Proposed Sessions

The Sámi culture has a variety of forms of expressions like music, craft, language, etc.  These different forms of expressions are sustained via different establishments of both formal and informal character. Among formal establishments engaged in sustaining the Sámi culture are schools and cultural centers. Schools, for example, carry on teaching the Sámi languages. Cultural centers provide, for example, creative activities like performances based on the Sámi fairytales. One of the examples of an informal establishment in the village of Lovozero (Russia) are private Sámi classes by a Sámi activist at home. What role does elders play for the children when they leave school for the weekend? Are there any natural relations between them for sharing stories, if so, who are taking the role of a storyteller? In this section, we would like to discuss different ways of preservation of the Sámi culture and language.

While most historical representations of the North were shaped and reflected by the works of artists foreign to the region, often connected to expeditions and colonial administrations, artists in the Arctic today are working to contest and subvert many of these tropes. This session will focus on the works of contemporary artists in the North and their depictions of the region. Papers will introduce a contemporary democratic visualization of the Arctic that moves away from past romantic views. Focusing on the works of artists today, this panel will discuss new voices and narratives emerging as well as their contribution to representations of the contemporary Arctic.

Traditional Arctic religions share striking common features: an environment imbued with spirits, elaborate shows of respect toward the bodies and souls of animals, reincarnation of animals and humans, and a vertical cosmology, with shamanic trance as the core technique for operating the entire system. Arctic populations have also been permeated by forms of Christianity, creating tensions and compromises as people became partially converted, not only to a new religion, but also from old religions which no longer fitted their colonial situation. Today the region is experiencing renewed religious dynamism, as revealed by websites, pamphlets, social media, and political and cultural movements. Old ideas about animal souls are transformed into “indigenous knowledge” for environmental debates, some communities in Russia are becoming Christian for the first time, others are rediscovering lost roots or exploring New Age, Buddhist, Bahai'i, or Muslim possibilities. What philosophical, social or political work is being done by these religious shifts? What are the existential questions being asked by Arctic people living in northern cities or southern capitals, and how do these differ from those of people who remain in northern villages? What new solutions can we see being created in front of our eyes, and is there a continuing role for earlier Arctic views of reality, sociality and morality? What should be the role of ideas about fundamental reality in today's environmental crisis?

What does sustainable development in the Arctic mean, locally, regionally, and globally? How is sustainable development attainable in a changing Arctic? What are the best ways of measuring achievements towards adaptation, thrivability and sustainable development in the Arctic? Over the past number of years there have been a variety of Arctic social science projects that have attempted to examine what the notion of sustainability and sustainable development means for Arctic communities. By recognizing the importance of addressing the needs and desires of specific places and of including communities in the conceptual framing of sustainability, important questions are raised about social and environmental justice, equity among communities and generations, and how multiple users of the sustainability concept have created and propagated understandings and implementations of sustainability. This has radically changed not only ideas about sustainable development but also has raised valuable questions about what is means to thrive sustainably in the Arctic. We find that the shift in use of this term—from an adjective describing a noun (i.e., sustainable development) to a stand-alone noun (i.e., sustainability)—over the past decade allows new ideas about sustainability to flourish, an important step forward. This session is designed to bring together diverse activities that are critically examining sustainability. It will focus on the recent work of the ArcticFROST network, and in particular its Early Career Fellows, and its partner projects, but hopes to attract presentations from other projects that are critically examining what sustainability means for Arctic communities.

More and more specialized environmental forecasting services, based on weather, water, ice and climate (WWIC) information, are being made available by a growing range of providers, including national meteorological services, for-profit and non-profit organizations, and community-based organisations, in order to facilitate human safety, community well-being and environmental security in the changing Polar Regions. A number of initiatives aim at tailoring, translating, or adapting WWIC services to suit diverse user needs across the Polar Regions. However, to date we still have only a relatively sketchy understanding of what kind of WWIC information and services are being sought, how they are being used and how operational decision-making in the absence of suitable or accessible WWIC information is being facilitated. As the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Polar Prediction Project (PPP, 2013 – 2022) has moved into its Consolidation Phase in mid-2019, more emphasis is being placed on operational implementation, improving forecasts, and tailoring services to user needs. This session aims to encourage a discussion of both research and cases addressing WWIC information requirements and services in terms of operational decision-making and user needs in various sectors, including, but not limited to shipping, tourism, science, government operations, search and

The purpose is to discuss the problems, achievements and prospects for the development of health-saving technologies in the Northern region, physical culture and sports, the results of fundamental and applied research in the field of physical culture and sports, exchange of experience in training specialists in the field of physical culture and sports, the development of professional contacts. During the work, two discussion platforms will be held. 1. Theory and practice of physical education and sports training of student youth, in the conditions of the Arctic region. 2. Medical and biological aspects of physical culture and sports of residents permanently residing in high latitudes.

Specialists of physical culture and health, together with graduate students, undergraduates and students, will discuss the problems of forming new approaches to the development of a number of health-saving technologies in the field of theory and practice of physical culture and sports: training process technology, adaptive sports, sports psychology, history of physical culture and sports, etc. ... Particular attention will be paid to such aspects as anti-doping policy in modern high-performance sports, improving the Olympic education of young athletes, indigenous peoples of the North. Areas of work are related to the topics of initiative research projects supported by the university: fundamental problems of education and social problems of human health and ecology in the Northern region.

This panel seeks to bring together scholars examining the development of capitalist social relations in Arctic societies. We hope to include an eclectic mixture of papers that approach the question of the development of capitalism from multiple theoretical, empirical, and regional perspectives. Depending on interest, we hope to publish the proceedings from this panel in a special issue of an academic journal.

Potential topics include (but are in no means limited to): the historical development of capitalist social relations in specific Arctic regions; the relationship between resource extraction and capitalism in the Arctic; the relationship between conservation and the development of capitalist social relations in the Arctic; the role of state resource management processes (including co-management) in producing capitalist social relations; the commodification of country food; Indigenous rights agreements and capitalist social relations; the role of ideas about nature and the environment in the expansion of capitalism into the Arctic; the relationship between capitalist development and social trauma in Arctic societies; and, the relationship between post-war state interventions (coerced relocations, compulsory residential/day schooling, slaughter of sled dogs, militarization) and the development of capitalism.