Collaborative Research: Territorial Imaginaries and Arctic Sovereignty Claims

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111.5）资助的。现代国家制度是建立在对土地和水的理想化区分之上的：土地被认为是坚实的、可控的、可开发的，而水则被认为从根本上是社会外部的。虽然这样的领土想象从来没有完美地反映出人类社会与自然世界的关系，但它尤其不适合北极，因为北极的陆地和水的划分因冰的存在而变得复杂，而在全球气候变化的背景下，冰的存在在时间和空间上越来越动态。因此，随着来自该地区以外的行动者进一步增加他们在北极的存在，并寻求将其纳入国家体系，他们面临着一个两难境地：这个挑战理想化的陆地和水之间区分的空间如何被纳入国家体系，或者相反，这个体系必须如何适应，以纳入北极复杂和不断变化的环境及其居民的生活方式？在这个研究项目中，佛罗里达州立大学的Philip Steinberg博士、西乔治亚大学的Hannes Gerhardt博士和陶森大学的Jeremy Tasch博士提出了以下问题：(1)对一个地方的自然元素、地球物理特性和地理位置的明确想象和假设想象在北极更广泛的文化想象中发挥了什么作用？(2)北极的领土想象如何与国家和非国家行为体在该地区行使（或不行使）主权的建议相交？(3)对北极的领土想象是否指向该地区主权的转变，这可能对区域合作的潜力产生什么影响？这些问题将通过在五个北极国家（加拿大、丹麦、挪威、俄罗斯和美国）进行的多地点合作研究来进行检验，研究人员将分析来自各种来源的数据，包括现有的文本，如政策文件、报告和新闻故事，以及对参与北极政策辩论的个人进行直接但开放式的采访。北极地区在国家体系中的融入程度普遍较弱且不均衡，随着气候变化导致北极地区潜在的经济和政治机会增加，小规模冲突可能会升级。在此背景下，本研究将提高对北极和其他地区全球环境变化所带来的政治挑战的理解，并为国家制度与目前处于其边缘的人民和环境之间的和平适应提出新的方法。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111.5).The modern state system is founded on an idealized distinction between land and water: land is conceived as solid, controllable, and developable, whereas water is conceived as fundamentally external to society. While such a territorial imaginary has never perfectly reflected human societies' relationships to the physical world, it is particularly inappropriate for the Arctic, where the division between land and water is complicated by the presence of ice, which in the context of global climate change is increasingly temporally and spatially dynamic. Thus, as actors from outside the region further increase their presence in the Arctic and seek to incorporate it within the state system, they are faced with a dilemma: How can this space, which challenges the idealized distinction between land and water, be incorporated into the state system or, conversely, how must this system adapt in order to incorporate the complex and evolving environment of the Arctic as well as the lifeways of its residents? In this research project Drs Philip Steinberg from Florida State University, Hannes Gerhardt from University of West Georgia and Jeremy Tasch from Towson University ask: (1) What role do explicit and assumed imaginaries of a place's elemental nature, its geophysical properties, and its geographic location, play within the broader cultural imaginaries of the Arctic? (2) How do territorial imaginaries of the Arctic intersect with state and non-state actors' proposals for exercising (or not exercising) sovereignty in the region? (3) Do territorial imaginaries of the Arctic point to a transformation of sovereignty in the region, and what impact might this have on the potential for regional cooperation? These questions will be examined through a collaborative, multi-sited study in five Arctic nations -- Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States -- in which the researchers will analyze data from a variety of sources including extant texts such as policy documents, reports, and news stories, as well as directed but open-ended interviews with individuals involved in Arctic policy debates.As a region whose incorporation within the state system is generally weak and uneven, escalations of small-scale conflicts are likely to occur as climate change leads to potential increased economic and political opportunities in the Arctic region. In this context, this research will improve understanding of the political challenges posed by global environmental change in the Arctic and elsewhere and suggest new ways for peaceful accommodation between the state system and the peoples and environments that presently lie on its margins.