ORCID

Abstract

The Arctic rapidly transforms due to global warming and increased human activities, triggering complex changes at unprecedented speeds that challenge conventional institutional responses. We analyse these changes through the lenses of social, political, and environmental boundaries and investigate their impacts on both inhabitants' livelihoods and the region's political framework. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, we highlight the complexities of understanding the interplay among global, regional, and local dynamics in an era where human and non-human aspects are entwined. Our analysis concentrates on three areas: definition of the Arctic; legal disputes concerning the waters around the Svalbard Archipelago; evolving natural hazards and societal risk perceptions in Longyearbyen. Through these examples, we underscore the intricate nature of social, political, and ecological changes and how they challenge current boundary-making processes. By combining knowledge from different systems and scales, our research reveals the interplay between policy-driven science, science-influenced policy, and performative behaviors in reshaping today's Arctic borders and boundaries. We particularly emphasize how climate change is challenging borders and advocate for a departure from static definitions, towards the formulation of environmentally conscious, socially just, and politically viable policies, acknowledging the new biophysical realities of the Anthropocene.

Publication Date

2024-06-13

Publication Title

Polar Geography

Volume

47

Issue

2

ISSN

1088-937X

Acceptance Date

2024-05-22

Deposit Date

2024-08-16

Funding

The authors would like to thank the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research (NVP) for organizing the 2022 summer school \u2018The Global Arctic\u2019 which aimed to produce a better understanding of the significance of the concept of Global Arctic as a tool of integrative analyze and political management as well as discussing points of connection within and between the natural, social and human sciences. This summer school gathered twenty early-career scientists coming from diverse academic and social backgrounds and this paper is the fruit of this transdisciplinary collaboration (Nanni, ). The authors also wish to acknowledge all the organizers, lecturers, and participants of this summer school, including Ragnhild Utne, the Nansen Scientific Society, and the University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS). The authors are especially grateful to Bj\u00F8rn P. Kaltenborn for his guidance and valuable input on multiple versions of the manuscript. The CESM project is supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This material is based upon work supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which is a major facility sponsored by the NSF under Cooperative Agreement No. 1852977. Computing and data storage resources, including the Cheyenne supercomputer (doi:10.5065/D6RX99HX), were provided by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NCAR. We thank all the scientists, software engineers, and administrators who contributed to the development of CESM. We also acknowledge supercomputing resources provided by the IBS Center for Climate Physics in South Korea for the CESM2 Large Ensemble Project.

Keywords

Arctic, Svalbard, boundaries, environmental change, multi-scale analysis, risk perception

First Page

127

Last Page

155

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