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Vocabularies for human development: Arctic politics and the power of knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2014

Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen
Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen*
Affiliation:
Unit for Gender Studies, Faculty of Education, University of Lapland, P.O. Box 122, 96101 RovaniemiFinland ([email protected])
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Abstract

The Arctic Council (AC) has been accorded the status of knowledge holder and knowledge provider for the Arctic region. This paper probes the broader definition-making power of Arctic knowledge, challenging the common notion that this knowledge is value neutral. It argues that attention should be paid to the ways in which power is exercised in, and though, the various reports and assessments published under the auspices of the AC. The specific focus of the paper is human development and gender as an aspect of that development. The research analyses the Arctic Human Development Report (AHDR) in order to examine the ways in which knowledge defines human development and its agents in the Arctic. The paper draws on Foucault-inspired and feminist approaches to analyse three vocabularies of rule in particular: strength of the community, vulnerability and the need for adaptation. These vocabularies are coexistent and share an emphasis on communities. Yet, questions of gender seldom figure in them, a lack of salience that reveals the power of the partiality of knowledge. The politics of knowledge operate by placing in the foreground only certain accounts of Arctic development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 191 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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