Arctic Futures? Climate, geopolitics and local realities

Description

The Anthropology, Weather and Climate Change 2016 conference was held by the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 27-28 May 2016. One of the many conference panels was convened by Olga Ulturgasheva, University of Manchester and Barbara Bodenhorn, University of Cambridge and titled "Northern Futures? Climate, Geopolitics, and Local Realities." This panel considered the intersections between environmental conditions, geopolitical tensions, and local innovative reactions characterising the Arctic in the early 21st century. Siberian and Alaskan participation was supported by the Arctic Social Sciences Program of the National Science Foundation. Each of the three sessions was framed by a report from places vulnerable to environmental, political, and socio-economic upheavals, given by people who live in—and whose ancestors lived in—the country about which they were talking. These were stories of calamity, but not of victimhood.