Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot: Politics and Transformation in the Global Arctic

The Arctic is undergoing unprecedented ecological, political, and social transformation, compounding already dramatic changes over the course of the 20th century. There are three principal drivers of regional change: human-caused climate change, post-Cold War Arctic geopolitics, and substantial indigenization of Arctic politics to reflect the interests of the region’s Indigenous peoples. This presentation outlines these three types of change with respect to the North American and European Arctics, and argues that how these changes are managed has profound implications for states, peoples, and individuals across the Arctic and far beyond, making understanding change in the Arctic a hot topic with high stakes.