Cryopolitics

published before February 22, 2014 initially appeared on the Foreign Policy Association’s website. Today, Cryopolitics is syndicated by Radio Canada International’s Eye on the Arctic, Alaska Dispatch, and the Maritime Executive. The neologism “cryo-politics” was coined by my former advisor, Dr. Michael Bravo, and his colleague, Dr. Gareth Rees, of the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute. The term first appeared in the Fall/Winter 2006 issue of the Brown Journal of International Affairs. Bravo and Rees foreground their article by stating, “There is more to twenty-first century Arctic politics than melting ice, navigable sea routes, and mare liberum, the freedom of the seas.” They also explain that “what is true for the Arctic as an aggregate may not necessarily be true in all parts of the Arctic individually.” Tromsø, Norway, with its direct flights to London and well-stocked supermarkets, is a vastly different place than Bilibino, Chukotka, Russia. From these two points of departure, this blog analyzes developments in the multifaceted region of the Arctic, home to four million people (depending on how you bound it). The stories unfolding are more than just about climate change, as important as that factor is. Commodities cycles, the growth of East Asia, indigenous livelihoods, national identities, and scientific endeavors are just some of the forces at work in the Arctic. The bounds of the region themselves are even contested: does Iceland, which barely crosses the Arctic Circle, count as a coastal Arctic state? These are the issues at stake in cryopolitics. By applying perspectives from political and economic geography alongside an understanding of the centuries of history behind human activities in the Arctic, this blog hopes to help contextualize contemporary events in the Arctic. The region is often excitedly discussed in presentist, and even futurist, terms. But by assessing the stakeholders both old and new in the circumpolar north, we can attempt to understand the region a little bit better – and plan for its future more effectively.