Special Project 3

SP3: Cumulative impacts of change: using human security to articulate opportunity and threats in four circumpolar communities (joint project with GAPS Canada)

Responsible Researcher for Norwegian component: Gunhild Hoogensen (UiTø)

Participants: Holger Pötzsch (UiTø), Kirsti Stuvøy (UiTø) Julia Christensen (PhD student, McGill), Oksana Zaretskaia (youth consultant – PhD student, PSU); Are Sydnes (HiTø) .

Arctic Indigenous leaders are deeply concerned about the cumulative impacts of climate change and oil and gas development and the potential risks for culture, sustainability, and health of Arctic Indigenous peoples (AIL 2005). The capacity to adapt to such rapid and intense change depends heavily on the human security of local peoples; that is, the capacity necessary for local people to identify threats to their well-being and the capacity to determine ways to end, mitigate or adapt to those risks. In order to ensure that Arctic communities are supported in their resilience efforts, and are able to take advantage of any opportunities oil and gas activity may bring, it is crucial that we seek and understand community articulations of what is necessary for human security amidst unprecedented change. Furthermore, it is necessary that we explore how representations of change through mass media, government and policy affect local perceptions of in/security.

Eight communities (in conjunction with the GAPS Canada) will comprise the focus of this study: Nenets Autonomous Region, Arkhangelsk (Russia), Hammerfest, Porsanger (Norway), Inuvik, Fort Good Hope, Tuktoyaktuk (Northwest Territories, Canada), and Kaktovik (Alaska). The Norwegian component (which is independent of the Canadian study, in that a complete project will be successful with or without Canadian IPY funding) focuses on the Nenets Autonomous Region, Arkhangelsk, Hammerfest/Porsanger, and Kirkenes (as a research base, through the Barents Institute) while the Canadian component will focus on the Mackenzie Delta and Sahtu regions of the Northwest Territories. These regions have both indigenous as well as non-indigenous populations who are being touched by oil and gas activity and climate change in different ways. The experiences of these communities, all in different parts of the circumpolar world, will be compared and contrasted in an attempt to explore how political, economic and legal contexts affect human security. Such an exercise will facilitate cooperation and collaboration between countries on approaches to supporting community resilience to the effects of change.

This research project will proceed along two avenues: 1) the impact of mass media, scientific reporting, and government and policy campaigns on local perceptions of security (top-down security) (PhD position) and 2) assess human security risks and opportunities resulting from engagement in oil and gas activity in Arctic communities as they are identified by Arctic peoples themselves (bottom-up security) (2 year post-doctoral position).

  1. The impact of mass media representations on individuals and collectives has been widely addressed in scientific literature (Luke 1989, Kellner 2003). Mass media representations influence the content of public discourse and impact the legitimacy of political decision-making and public policy (Lincoln 1989).Interviews with researchers and politicians and a qualitative content analysis of mass media representations (TV-programmes, local and national newspapers, etc), as well as of scientific reports and science-based policy documents dealing with security threats in the North, will serve to assess a top-down approach. How do these approaches differ, how to they correspond? In what ways are these views reflections of traditional security approaches (sovereignty, energy security) or reflective of a wider securities agenda? In doing this the project brings together different environments (local communities, researchers, and politicians) combining their voices in an overall multiple securities assessment of potential and actual threats in the North.
  2. For the assessment of human security risks and opportunities as perceived from “the bottom up” (meaning from the individual/local/societal), we will employ a collaborative research approach to fully and meaningfully involve community members. Qualitative research methods, such as ethnographic interviews and focus groups, will be used to learn about local peoples’ perception of threat and opportunity resulting from oil and gas engagement, as well as their capacity to end, mitigate or adapt to identified threats, or how they chose to interpret and make use of opportunity. Here too, we need to ask: in what ways are these local views reflections of traditional security approaches (sovereignty, energy security) or reflective of a wider securities agenda? And why?

In total, we will explore the role that mass media and government and policy campaigns play in local conceptualisations of security, and compare this with qualitative surveys and interviews, as well as broader exploration of quantitative (statistics) and secondary data. Such an analysis will allow us to address perceptions of human security from the top-down and bottom-up; in other words, we can better understand how media, government and policy initiatives can influence perceived risks and opportunities at the local level. This will contribute to local articulations of human security in an effort to facilitate a broad picture view of the multiple processes shaping security at the individual level.

The candidates chosen for these two positions are Holger Pötzsch (PhD position) and Kirsti Stuvøy (Post-doctoral position). Holger Pötzsch has a strong background in cultural and media analysis, and his master’s thesis addressed the role of media (pseudo-documentary and popular culture film) in societal perceptions of war. He also has a background in languages, including Russian, enabling him to access Russian media sources (he is also fluent in Norwegian, allowing him access to Norwegian sources as well). Holger Pötzsch obtained the highest grade possible on his master’s thesis (A). Kirsti Stuvøy obtained her master’s degree in Germany with a high score, and is currently a PhD student in her last year and a half of studies at the University of Tromsø. She has completed her course work, and is in the final stages of data collection, and has already begun writing her dissertation. Her area of focus is the perception of human security amongst women in Northwest Russia. Kirsti Stuvøy is fluent in Russian and Norwegian, and has gained extensive experience in conducting interviews for the purpose of assessing levels of human security in a gender context. This post-doctoral project will take advantage of the skills she has obtained, while giving her a very new and different context in which to work, thereby expanding the scope of her knowledge.