Learning to Be Cirumpolar

L e a r n i n g t o b e C i r c u m p o l a r : Experiences in Arctic Academic Cooperation Learning to be Circumpolar: Experiences in Arctic Academic Cooperation 1 2 L e a r n i n g t o b e C i r c u m p o l a r : Experiences in Arctic Academic Cooperation Richard Langlais and Outi Snellman (eds.) With a preface by Oran R. Young Publications in the University of the Arctic Process No. 5 Learning to be Circumpolar: Experiences in Arctic Academic Cooperation 3 Editors: Richard Langlais, Outi Snellman With A Preface by Oran R. Young Cover : Auli Vuokila Layout: Auli Vuokila, Riitta Aikio Print run: 200 copies Published by The Circumpolar Universities Association, University of Lapland P.O Box 122, FIN-96101 Rovaniemi, Finland Telephone:+358 (16) 324 738 Fax: +358 (16) 324 777 E-mail: [email protected] http.//www.urova.fi/home/cua (Telephone and fax numbers will change on 5th of October 1998 to: Tel +358 (16) 341 2738, Fax. +358 (16) 341 2777) ISBN 951-634-624-3 University of Lapland Rovaniemi 1998 4 -A note about the cover photo- lena Taleeva is from a family of reindeer herders in the village of Krasnoe, in Ethe Nenets Autonomous District of Russia and is currently busy studying to be a livestock specialist at the Naryan Mar Technical College. We wish her the best of success with those and all her pursuits; and express our thanks for the use of this photo, which was taken by her friend, Tuula Tuisku, of Rovaniemi. Copies of this book are on their way to Elena. Learning to be Circumpolar: Experiences in Arctic Academic Cooperation 5 6 Contents Preface 12.The Center for Northern Studies Oran R. Young Steven B. Young 87 13.Experiences and remarks on the first years Learning to be circumpolar: of the Arctic Studies Program an Introduction Lassi Heininen 91 Richard Langlais, Outi Snellman 14.My three years with the Arctic Studies Program Coming into the Arctic 15 Arja-Liisa Räisänen 95 1. Hunting the northern character 15.Anthology of the Baltic University Tony Penikett 17 Programme: a view from St. Petersburg 2. Into the breach: student mobility and the Victor Ionov 99 electronic age 16.The case of the Arctic: Scandinavia, the Scott Forrest 21 Barents region, and the Circumpolar North. 3. The University of the Arctic: from Truelove Examples of trans-regional educational Lowland to Kilpisjärvi partnerships Bill Heal 25 Esko Riepula 105 4. Leverage in latitude: the University of the Arctic Learning to be Circumpolar 109 Janne Hukkinen 31 17.The Northern European States: new perspectives call for creative research Our Arctic 35 Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson 113 5. Shared Voices and a University of the 18.Circumarctic science cooperation after the Arctic—views of Indigenous Peoples Cold War Inuit Circumpolar Conference Odd Rogne, Fred Roots 119 Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples 19.Ministers of Education in the circumpolar of the North north: a consortium Sami Council 37 William G. Demmert 123 6. Education and research in Canada’s North 20.The Association of Circumpolar Peter Adams 41 Universities 7.The Association of Canadian Universities for Geoffrey R. Weller 129 Northern Studies 21.Experiences in higher education learning: Peter Johnson 57 international practice through the Arctic Social 8. Northern environments and peoples: Science PhD network reflections on intercultural and transnational Rasmus Ole Rasmussen education Gérard Duhaime 137 Ludger Müller-Wille 63 22.Without a campus: the University of the 9. Japan’s involvement in circumpolar Arctic initiatives Richard Langlais, Asgeir Brekke 147 Shigeo Aramata 69 10.UNIS—The University Courses on Pushing the Northern Dimension 155 Svalbard 23.Extraterrestrial ice Asgeir Brekke 75 John Moore 157 An Arctic of Regions 79 Contributors 163 11.From North to North: personal perspectives on student mobility between northern Europe and northern Canada Aron Senkpiel, Outi Snellman 81 Learning to be Circumpolar: Experiences in Arctic Academic Cooperation 7 8 Preface he papers included in this anthology raise examine issues of this sort from a comparative Tand seek to answer three major questions. perspective. To this, we can add a strong Is Northern or Arctic Studies a distinct field of commitment not only to combining insights enquiry, and is there a place for this field in the drawn from a range of established disciplines curriculum of colleges and universities? What but also to thinking about the uses of different are the needs for higher education in the North types of knowledge claims in addressing and for the North, and what is the proper way to northern concerns. Because human communities address these needs? And, perhaps most in the North interact directly and intensively with important, are there ways to link the development their biophysical environments, the of Northern Studies with efforts to meet the opportunities for fruitful collaboration between demand for higher education in the North in a natural scientists and social scientists interested manner that produces significant benefits for in the North are unusually great. The field of both of these endeavors? Individual papers in Northern Studies also offers an attractive arena the volume approach these issues from a wide in which to promote a dialogue between Western range of perspectives. But the resultant diversity scientists and those who possess expertise of turns out to be a source of strength in the sort often called traditional ecological illuminating questions like these which have no knowledge (TEK), a fact that we are only now simple answers. beginning to exploit in a mutually beneficial From one perspective, the field of Northern fashion. Studies constitutes an example of what many Is there a place for Northern Studies so defined observers think of as area studies. But, in the curriculum of colleges and universities? increasingly, the field is emerging as an enterprise No one expects the dominance of discipline- that goes beyond the typical content of area based departments, which is a striking feature of studies. For one thing, work in this field is mainstream colleges and universities, to decline emerging as a problem-oriented, interdisciplinary, during the foreseeable future. Yet interest is and distinctly comparative activity. Whereas growing in many quarters in the attractions of specialists in area studies commonly focus on a interdisciplinary fields like Northern Studies as a single country or, at most, two or three countries recognized minor for students majoring in an and endeavor to steep themselves in the relevant established discipline. Whether a student’s major history and culture, northernists tend to select is biology, or economics, or history, he or she contemporary issues, such as the management may find it appealing to combine in-depth study of living resources, the pursuit of community of a single discipline with the opportunity viability, or the problems of coping with rapid afforded by Northern Studies to look at a social change, as topics to be examined in the problem of current interest to society from a light of experiences in different sectors of the broader range of perspectives. From the point Arctic. The fact that these experiences have differed of view of the proposed University of the Arctic, sharply during the twentieth century in the moreover, the problem-oriented, Russian Arctic, the Euro-Arctic, and the North interdisciplinary, and comparative features of American Arctic offers striking opportunities to Northern Studies constitute major attractions. Learning to be Circumpolar: Experiences in Arctic Academic Cooperation 9 They provide a distinctive niche for such a part of the “big” universities, which have often university which encourages education and seized on northern issues (including the concerns research that is both relevant to the contemporary of indigenous peoples) to legitimize their problems of the North and does not duplicate programmatic initiatives but then proceeded to the efforts of mainstream colleges and demonstrate little concern for the views of universities. These features also provide a meeting northerners in the conduct of their educational ground for those who bring different disciplinary and research activities. For their part, the “big” perspectives and distinct experiences from many universities fear that the proliferation of small parts of the Circumpolar North to their colleges and universities in the North will lead to participation in University of the Arctic programs. a decline in resources available for their programs Recent years have witnessed a significant and, in the worst case, a decline in academic process of consciousness raising in the North standards. While there are local variants of this which extends to higher education as well as story in different parts of the Arctic, the broad many other areas of endeavor. Featuring a desire outlines of the resultant problem are the same to mount educational programs in the North, from one end of the Arctic to the other. for the North, and—to the extent possible—by What can we do to alleviate this problem and, the North, this process has led to the creation of in the process, encourage mutually beneficial a number of small colleges and universities, like cooperation rather than a dissipation of energy Ilisagvik College in Alaska, Arctic College and and programmatic effectiveness arising from self- Yukon College in Canada, the University of defeating forms of competition? The answer set Greenland, and the Sami College in Norway. forth in various forms by most of the Understandably, these institutions of higher contributors to this volume lies in the promotion education are responsive to the needs of the of Northern Studies as a distinct field of enquiry, indigenous peoples of the Circumpolar North, the launching of the proposed University of the though it would be a mistake to exclude the Arctic, and the cultivation of cooperative relations activities of entities like the Center for Northern between this “university without walls” and a Studies from a consideration of roles for small newly-established consortium of small colleges institutions.

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