Introduction: On Constellations and Connected Up Thinking in the Face of the Future

In the Introduction, we set out three of the major theoretical areas pertinent to the thrust of this edited volume. If we are to pay attention to the experiences and explanations of Arctic peoples, we need to recognize the importance of non-anthropocentric cosmological visions. Our first theoretical focus is thus on a series of recent re-readings of the question of animacy and its inter-relation with sociality. Rather than engaging with debates about whether animism as a term is ‘useful’, we explore a number of the ways that the lives of the people discussed in this volume assume that they live in animated worlds and ask what the implications of that might be for considering how these world are shifting due to climate change. From animacy, we shift to precarity, exploring a number of models of risk. And finally, as we consider the risky decisions northern residents must make on a daily basis, we bring in considerations of voice. The Introduction concludes with an overview of the order of chapters, putting each contribution in a context that relates it to other chapters in the volume.