Sinevaara-Niskanen, Setting the Stage for Arctic Development - Politics of Knowledge and the Power of Presence

An ambition to know the arctic, its resources and potential has been and continues to be a driving force in Arctic politics and the work of the Arctic Council. The Council, a regional intergovernmental forum, has an acknowledged status as a producer and provider of knowledge on, for and to the region. This dissertation takes a critical view of this politics of knowledge by investigating the power embedded in and exercised through it. Focusing on the Council and its Sustainable Development Working Group, the research probes the power of knowledge by analysing the ways in which different agendas and agents both are and become present in Arctic politics. Indigeneity and gender are examined as particularly salient issue-areas in this regard. The work draws on critical Foucault-inspired and feminist approaches to illustrate that accounts of Arctic development and its agents are partial and entail certain polarities. With reference to the insights gained, the study reflects on the power of such accounts in steering the regions course.