August 20-21, 2015, Pyhätunturi, Finland

Updated call for papers

The fifth
annual Northern Political Economy symposium discusses studies on social changes in
Arctic research. Much of the current Arctic studies aims at explaining and
understanding change in the Arctic. These changes are a combination of complex,
often interrelated environmental, social, cultural, economic and political
transformations and efforts to tackle and adapt to them. However, these studies seem
to grasp only partially multiple political aspects related to this change and thus,
are left unproblematized. The symposium welcomes contributions to discuss the
politics of the “social”, as elusive and problematic it is, in the Arctic, for
example, struggles over subjectivities and agencies, community viability,
participation, resilience and performativity – and different ways to capture them
through conceptual and theoretical development, methodological innovations and
presentation of case studies.

Key note
speakers

There will be two key note speakers in
the symposium this year.

A key note speaker of the
symposium is Frank Sejersen from University of
Copenhagen. Frank Sejersen is an associate professor at Eskimology and Arctic
Studies Section, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, where he has
been pursuing research in the Arctic in general and in Greenland in particular,
since 1994. The principal areas of research are environmental governance, resource
use, self-determination policies, climate change, local knowledge, as well as
cultural, economic and societal changes.

His new book
“Rethinking Greenland and the Arctic in the Era of Climate Change. New Northern
Horizons” investigates how Arctic indigenous communities deal with the challenges of
climate change and how they strive to develop self-determination. Adopting an
anthropological focus on Greenland’s vision to boost extractive industries and
transform society, the book examines how indigenous communities engage with climate
change and development discourses. It applies a critical and comparative approach,
integrating both local perspectives and adaptation research from Canada and
Greenland to make the case for recasting the way the Arctic and Inuit are approached
conceptually and politically. The emphasis on indigenous peoples as future-makers
and right-holders paves the way for a new understanding of the concept of indigenous
knowledge and a more sensitive appreciation of predicaments and dynamics in the
Arctic.

Prof. Mitchell
Dean’s (Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen
Business School) areas of speciality include political and historical sociology,
social and political thought, particularly in respect of power, and governing in
liberal democracies, starting with the government of poverty. More recently he has
emphasized problems of sovereignty, and related issues of security, exception and
legitimate violence, liberalism authoritarianism, international police and problems
of the international order. In addition to Michel Foucault’s work, prof. Dean’s
research has been influenced by the works of Giorgio Agamben, Carl Schmitt, and
numerous other social and political thinkers. Mitchell Dean’s latest book The
Signature of Power (Sage 2014) is a study of power. The book combines an
extraordinary breadth of perspective with pinpoint accuracy about what power means
for us today. It provides readings of the main approaches in the field and builds on
this to reframe the concept of power. The book throws new light onto the importance
of biopolitics, sovereignty and governmentality.

Deadline for proposals

Please
send your abstract (max. 250-words) with your name, title, affiliation and contact
information by May 29, 2015 to the symposium organizer by email
(monica.tennberg@ulapland.fi).

More information is available from the Symposium
web page.

Symposium
organizer, research professor Monica Tennberg, research professor, Northern
political economy/Sustainable development, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland
(monica.tennberg at ulapland.fi)