In 2025, University of Lapland will launch its highly popular MA degree programme in Arctic World Politics as an international degree taught in English. In relation to this, the professors involved in the programme offer a series of five open online lectures which explore current themes and approaches in Arctic World Politics and give a glimpse at their ongoing research.
The lectures take place in Zoom on Thursday afternoons 2–3 pm, starting in mid-November.
What is Arctic World Politics?
The Arctic is deeply entangled with world politics and the large
global challenges of our time. Climate change and global warming have a
profound impact on Arctic geographies, societies, and ways of life.
Growing external interest in the region’s natural resources and
transport routes has moved the region into the epicenter of broad
geopolitical concerns and global divisions and tensions. At the same
time, knowledge and experiences of Arctic peoples, societies and
communities, including Indigenous peoples, can profoundly challenge
these dominant narratives and framings of the Arctic, and provide
alternative, decolonial, and critical perspectives and agency to world
politics and global change. Never has there been such demand for new,
multidisciplinary knowledge on the Arctic region and its connections to
the rest of the world.
Hence, it is crucial to examine whose experiences and what kind of
knowledge are valued in political decisions and policymaking, and for
what purposes that knowledge is used. The MA degree programme in Arctic
World Politics addresses these issues from a critical, multidisciplinary
perspective that centers local-to-global connections and Indigenous
knowledge, combining Politics and International Relations, Indigenous
Studies, Environmental Studies, Sociology, Anthropology and Gender
Studies. In addition to power relations, conflicts and systems of
governance involving states, we highlight the central role of
multispecies relations and Indigenous knowledge and worldviews.
For more information on the MA degree programme in Arctic World Politics and how to apply, see www.ulapland.fi/awp. Application deadline is 22.1.2025.
Lecture schedule
Thursday 14.11. 2–3 pm
Laura Junka-Aikio: Arctic Militarisation in the Framework of Colonialism
Thursday 21.11. 2–3 pm
Julian Reid: Indigenous Geopolitics? Rethinking Conservation and Peace in the Arctic
Thursday 28.11. 2–3 pm
Roundtable (chair Florian Stammler): Arctic World with or without half of the Arctic? Our relations to the Russian Arctic at times of war. Speakers: Florian Stammler, Aytalina Ivanova, Karolina Sikora, and Lukas Allemann.
Thursday 5.12. 2–3 pm
Monica Tennberg: More-than-human world politics for the Arctic
Monday 16.12. 2–3pm
Rauna Kuokkanen
Note: The lecture takes place on Monday, not on Thursday as the other lectures
Zoom link to the online lectures (no pre-registration is needed): https://eoppimispalvelut.zoom.us/j/69322492089?pwd=WHdKS1JFa3dkQUNRempQclNEdjE2Zz09
Meeting ID: 693 2249 2089
Passcode: 338335
More information
Laura Junka-Aikio, laura.junka-aikio(at)ulapand.fi