Arctic Mobilities and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Ethics for a Warming Planet

Essay, Low Density, Mimi Sheller, Territory and mobility, Urban Paradigms

Climate change, Community, Dealing with Nature, Decision makers, development, Essay, Ethics, Extreme environments, Global warming, Human rights, Imminent Commons, Inclusion, indigenous, Interdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinary work, Knowledge, Migration, Mobility, Natural ecology, Population, Population ecology, Territory&Mobility, Tracing displacement, Unspoiled Landscape, Waterfront, Watery Territory

Originally post on The Rule of Law -- https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/10804-arctic-mobilities-and-the-rights-of-indigenous/news/cerl-news

By 2018 hundreds of ships were already navigating the northern passage through the not-so-frozen Arctic Sea, and it is predicted that by mid-century there will be not just a Northwest Passage along the coastline but a trans-Arctic passage cutting straight across the North Pole, “the first time in 2.6 million years that the Arctic Ocean has lacked any sea cover.” (Bennett 2019). As early as the 2030s, it may be possible in the summer months “to sail in a regular vessel across the top of the Earth.” What are the implications of this? And how should we approach understanding how those implications are affecting the region and its people? As explained below, “mobility studies,” or the study of the movement of human populations, has an essential role in the answer.