Downloaded from orbit.dtu.dk on: Dec 18, 2017 Settlement Patterns Hendriksen, Kåre; Hoffmann, Birgitte; Knudsen, Rebekka Published in: Perspectives on Skills : An anthology on informally acquired skills in Greenland Publication date: 2016 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link back to DTU Orbit Citation (APA): Hendriksen, K., Hoffmann, B., & Knudsen, R. (Ed.) (2016). Settlement Patterns. In R. Knudsen (Ed.), Perspectives on Skills : An anthology on informally acquired skills in Greenland (pp. 183-205). University of Copenhagen. 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Perspectives on skills - an anthology on informally acquired skills in Greenland – A Greenland Perspective publication Published June 2016 - Perspectives on skills - an anthology on informally acquired skills in Greenland Edited by R.Knudsen, Greenland Perspective, University of Copenhagen ISBN: 978-87-87519-84-7 PERSPECTIVES ON SKILLS 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2. DEFINING SKILLS 7 3.1 INFORMALLY ACQUIRED SKILLS – WHAT AND WHY 8 3.2 CONCEPTS, DEFINITIONS, CHALLENGES 13 3. KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATIONAL RESPONSES 32 4.1 THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE MODERNISATION OF GREENLAND 34 4.2 THE EDUCATIONAL SECTOR IN GREENLAND 57 4.3 THE NUIKI PROJECT 81 4.4 Educational possibilities in digital communication and infrastructure 86 5. FINANCIAL EFFECTS 96 5.1 THE ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE OF GETTING EVERYBODY ON BOARD 97 6. INDUSTRY AND CASES 110 6.1 PRIVATE SECTOR RESPONSES AND CASES 111 6.2 A STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVE ON SECTORS WITH POTENTIAL 128 7. A WHOLE NEW PERSPECTIVE 149 7.1 TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 152 7.2 LARGE-SCALE MINING AND SOCIAL INNOVATION 167 7.3 SETTLEMENT PATTERNS 183 7.4 SITUATED CAPACITIES 206 7.5 BUILDING INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIES 225 8. AT THE OTHER END OF THE WORLD 244 8.1 POLICY LEARNING FROM INTERNATIONAL PRACTICES 245 9. ABOUT THE PROJECT AND THE AUTHORS 265 An anthology on informally acquired skills in Greenland____________ 2 PERSPECTIVES ON SKILLS 1. INTRODUCTION Greenland is a unique place that offers a lot of possibilities for sustaining a good life. The Greenland society offers most of the population good lives and the vast majority of Greenlanders self-report leading good lives. However, a large minority is challenged by unemployment and lack of education. Some of this is based in social and health problems, but this group also includes very competent, skillful and well- functioning people. Their problem is, that their skills are acquired in informal ways and for that reason invisible and un-recognized by the job market. The lack of appreciation of the qualifications of this group constitutes a great loss of value to society and to the individual. The aim of this anthology is to shed light on the phenomenon of informally acquired skills, on ways to document and map these skills within the Greenlandic society, and find means to release this vast potential for the benefit of both the persons involved and the society in general. It is a collection of articles, perspectives and points of views on the thematics of knowledge-development, education and skills in a Greenlandic context. But it started out as something completely different: As a breakout session on the possibilities for Arctic youth in a globalized world at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik in 2015. The goal of the session was to gather participants from all over the Arctic for a discussion on how to approach the fact that many young people in the Arctic do not acquire a formal education. In a world which is characterized by an increasing demand for highly skilled labour and people with formal qualifications this of course poses a problem for the individual as well as for the Arctic societies who have a low degree of formally educated people in their populations. For the sake of a focused discussion we decided to take our point of departure in Greenland and focus on the Greenlandic population as a case, hoping that the conclusions we would draw from the breakout session would also be relevant to other Arctic nations. In order to feed the discussion and to be able to discuss with a point of An anthology on informally acquired skills in Greenland____________ 3 PERSPECTIVES ON SKILLS departure in available facts, we decided to make an enlarged fact-sheet describing the current situation in Greenland. We called the small publication “Everybody on board” in order to indicate the individual as well as societal importance of including all competences in Greenland no matter whether they have a formal education or not. The baseline of the work is that all people have some kind of skills. In Greenland – and in many other Arctic countries – however there is a rather large group of people who do not have a formal education and thus have lesser opportunities in life. But they still have skills: Some are specialists in hunting or fishing, some are skilled handicraft people and some are artists without a formal educational paper to prove it. Some of these people might be perfectly content with their situation. They get by on a subsistence economy, navigating in an informal economy. But some might be interested in having a job on a formal labour market but not be able to market themselves because of their lack of documentation for their skills. They might be further challenged because they do not wish – or are able to – continue in a formal educational system. This situation made us think about if it would be possible to make better matches and include more people. Many attempts are made in Greenland and other countries in the Arctic in order to amend the lack of education: Incentives for further education are established, internships and vocational training courses are offered etc. But there is still a need to look at how to include people who are outside of these systems. Either because they do not wish to be part of them or because they are not able to. Would it be possible to set up a system to “capture” the skills that these people posses? What do we actually know about how skills are perceived and used in Greenland? What do we know about the causes leading up to the current situation? Could inspiration be found in other parts of the world? Method The present anthology is an attempt to look at these possibilities and challenges from a multidisciplinary angle. 20 company- or organisation representatives and An anthology on informally acquired skills in Greenland____________ 4 PERSPECTIVES ON SKILLS researchers have agreed to contribute with their specific angle on the matter of informally acquired skills in Greenland. The articles have been peer reviewed within the group of authors. Some have written their articles from a practical perspective and some from a theoretical perspective. Some have their roots in the Greenlandic society while others have their roots in a research on the matter. All have agreed to participate here with their specific take on the question we asked them: How to investigate the understanding of skills and become better at using and recognizing informally acquired skills in order to maintain a sustainable development and provide opportunities for everyone to pursue their own choices in life. The perspectives and theoretical standpoints of the authors varies a great deal and it is not possible – nor is it the intention – to derive a single conclusion from the chapters. On the contrary is it our hope that the many different viewpoints can spark fruitful reflections on this important matter. The different approaches in the articles contain elements and approaches which can be described as puzzle solving, critique, balance and interference (Description borrowed from Ren, Petersen and Dregde in Valuation Studies 3(2) 2015: 85–96. http://valuationstudies.liu.se). Puzzle-solving seeks to find the missing piece in the jigsaw. It asks: What is the missing (technical) fact? Puzzle-solving, does not engage in discussing the values of recognizing informally acquired skills, but is merely concerned with facts: what will this cost, what will we gain, is it worth it—and how to measure all of this in the best possible way? Another approach, that of critique, is not so interested in the facts. Indeed, facts are taken to be more or less clear. Critique is interested in values. And it states that the present values have gone wrong. The third approach – balance – deals with how for instance economic and cultural concerns relate. What matters within balance is “the making of balance between An anthology on informally acquired skills in Greenland____________ 5 PERSPECTIVES ON SKILLS things that won’t add up in a nice convergent way, that refuse to be located within a single calculus of either facts or values”. Finally the approach of interference can also be found in this anthology – and in the synthesis report derived from here: Researchers interact with the subject of research. They recognize that realities are done differently in different practices with an aim of “interfering and making a difference” .