Energy Futures of the High North: A New Approach to the Study of Experts, Institutions, and Forms of Knowledge that Guide Arctic Hydrocarbon Development

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This award supports a project that develops long-term and mutually beneficial research cooperation with Europe and Russia for the study of energy consultants who create Arctic energy futures. Arctic energy futures are detailed expectations that attract attention from financial sponsors to stimulate agenda-setting processes and play a powerful role in policing actors through their appearance of authority. The prophesy dimensions of these futures raise concerns about how consultants perceive resource management and the efficacy of integrating Native knowledge systems with Western apparatuses. The investigators hypothesize that consultants are intermediary experts with three practices for visualizing Arctic energy futures that elevate the interests of industry into actionable views: assembling, mobilizing, performing. Through four types of data collection at four consulting firms and at twelve key networking events researchers will investigate intermediary expertise with the objective of identifying activities of consultants who shape Arctic energy futures: (a) Ethnographic data gathered on the internal practices of firms to address how experts assemble knowledge in order to formulate an empirical characterization of intermediary knowledge; (b) Artefactual data gathered from firms and at networking events to address how experts mobilize knowledge for industry in order to develop a typology of conditions (facts, scenarios); (c) Observation studies on the external practices of firms at networking events to address how intermediary expertise is performed in order to develop a characterization of enactment of expertise; (d) Semi-structured interviews to supplement data gathered during (a) through (c) by focusing on ad hoc communications.The proposal employs cultural anthropology and Science and Technology Studies approaches developed from the NSF EAGER Assessing Coordination on Arctic Energy Development, with the goal of expanding a Culture of Expertise framework for scholars involved in the anthropologies of finance and expertise, linked to Science and Technology Studies-related genealogies and builds on the work of energy geographers who study Arctic potential oil and gas resources through political technologies. Energy development is one of several industries reliant upon intermediary actors and understanding the results of this reliance will shed light on a more general phenomenon across society. The proposal will develop long-term and mutually beneficial research cooperation among Arctic countries in the study of expertise of Arctic energy futures, providing policy-making communities, early career researchers, Indigenous populations, and students opportunities for networking on similar topics in separate national contexts. The proposal combines scientific publications and annual conference presentations, with international outreach programs presenting research findings in broadly accessible formats chronicling ethnographic practice including various authors as participants in research. Further outreach includes participation in university and institute courses, seminars, and events. The high likelihood of long-term collaborations with partners after the end of the funding period will focus on building work programs that contribute toward understanding environmental flows besides energy, such as water and food security through multi-disciplinary perspectives. The proposed research will increase knowledge of the Arctic on key topics relevant to resource management and geopolitical issues in the Arctic that align with key elements of the United States Arctic Research and Policy Act.