.. 2011. Breaking the ice: the European Union and the Arctic. International Journal Autumn: 849–860.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, O. 2011. If an Arctic Ocean treaty is not the solution, what is the alternative?’Polar Record 47: 327–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, O. 2012. Arctic tipping–points: governance in turbulent times. Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment 41: 75–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed