Performing Arctic Sovereignty

The Arctic is 5.5 million square miles and has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years, yet it is still a frontier of development. But who owns the Arctic? This book charts the history of performances of sovereignty over the Arctic in the policy and visual representations of the US, Canada and Russia. Focusing on narratives of the effective occupation of territory found in postage stamps, it offers a novel analysis of Arctic sovereignty. Issues such as climate change, plastics pollution and resource development continue to impact the future of this space centred around the North Pole. Who is responsible for the region? This book examines how countries have absorbed Arctic territory into their national consciousness, examining the choice of, and use of, symbols and images in postage stamps. It looks at the story of how these countries have represented their Arctic frontiers and territorial peripheries. The book argues that the performance of policy in these regions has caused relative sovereignty to become a reality. It provides an intriguing account of how these countries have, in their distinctive ways, established, legitimised and reinforced their political authority in these regions. This book will appeal to Geographers and is recommended supplementary reading for students in political history and regional studies of the North.

Based on Shelagh Grant’s groundbreaking archival research and drawing on her reputation as a leading historian in the field, Polar Imperative is a compelling overview of the historical claims of sovereignty over this continent’s polar regions. This engaging, timely history examines: the unfolding implications of major climate changes the impact of resource exploitation on the indigenous peoples the current high-stakes game for control over the adjacent waters of Alaska, Arctic Canada and Greenland the events, issues and strategies that have influenced claims to authority over the lands and waters of the North American Arctic, from the arrival of the first inhabitants around 3,000 BCE to the present sovereignty from a comparative point of view within North America and parallel situations in the European and Asian Arctic This book will become a standard reference on Arctic history and will redefine North Americans’ understanding of the sovereign rights and responsibilities of Canada’s northernmost region.

This book examines what sovereignty and security mean in an Arctic region that is changing rapidly due to the intersection of globalization, climate change, and geopolitical competition.

Global warming has had a dramatic impact on the Arctic environment, including the ice melt that has opened previously ice-covered waterways. State and non-state actors who look to the region and its resources with varied agendas have started to pay attention. Do new geopolitical dynamics point to a competitive and inherently conflictual “race for resources”? Or will the Arctic become a region governed by mutual benefit, international law, and the achievement of a widening array of cooperative arrangements among interested states and Indigenous peoples? As an Arctic nation Canada is not immune to the consequences of these transformations. In Canada and the Changing Arctic: Sovereignty, Security, and Stewardship, the authors, all leading commentators on Arctic affairs, grapple with fundamental questions about how Canada should craft a responsible and effective Northern strategy. They outline diverse paths to achieving sovereignty, security, and stewardship in Canada’s Arctic and in the broader circumpolar world. The changing Arctic region presents Canadians with daunting challenges and tremendous opportunities. This book will inspire continued debate on what Canada must do to protect its interests, project its values, and play a leadership role in the twenty-first-century Arctic. Forewords by Senator Hugh Segal and former Minister of Foreign Affairs and of National Defence Bill Graham.

Though it has been home for centuries to indigenous peoples who have mastered its conditions, the Arctic has historically proven to be a difficult region for governments to administer. Extreme temperatures, vast distances, and widely dispersed patterns of settlement have made it impossible for bureaucracies based in far-off capitals to erect and maintain the kind of infrastructure and institutions that they have built elsewhere. As climate change transforms the polar regions, this book seeks to explore how the challenges of governance are developing and being met in Alaska, the Canadian Far North, and Greenland, while also drawing upon lessons from the region's past. Though the experience of each of these jurisdictions is unique, their place within democratic, federal systems and the prominence within each of them of issues relating to the rights of indigenous peoples situates them as part of an identifiably 'North American Arctic.' Today, as this volume shows, their institutions are evolving to address contemporary issues of security, environmental protection, indigenous rights, and economic development.

This book explores the Canadian relationship with its portion of the Arctic region which revolves around the dramatic split between the appearance of absent-minded governance, bordering on indifference toward the region, and the raging nationalism during moments of actual and perceived challenge toward the sovereignty of the imagined “Canadian Arctic region.” Canada’s nationalistic relationship with the Arctic region is often discussed as a reactionary phenomenon to the Americanization of Canada and the product of government propaganda. As this book illustrates, however, the complexity and evolution of the Canadian relationship with the Arctic region and its implication for Canada’s approach toward international relations requires a more in-depth exploration Please be aware than an error has been noted for Table 1.1 on page 71. In this table the sub-category “Inuit” is mislabelled. It should read “Native Indians and Inuit” as the data presented represents this Canadian census sub-category which calculated all indigenous peoples and Inuit peoples together.

This book documents how the Arctic region has been represented in the media: exploring how the media has framed the Arctic and whether this has an impact on governmental decision-making and public preferences. The Arctic region faces profound transformations, due to global warming, spurring intense debates about economic growth, environmental protection, and socio-cultural development. At the same time, most of humanity will never come face-to-face with the realities of the region: the media represents our only opportunity to learn about what this evolving region stands for. Recognizing that media coverage will tend to focus on specific events and relay specific messages, this book scrutinizes the nature of these messages to figure out how the Arctic region is presented by different media outlets. Studying different types of media, Landriault conducts an analysis of 628 newspaper articles, 110 televised reports, 9 magazine articles, and 404 tweets to provide the first systematic and rigorous study of Arctic media representations. This book will interest scholars, practitioners, and students in Arctic studies, critical geography, political science, and communication studies.

Who actually controls the Northwest Passage? Who owns the trillions of dollars of oil and gas beneath the Arctic Ocean? Which territorial claims will prevail, and why — those of the United States, Russia, Canada, or the Nordic nations? And, in an age of rapid climate change, how do we protect the fragile Arctic environment while seizing the economic opportunities presented by the rapidly melting sea-ice? Michael Byers, a leading Arctic expert and international lawyer clearly and concisely explains the sometimes contradictory rules governing the division and protection of the Arctic and the disputes over the region that still need to be resolved. What emerges is a vision for the Arctic in which cooperation, not conflict, prevails and where the sovereignty of individual nations is exercised for the benefit of all. This insightful little book is an informed primer for today's most pressing territorial issue.