Arctic governmentalities. Indigenous peoples and knowledge production in environmental governance

Main goals of the project:

This project aims to identify different models for inclusion of local, indigenous and traditional ecological knowledges (ILK and TEK) in environmental governance and scientific knowledge production processes in the Arctic. A particular focus is the field of wild Atlantic salmon research and governance, compared to other Arctic and non-Arctic contexts such as coastal fisheries and aquaculture governance, and goose hunting. The goal is to arrive at an analysis of what effects different models for inclusion of ILK and TEK knowledges may have for environmental governance, and what can be learned from different approaches.  

Abstract:

 Traditional knowledge has since its inclusion in §8j in the Convention on Biological Diversity taken on a power of its own through its performance in key arenas of power as for instance international and national conventions and conferences, in academic literature, and most recently in international codes of conduct such as the Ottawa Traditional Knowledge Principles, and at the global level the Tkariwhaie:ri that regulates research on traditional knowledge (Secretariate of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2011). The integration of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) with science is also advocated by politicians and scientists outside of the community of indigenous peoples and is increasingly expected to be part of the knowledge basis for management. What are the implications of this development for Arctic environmental governance and the way scientific knowledge production is organised? 

This project investigates the role of ILK and TEK in scientific knowledge production in different fields of Arctic environmental governance. The cases under scrutiny are wild Atlantic salmon governance, indigenous-aquaculture interactions (connected through the TriArc project), pink-footed goose hunting management (see photo) and other relevant fields of environmental governance where traditional and scientific knowledge production are in dialogue with each other. The project draws on results from two NINA/Fram Centre projects for Atlantic salmon (by Dr. Martin Svenning) and pink-footed goose (by Dr. Ingunn Tombre) research, and is currently connected to the TriArc project on indigenous-industry governance interactions in the Arctic, lead by Dr. Else Grete Broderstad, where I lead a subtheme on indigenous-aquaculture interactions and a side-project funded by the Fram Centre (IndGov) and with partners at AMB and NIKU. Part of the work is to compare indigenous-industry relations and best practices for ILK and TEK inclusion in governance between First Nations in British Columbia, coastal Sami communities in Norway, and the global aquaculture industry. The project will result in an edited book volume.