In Grönland tritt die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung für die Unabhängigkeit von Dänemark ein. Man sieht Chancen, den Bergbau zu entwickeln, da Grönland über viele Bodenschätze verfügt, die für erneuerbare Energien wichtig sind. Wichtig für das Land ist auch das Abschmelzen des Nordpolareises, durch das neueSschifffahrtsrouten möglich werden. Dänemark fördert die Unabhängigkeit bisher nicht.

https://www.liberation.fr/international/europe/lindependance-du-groenland-un-chemin-de-terres-rares-20230830_543NKUEP3FA2BA464C7HMDQTRY/

In Grönland ist die Bevölkerung gezwungen, sich extrem schnell an die globale Erhitzung anzupassen, die am Polarkreis viermal so schnell verläuft wie im globalen Durchschnitt. Manche Verantwortliche verstehen sich als Pioniere der Klima-Anpssung. Dazu gehören intensive Forschung, Umstellung und Entwicklung von Branchen. Traditionelle Lebensformen wie jahreszeitliches Nomadentum können Vorbildcharakter für andere Regionen haben. Reportage in der Libération.

https://www.liberation.fr/environnement/climat/le-groenland-premier-de-la-glace-de-ladaptation-au-rechauffement-climatique-20230829_WXVWJONAUNBOBPVVK4INZM7XII/

• for: governance - story, story - choice, story, Inuit
• story
  • Three Inuit tribe members who get stranded in a blizzard during a hunt
    • They discuss their situation.
    • The two elders say their experience and instincts tell them to stay put and wait for rescue.
    • The younger hunter accepts the argument
      • but states his belief that it would be best for the group if one of them were to attempt to make it to safety and tell the rest of their community about their predicament.
    • Finally the younger hunter heads off.
    • In the end, the elders are rescued and the younger man dies.
    • There is
      • no blame,
      • no repercussions,
      • no second guessing the decisions.
    • The choices were the only ones the trio could have made in the circumstances.
    • They were respected, the young man’s death was mourned, and life went on.

Folgen des Klimawandels für die Indigenen nördlich des Polarkreises

This is a documentary by National Geographic that analyzes the impacts of oil companies and oil development in Alaska that is slowly moving towards oil extraction in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It includes a basic overview of oil development in the Arctic as well as interviews from the Public Relations Chair of Chevron, as well as a Kaktovik resident, whose town controls 92,000 acres of oil-rich land in the Refuge. The Kaktovik people are at a crossroads because they could partake in the profit of the oil drilling, but it means that their land is destroyed. This allows a comparison of perspectives from the oil companies and the native people who are affected by drilling.

Alaska's Last Oil. Directed by National Geographic. December 8, 2010. Accessed March 26, 2017.

Berger expresses how the Native people felt like “strangers in their own land”. The more the Qallunaat or white people started to live on the natives land, the more the Native people felt as if they could not share land with these people. Many Inuit people believed their culture was being lost in the ways of the white people. But now we start to see that while many people still believe the Inuit culture is being lost they have also received and adapted to certain Qallunaat ways. The white people introduced things such as riffles for hunting and the use of snow mobiles instead of dog sleds. The more the Inuit are using the new technologies and ways of the white people, the further and further they get from the culture and the way they used to live on the land. The land that the native people have lived in for centuries are being over taken and changed by white people. The culture and ways that the natives once knew are no longer what is relevant on the land. The hunting has changed, the people have changed, and the ecosystems have changed, and this has caused native people to wonder how their land has shifted so far away from the culture and ways that they have always known. Some native people and cultures have started to feel as though they are gaining back control by governing their own land, but native people will never live on their land as their ancestors once had. Edmund (Ned) Searles (2010): Placing Identity: Town, Land, and Authenticity in Nunavut, Canada, Acta Vorealia, 27:2, 151-166.

Way before white men ventured into the Arctic, the indigenous people had a perfectly functioning economy of their own. They did not need wages or paper money to do business. They relied on what the environment around them provided, working for food and trading furs. In the 1920s, when scientists and researchers began coming north it led to the introduction of reindeer husbandry as a way to feed the influx of people. This “did not work well with Inuit herders on the north slope, since their labors supported people who did far less work, but still paid through shares of meat and hides” (82). There was a divide between the reindeer community and the genuine Inuit which caused major strife in the economy. Many Inuit “pointed to fur trapping as offering more fulfillment and dignity [than herding reindeer], even though it required similar commitments of labor and time…The private fur trade thus remained an escape from state-sponsored colonialism” (82). However, despite their best efforts to stay true to their native economy, in the 1940s, “herding and harvesting reindeer appeared as more stable than animal life cycles and the global fur trade” (84). But this is not the farthest extent to which southerners took over the land and economy of the Arctic. “Even if Inuit did not imagine themselves within the world being created by southerners, they could hardly avoid participating in it. While the United States and Canada established an Arctic oil economy, the world Inuit had built deteriorated. In the 1950s, fur-bearing creatures became harder to find, markets for fur evaporated, and the Hudson’s Bay Company converted its Arctic fur posts from fur trade centers to retail outlets. For both outsiders and Inuit, the 1950s were a turning point, when the machines and methods of colonialism became the vehicles of cultural survival” (91). There was no longer a market that could support a lifestyle of only hunting and trapping. The indigenous people had to leave that way of life behind and take up wage jobs in the industrial system.

Annotation drawn from Stuhl, Andrew. Unfreezing the Arctic: Science, Colonialism, and the Transformation of Inuit Lands. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

When Berger refers to the "economic religion of our time" he is talking about the problem of consumption that we have. Most of the industrial revolution was driven on the back of the need for consumption. This incessant need for better and newer goods causes countless problems in today's world from  economic collapses to environmental destruction. It is this need for consumption and expansion that caused many of the issues in the Arctic. Oil and gas companies looking for new places to drill caused massive environmental destruction in the region. Not to say that the Inuit people do not enjoy the luxury of modern goods, but it has been seen, like in many indigenous people, that they do not have the same need for these items. In the Inuit culture they believe that living off the land and avoiding modern day luxuries is an important part of self-growth. They believe that "living off the land creates intelligent and moral persons. Individuals develop isuma (reason, capacity to think) through facing the elements of sea, snow, ice, and wind." This philosophy can be seen throughout many indigenous people all around the world. This Inuit in particular believe that excess consumption leads to people being soft and further removed from the historic Inuit culture. This is definitely a legitimate position for them because so many problems have been caused in their societies from the need for consumption of "white people".  The economic religion of our time is one with dramatic consequences and tremendous benefits as well. No one can deny that this need for consumption has driven our society to many great discoveries and inventions that have made life better. But it has definitely come at the cost of certain populations.  

Edmund (Ned) Searles (2010): Placing Identity: Town, Land, and Authenticity in Nunavut, Canada, Acta Borealia, 27:2, 151-166

The word Eskimo has historically been used to refer to the native peoples of Alaska and other Arctic regions, including Siberia, Canada, and Greenland. It comes from a Central Algonquian language called Ojibwe, a language still spoken around the Great Lakes region on both sides of the U.S.- Canadian border. However, the word has a controversial history. People in many parts of the Arctic consider Eskimo a derogatory term because it was widely used by racist, non-native colonizers. Many thought that it meant eater of raw meat, which implied barbarism and violence. In America the word is still commonly used in Alaska while in Canada and Greenland using the word is offensive and racist. Canadians and Greenlanders prefer to use other terms. Aboriginal refers to the first inhabitants of Canada, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. First Nation is a term used to describe Aboriginal peoples who are neither Métis nor Inuit. First Nation came to common usage in the 1970s and ‘80s to replace the term Indian. Inuit refers to the people generally living in the far north who are not considered “Indians” under Canadian law. Inuit means people and is the most commonly used. The singular, which means “person,” is Inuk. The term Métis refers to a collective of cultures and ethnic identities that resulted from unions between Aboriginal and European peoples in what is now Canada.

Citations

Joseph, Bob. "Indigenous Peoples terminology guidelines for usage." Indigenous Peoples terminology guidelines for usage. Accessed March 08, 2017. http://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-peoples-terminology-guidelines-for-usage.