One of the highlights of the fall, the Critical Arctic Studies -symposium was held in Rovaniemi early in October, 2024. The theme of the symposium was Thinking with Water: Exploring the edges. The symposium was organised by Monica Tennberg, Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo, Heidi Konttinen and Sohvi Kangasluoma, from the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland and Frank Sejersen from the University of Copenhagen.
// Thinking with water //
Social sciences have increasingly turned toward oceans and water, after a history of focusing merely on land and land-based issues. We joined forces with scholars such as Braverman & Johnson (2020); Alaimo (2019) and Steinberg & Peters (2015), who encourage us to think with water and explore what that could mean. To challenge the idea of treating the sea and water as a “space ‘outside’ society” (Steinberg 2001, 207), creative intellectual shifts need to be taken. Combining social sciences, legal thinking and art, in the symposium water, in different forms, was taken seriously and really thought about.
While thinking with water could easily be turned into shallow phrase that’s being tossed around, the presenters dived deep into the topic and explored what it could mean, to think about (and with) the fish, water and ice, from a post-anthropocentric viewpoint where human experience is not necessarily the most relevant one.
In her keynote, Associate Professor Solveig Joiks (Sámi Allaskuvla/Sámi University of Applied Sciences) talked about the Deatnu river and the salmon living there. She offered insights into the difference of comprehending the fish and the river from the viewpoint of the field biologist, and from thinking about the salmon with Sámi knowledge and practises of care. In her presentation, it became evident that there are several salmons in the Deatnu: the salmon of the biologists, and the salmon of the Sámi. The discussion continued into wondering, why is it always the numbers, calculations and the techno-scientific worldview, that controls our world – both terrestrial and marine.
// Exploring the edges //
In another keynote, Professor Philip Steinberg (University of Durham), searched for the edges in the form of the sea ice, namely in the Norwegian national discourse. He discussed the creation and meaning of the ice edge discussion and addressed different ways and historical narratives of understanding and unfolding the sea ice in Norway, demonstrating the complexity and the political nature of sea ice. For a nation where sea ice exists mainly in Svalbard and its surrounding waters, the sea ice has occupied much space in the political space. It is a liminal space of water, politics and edges, where competing interests (such as oil and gas industry, environmental protection) are in constant conflict.
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The various presentations by participants addressed multiple themes from the materiality of the Arctic Ocean to seal-hunting traditions on the Bothnian bay, from Arctic fiber cable projects to the role of oceans within the Law of the sea, and from artistic practices for understanding a river, to municipality projects of restoring wetlands. Albeit not always said aloud, the idea of caring for the water and the creatures living in it was present in many of the presentations, and materialised in different ways.
Like waves, throughout the symposium, some themes emerged again and again: the legal rights of nature – and entities such as ocean, rivers and salmon – and how far could they go, why are so many things still defined only by natural science discourses while ignoring Indigenous and local knowledge, and how new ways of constructing human-nature relations could enhance the wellbeing of the earth and its waters.
The edges of academic watery discussions remain still to be found.
Text: Sohvi Kangasluoma
Photos: Juho Karhu
References:
Alaimo, S. (2019). Introduction: science studies and the blue humanities. Configurations 27(4), 429-432. DOI: 10.1353/con.2019.0028.
Braverman, I. & Johnson E.R. (Eds.). (2020). Blue Legalities. The Life & Laws of the Sea. The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 52(3), 359-363. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Steinberg, P. E. (2001). The Social Construction of the Ocean. Cambridge University Press.
Steinberg, P. & Peters, K. (2015). Wet Ontologies, Fluid Spaces: Giving Depth to Volume through Oceanic Thinking. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33(2), 247–264.
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