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Governing Arctic Change pp 21–41Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Sustainable Development as a Global-Arctic Matter: Imaginaries and Controversies

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Abstract

This chapter investigates Arctic imaginaries embedded in the sustainable development discourse and discusses various potential conceptual and political meanings of the concept in an Arctic context. The chapter thereby identifies and assesses complementarities and inconsistencies between three prevailing imaginaries of the Arctic as a ‘resource frontier’, a ‘nature reserve’ and a ‘homeland’ to indigenous communities. The authors place these imaginaries between the local and the global dimensions of Arctic change and discuss the implications of a global approach to sustainable development for the Arctic as a region (‘the Global in the Arctic’) and, in turn, the specific challenges for sustainable development seen from the Arctic (‘the Arctic in the Global’).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Political Science and Community Planning, University of Tromsø – the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Berit Kristoffersen

  2. University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway

    Oluf Langhelle

Authors
  1. Berit Kristoffersen
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  2. Oluf Langhelle
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Inst. f. Advanced Sustainability Studies , Potsdam, Germany

    Kathrin Keil

  2. Berlin Graduate School for Transnational , Berlin, Germany

    Sebastian Knecht

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Kristoffersen, B., Langhelle, O. (2017). Sustainable Development as a Global-Arctic Matter: Imaginaries and Controversies. In: Keil, K., Knecht, S. (eds) Governing Arctic Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50884-3_2

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